Key Food to expand

A drama playing out all over New York City appears to have reached Riverdale. A chain grocery store is expanding into space recently vacated by two mom-and-pop shops.

The Key Food at 540 W. 235th St. is poised to expand into next-door stores previously occupied by Mother’s Bake Shop, which went out of business in February, and Riverdale Fish, which closed in January. Richard Grobman, the president of the franchise that owns the grocery store, said the franchise, called Dan’s Supreme, has acquired the leases for the properties at 548 W. 235th St. and 550 W. 235th St. 

Mr. Grobman said the roughly 14,000-square-foot grocery store will use the extra 3,000 square feet of space to expand its dairy, frozen food, specialty and organic sections. 

Asked if there will be a buffet similar to the ones at Whole Foods, he said, “I’m not sure that it’s going to be like Whole Foods, but there will be prepared items.”

“We’re open to suggestions if they’re willing to suggest anything they’d like to see in the expansion,” longtime manager Vinny Gomez said of customers.

He and Mr. Grobman said they did not know when the expansion will be open for business, but both said they expected work on converting the spaces to begin soon. Mr. Grobman said Dan’s Supreme owns 11 total grocery stores in New York City and surrounding areas.

Mr. Gomez said he expects Key Food to add 10 to 15 employees once the expansion is done. He noted that his store has a different owner than the grocery store at 5661 Riverdale Ave., where eight employees were reportedly fired as a Key Food replaced an A&P Fresh in the fall.

Asked if he expected to scoop up customers who previously bought their fish and baked goods at the smaller stores next door, Mr. Grobman said, “We carried some of those items, anyway.”

Shoppers walking out of the West 235th Street Key Food on Monday afternoon were lukewarm about the prospect of the expansion.

“I’d rather they re-open Mother’s Bakery. That was an institution here,” said Riverdale resident Steve Gold.