Parviz Adbe in front of Barzini’s
New day, new story for Barzini’s, the 24-hour grocer embroiled in a health code scandal with New York State’s Department of Agriculture and Markets. On January 10, the department ordered the longtime Upper West Side business to close due to “severe insanitary conditions.” However, Barzini’s stayed open for more than two weeks before beginning a pattern of closing, reopening without approval, and then closing again—at least as of our visit on January 27.
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Parviz Adbe and Mimi, the store’s resident cat
Standing by the “Temporarily Closed For Maintenance” sign in the window, we asked Abde about the status of the store. Last week, Barzini’s had let us in to make a purchase while the sign was up, and a clerk later told us over the phone that they planned to reopen in “a couple of days,” which would have been Friday, January 24. Abde, however, insisted the store had been closed and denied any wrongdoing.
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ILTUWS also received this video from a reader, showing a customer entering Barzini’s on the evening of Thursday, January 23 (while they were supposedly “closed”).
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When we brought up the court order stating that no one could be on Barzini’s premises until the hearing on the 31st—as the store faces civil and criminal contempt charges for not closing after the Department of Agriculture and Markets found it operating on January 16 and 17—Abde replied, “I’m letting our lawyers handle that.”
As for a reopening timeline, Abde said this Friday—the same day as their court hearing. When pressed on whether the required re-inspection by the Department of Agriculture and Markets had been scheduled, he once again deferred to his lawyers.
“We’ve had exterminators here every day,” noted Abde, claiming there are no more mice or rats in the store. “We closed all the holes.” He acknowledged the issues that led to the shutdown but insisted they have since been resolved. The inspection photos released by the state showed rat nests in food packaging, moldy cheese, and gnaw marks from rodents on food.
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Abde also expressed disappointment with City Council Member Gale Brewer for bringing Barzini’s condition to the attention of the Department of Agriculture and Markets. “She’s a customer,” he said, maintaining a calm demeanor throughout the interview. “We’ve had about 100 customers reach out to her.”
When we checked with Brewer’s office, however, a spokesperson told us, ‘We’ve heard from people on both sides of the issue. Many more saying the store should be closed. But the fact is, a judge ordered them closed, and it’s not something we control.
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Guessing Gale didn’t get her monthly check from Barzini and called the Department of Agriculture and Markets…
Gale Brewer is a blessing in the lives of our community and has been for decades.
Your insulting innuendo is a reflection no doubt of your upbringing and lack of education, in my opinion.
“We’ve been in business for 44 years here, and we haven’t had any issues with the health code until now”
I don’t think that’s the constructive excuse he thinks it is.
You know, but he plugged up the holes. So there’s that. SMH.
Any venue that is told to close and does not, you should question the veracity of anything they say and their motivation.
I haven’t shopped there for years. Why? Because I saw plenty that made me question how clean and maintained the store was. I got sick from what was clearly a deli item that should not have been sold (and no, you can’t always tell something has gone bad). I’ve seen proof that dates for expiration were changed (too long to explain how that was proved).
Let those who want to shop there, do so at their own risk.
They should have been shut down many times before and the fact that they serve the community is NO EXCUSE for poor hygiene and maintenance.
Even people who say they still shop there (WHY?) have seen rats. Seriously. You would shop in a store with rats and they say: Oh, we have cats to get the rat.
No. No and NO. My health is more important than access or convenience (an ER visit is not convenient when you’ve gotten food poisoning or worse)
ANd the excuse, by many, that all venues have bad health issues? Nope. Don’t buy it.
I won’t say here why I think they didn’t have violations before. It’s kind of obvious and alluded to in the text.
Hans is greatly missed but we’re still not shopping at Barzinis. Simply do not trust them as they have shown they do not take things seriously about these violations (Staying open? Disobeying an order? Nope, that’s not what a well run business does.”
If anyone had said something like: We are truly sorry about this situation and understand your concern. We are taking measures, and will show you, that we will fix them.”
Of course they couldn’t admit they weren’t maintaining the store. I’m sure their lawyer said deny, deny, deny, which they have.
The store is filthy. It’s full of rat and mice poop. How on earth could anyone ever shop there? How on earth could they possibly think they could reopen in a few days? The entire store needs to be gutted. Everything needs to be redone. All the food needs to be thrown out and they need to start over. If you shop there, you are insane.
