City’s last original grocer quietly shopping Manhattan stores
D’Agostino, one of the city’s last independent, family-owned grocers, has been quietly shopping its remaining nine Manhattan stores, The Post has learned.
The 84-year-old business had 13 stores a year ago — down from 26 at its peak — and has closed several this year alone. It’s getting squeezed by Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, FreshDirect and other rivals, as well as leases that were too expensive to renew.
Among those interested in buying D’Agostino stores is Key Food, a cooperative that bought the Food Emporium brand and some of its stores in the A&P bankruptcy last year, according to sources.
Key Food owns four Food Emporiums and would like to expand the portfolio in Manhattan, where the brand is better known than Key Food and is seen as a more upscale chain.
“It would make tremendous sense since D’Agostino’s operating results have suffered tremendously and Food Emporium is a very strong brand that can be brought back,” said Burt Flickinger, a supermarket consultant.
Key Food declined to comment.
“We have had no formal discussions recently and are not in discussions with anyone regarding a potential sale,” said Robert James, D’Agostino’s president and chief operating officer.
James joined in August, reporting to CEO Nicholas D’Agostino III, the last of five siblings left at the company, which bills itself as “New York’s original grocer.”
Key Food and Morton Williams, a family-owned chain with 15 stores, are the only independent traditional grocers that are growing in the city.
Last year, Morton Williams took over the lease of a D’Agostino store at 56th Street and First Avenue, in a building that D’Agostino owns.
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