Stew Leonard's to open second Long Island store

With its first store in Long Island only a week old, Stew Leonard's on Wednesday announced plans to open a second Long Island location about five-and-a-half miles away.

Construction on the 70,000-square-foot store in East Meadow, N.Y., is expected to begin this summer and with opening in mid-2017, the Norwalk, Conn.-based retailer said. It will be located in the Sirotka Organization's East Meadow Mall, which will be renamed Stew Leonard's Marketplace as part of an extensive renovation in the coming year, officials said. The shopping center is the site of a former Pathmark store that closed in 2013.

Stew Leonard's earlier this month opened a 60,000-square-foot store in Farmingdale, N.Y. Jeffrey L. Nable of Ripco Real Estate represented Stew Leonard's in both the East Meadow and Farmingdale transactions.

The family-owned and operated store, nicknamed the “Disneyland of Dairy Stores,” was founded as a dairy store in 1969 in Norwalk, Conn., and has grown to include four other locations in Danbury and Newington, Conn., and in Farmingdale and Yonkers, N.Y. The company has received worldwide acclaim for excellence in customer service and for its unique, theatrical presentations.

“Our family is very excited. We were thrilled with our store opening in Farmingdale and it encouraged us to expand on Long Island," Stew Leonard, Jr., president and CEO, said in a statement. "We have had a warm reception from the town official.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Stew Leonard’s as our newest tenant,” said owners Geoff and Charles Serota of the Serota Organization in a joint statement. “The East Meadow Mall will begin renovations, including a de-malling process, to create an open, first-class and exceptionally unique retail space for our shoppers.”

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Once opened, the store will provide up to 400 jobs, a portion of which will be full-time.

The store will offer farm-fresh milk, which comes directly from family owned dairy farms in the New York metro area, a “from scratch” in-store bakery, cut-to-order butcher shop, and fresh seafood department, while sourcing many other products from local farms, suppliers, and other vendors on Long Island and throughout the states of New York and Connecticut. Most notable is an in-house kitchen, where throughout the day a 50-person culinary team prepares a variety of hot foods for the in-house catering department, buffet bar, and refrigerated meals to go.