Fairway will be closing its Harlem location at 2328 12th Avenue, located along the West Side Highway between 132nd and 133rd Streets.
According to a report by Crain’s, the location is expected to close at the end of June, and a store-closing sale could begin as soon as Friday.
The giant Harlem Fairway, perhaps best known for its giant “cold room” filled with meats, was supposed to be included in a bankruptcy sale earlier this year, but that sale fell through. The buyer, ShopRite, did however buy the parking lot of the Harlem store.
Fairway’s uptown location first opened in 1995.
It has also been reported that the Fairway locations in Plainview, Long Island and Red Hook will be closing.
Awful news. It’s a huge great supermarket. How on earth could this have happened?! So irritated.
Sandra, is that you?
Private equity = business rape
Great store ruined by greed and private equity. They raised prices and built too many nearby stores
Besides 133,000 dead people, this is the next worst Covid-19 outcome. I’ve been living in MD for 22 years and I so miss this store. My Mom used to say the only reason I went to church on Sunday’s at Riverside was so I could walk over to Uptown Fairway. This is a tragedy.
This isn’t a result of covid but the rapaciousness of private equity. It’s legalized looting for the rich.
The worst news ever. I hate Whole Foods and have shopped at Fairway forever . Harlem being my favorite. The cold room is the best .
It sucks ! That was the store with the strongest union and supposedly a major reason why it was not sold. We were there today and one of the cashiers who has been there 18 years will lose her job with nothing at all to take away from her long standing commitment
I’ve been going there for years, like a suburban store in the City with parking. My theory is that either Shoprite is going to build a mega store there (I hope) thus they bought the parking lot. Or that Shoprite will sell the parking lot to Columbia and Columbia, the landlord, will either raze the store to build classrooms etc or dorms or Columbia will build the same on both plots of land- the old Fairway and the parking lot or raze Fairway for a huge parking lot for staff, professors et. Very sad day.
A little hard to build under an active rain line and road viaduct.
Not even legal but they god away with it
Terrible news. This is where we always shopped. Great meat and chicken. Helpful butchers. Good fish Terrific cheeses….heartbreaking!
Tragic timing — to close down one of the few places providing healthy choices in an area that is largely a food desert.
a cashier today said the store is closing in 2-4 weeks, not by june 30. there’s no fire sale of which to speak — prices are as high as ever. at least they’ll have more time to find jobs :-/
Greed. Same thing with the apartment rentals. Now, with New York spiraling downward, and people fleeing, it will take a decade for the city to recover, if it can. Trump’s legacy.
Ummm,..the. Mayor is Deblasio.
The gov is Cuomo. How is this Trumps fault?
Is he responsible for all the democratic shitholes in America?
Trump?
OMG….we have the worst mayor ever, and the evidence is all around.
Trump is a moron but NYC going backwards in every way you can measure is the bozo some other bozos voted for TWICE.
The mess he has made is only beginning. The worst is yet to be.
Frankly although the product was good I thought the store was far too overcrowded and stressful to shop in, I stopped going years ago. I They are probably closing now to hide the fact that it was private equity greed that collapsed it. It’s been on a death spiral for years. I feel bad about the hundreds of people out of work, not that we can’t buy overpriced Brie anymore. It’s not a “tragedy” as people have commented. It’s a grocery store closing?
ME TOO! I’ve been going there TWENTY Years. The only place you can comfortably park and not feel the intensity of crowds. My entire M O has to change now. I’m TOTALLY bummed out. Money hungry buyers on care about the parking lot from which they’ll make a fortune.
Went to Fairway today(Sunday June 28th). They must have been planning the closing for some time. There were no lines or people lined up to get items yet several items i came for were gone such as their signature olive oil or balsamic vinegar. even items like coffee filters were gone. looks like they let these items run out before the announcement or already shipped them to other stores.
the only thing I’ll miss is the convenient parking and access to the west side highway. they’ve long since stopped being a value store. that ended after they sold to private equity. I get far better prices at trader joes. I won’t be coming back as I doubt I’ll find very much and just have to go to a 2nd store after.
I suspect the supermarket model is nearing an end anyway with more and more shopping occurring on-line.
This store allowed thousands of people to eat well. I used to work in the area and have been shopping there since it first opened. The free parkimg made it most convenient, especially in a city like NYC. Losing a place like this speaks sadly of the path this city is on. I’d like to believe that another store will replace this. Wegmans would be interesting. Maybe they could utilize more of the surrounding lots.
Having shopped there since the store opened in ’95, visiting several times a week from my apartment just up the block on Riverside, they were indeed my neighborhood grocer. I knew the cashiers, mourned the loss of employees who passed away and generally enjoyed a sense of community that is rare in New York City. I wasn’t always happy with their prices and found myself cheating on them at Trader Joes more often than not.
I can’t imagine how some of the long-time employees are making ends meet right now. Especially after being so steadfast during the height of the pandemic, this is heartbreaking. Whoever moves there needs to have good labor practices and be unafraid of a union.
I also vote for Wegmans and just left a message on their website. Maybe if we make our voices heard (in writing) with Columbia and Wegmans, we can effect change. I’m not a community organizer, but I know that our collective voices do matter. Food choices really matter too, so let’s band together and fight for them.
I would love a Wegman’s but I would not think to tell any business how their labor practices need to be or that a union is required.
That’s their money, their investment, their risk.
Have bad labor practices and they won’t get anybody to work for them or they have alot of turnover or they get sued for whatever.
If employees want to ban together and get a union, then that business owner and his ir her employees have to deal with that also.
If they upset the neighborhood they are in, through their practices, prices, noise, pollution, whatever… They will have to deal with that also.
The natural order of things should be allowed to play out.
I would never invest in an area or anything really where I have people telling me how it’s supposed to be done, other than safety and other regulations as per the law.
Don’t scare off a good store!
Fairway was my # 1 store for many years. Pound for pound it was better than any other store.
Columbia just bought the space…