Where do residents of NYC get their groceries?
New York City has a large range of grocery shopping possibilities.
Locals can shop in large supermarket chains or small local grocers; fruit markets, fish markets, organic markets, butcher shops, or they can also shop online or through a grocery store's app and have their groceries shopped for and delivered to their door.
Supermarket chains such as Gristedes, Stop ‘n Shop, Shoprite, Key Food, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and more exist throughout the five boroughs of the city.
Although tourists may not notice them, there are plenty of supermarkets in Manhattan as well as the other four boroughs..
How do you shop for groceries in NYC? How are they brought back?
It depends who you are, how much money you have, how you like to cook and eat, and where you live. There are supermarkets all over the place, and in many neighborhoods they are within walking distance, while in others you need to drive or take the bus. There are little specialty shops, small grocery stores that sell produce and a limited range of products like frozen foods and ice cream and chips. There are cheese shops and butchers and fishmongers and bakeries and candy shops. There are expensive upscale supermarkets and inexpensive supermarkets and bodegas in food desserts; those neighborhoods that do not have good options for retail food shopping. Oddly, things can be more expensive in poor neighborhoods, simply because there is no competition and a captive market.
There are specialty markets that cater to ethnic populations; Jewish delis and Italian delis and halal grocery stores and butcher shops. And there are farmers’ markets, both the city sponsored Greenmarkets and several private ones in different neighborhoods. If you live in an Italian neighborhood like Carroll Gardens, you’ll have bakeries turning out fresh loaves at all hours of the day or night, with wonderful shops filled with meats and cheeses and specialty salads. If you live in a Latino neighborhood you’ll have tropical produce, yams and plantains and yucca and mangoes. There will probably be somebody in the neighborhood who specializes in cooking lechon (spit roasted suckling pig) or who sells batches of pasteles at Christmas time. Every neighborhood has different options, and it’s fun to explore and find new things to cook and to eat.
I was lucky enough to live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, only blocks away from the Greenmarket at McCarren Park, so my weekly grocery shopping usually consisted of a walk to the park with my canvas grocery bags, a slow meander up and down the main aisle of the market looking at all the stuff and thinking about what I wanted to cook, and then a slow meander back, stopping at the chosen stalls, talking to the vendors, and buying what I wanted.
I always stopped at the mushroom lady. She had a wonderful selection of cultivated and wild mushrooms, a bit pricey but really delicious. In tomato season there were heirloom tomatoes, big and ripe and luscious and so much better than those crappy orange things they sell in supermarkets. There was a guy who had smoked mallards during duck season, and two excellent bakers, and several stalls selling artisanal cheeses. Most Saturdays, unless I bought meat than needed to go into the fridge, I would take my fresh rolls, a good tomato, and a hunk of cheese, to one of the tables they set up, pull out my trusty pocket knife, and enjoy a leisurely lunch before heading home to put my groceries away.
Farmers markets are something of an obsession with me, because I like the seasonal variety, the way strawberries and asparagus give way to tomatoes and blackberries, to apples, pears, kale and mustard greens to winter squash, pumpkins and chrysanthemums. I like getting to know the people who actually grow my food, and talking to them about what’s good that week.
Greenmarkets in New York City are open year round, weather permitting, and they accept food stamps, so people on SNAP can trade their benefits for tokens and shop like everyone else. If Saturday rolled around and it was pouring rain, I could run down the block to the Korean grocer for essentials, to the Polish deli for european style butter sold by the pound from a huge block, and fresh halvah, or to the supermarket for things like pasta, pantry items and the like. But mostly, I walked to the Greenmarket, bought whatever looked good that week, ate my lunch and walked home again, my bags heavier and filled with good food to last the rest of the week.