I have returned spoiled food and watched them put it back on the shelf. Why they were allowed to remain open all these years without a problem should be subject to investigation.
They are extremely hard-working people but in my opinion, without conscience regarding the health of their customers.
All your germ phobic nonsense is a lot of hysterics. Berzinis is out of order but remains a valued asset to the community. I think they are addressing the sanitation issues in good faith. I always thought that they had way too much of a perishable inventory to prevent spoilage. Hopefully. they have learned their lesson.
Another veteran Barzinis shopper told me that the owners are hoarders. When they get a good deal from a distributor, they buy 30x what they could ever possibly sell, and what doesn’t sell just sits on the shelves or in the basement for eternity. Longtime Upper West Siders know not to buy packaged foods from Barzinis, at least not without inspecting them carefully. That box of rice mix could easily be 2 years expired and full of weevils.
The produce is excellent, however, and they have the best prices on free range and pasture-raised eggs in the neighborhood. They also sell certain rare specialty items that you can’t find anywhere else in the neighborhood, like real truffle oil in a locked glass case.
I’ve lived on the UWS for my entire life, and Barzinis has always been known as a fantastic place to buy a wide variety of produce…and that’s it. If you’re trying to use them as a whole grocery store, well, there’s your mistake.
They are indeed an asset to the neighborhood, despite this recent debacle. It sounds like some of that deli/prepared food was pretty nasty, but again, I wasn’t buying that stuff to begin with.
Perhaps there’s just a certain sense of loyalty to a store your mother used to bring you to when you were a child. I will continue buying produce and eggs from Barzinis until someone physically forces me to stop.
So far, nobody has mentioned that they have been cheated at Barzini’s. I was. About 2 years ago, I noticed that they had charged my credit card twice for the same purchases. When I called them on it, they made it very difficult to get a refund. I had to return to the store several times before the manager (pictured here), “the only one” who could correct this, someone who “is always here,” was present and grudgingly, with no apology, refunded my money. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I returned to shop there a few times until I spotted a large rat running around the produce aisle. When I told an employee, he shrugged it off. “They come out of the subway,” was his terse response. Reading other customers’ comments, I suppose he was used to hearing such complaints and had probably seen such things many times, himself.
I saw someone shopping there and leaving the store with a bag of groceries last Sunday morning. I was surprised because I thought they were closed. The gates were half way shuttered and the fruits n vegetables outside were covered in blue paper.
Barzini’s smelled like bad cheese when you walked in, the stench made me not want to buy anything fresh, just a soda or ice cream.
‘We’ve heard from people on both sides of the issue. Many more saying the store should be closed. But the fact is, a judge ordered them closed, and it’s not something we control.”
Typical Gale Brewer! Can’t even take a stand on a blatant health and safety issue. No accountability, no opinion–just covering her bases either way. As usual.
Are you saying that Brewer should override the DOH?
I think we have a distorted view of executive control these days.
The store is filthy and the management was always rude especially when I caught them making a mistake when I was checking out. I’m not surprised they don’t take the inspection seriously. Very telling.
Barzini’s has long been a valued resource in the community, staying open with stocked shelves during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and throughout the pandemic. “We had a line around the block for fresh bread. Nobody had fresh bread,” said Abde. “And we didn’t raise prices.”
Meanwhile, it has been well documented that they have been stealing money from customers for years by overcharging them. I fell victim to that scam when they charged me $76 for a $34 purchase. The cashier (part of the family) quickly discarded the receipt and got the next person to the counter in an effort to rush me out. These guys are horrible thieves and should not be part of our neighborhood.
B. Is my lifeline. I hope all the problems will be resolved and I can resume shopping there.
He is, uh, FOS. This is NOT his first run-in with the health code. I know because I called the Health Dept. on him several years ago and they gave him a violation. It was the day I stopped shopping there, when I saw a rat going back and forth on a food shelf. This place has been “bad news” for years. Shut it down! Either let another food purveyor take over the space, spruce it up, bring it up to code re rats and vermin, and re-open. Or let some other business go in. It wasn’t Tattaglia – it was Barzini!
Does anyone have news on Mimi? Is she still there? She’s the only redeeming quality to Barzini’s toxicity. Can we save her?