BALDUCCI'S TO OPEN LINCOLN CENTER STORE IN JANUARY

BARBARA MURRAY

NEW YORK -- A larger Balducci's unit, to open here around Jan. 1, 2000, will have more room for Center Store and frozen products, according to Alan Butzbach, vice president of operations for Balducci's, the specialty food store located in Greenwich Village since 1946.

It is the store's first additional outlet, although Balducci's has a large manufacturing facility nearby in Long Island City, N.Y., and is considered a pioneer in electronic-commerce.

"The site's already chosen, in the Lincoln Center area," said Butzbach, but because it is in the final stages of lease agreement, he would not say exactly where it is located. "The cachet will be very nice," he said, adding that the store will be known as Balducci's Lincoln Center.

The new Lincoln Center store will be almost 2,000 square-feet larger than the 5,500 square-foot downtown store, but very similar to it in look and feel, Butzbach said. "We're trying to give the workers a little more elbow room."

Frozen items will include organic vegetables from France, and the U.S. Cascadian Farm brand. Balducci's carries frozen hors d'oeuvres, such as handmade spanikopita from Dufour, as well as Perfect Editions stocks for vegetable- and meat-based soups, a line of Authentico tacos and burritos, frozen tortoni, Baci pops and spumoni. In the canned and jarred items, the store will carry many of Balducci's own brands, as does its predecessor. "The trend in specialty food is to get small producers you can trust to make product from your own recipe," Butzbach said. "This differentiates us. If we make a really special pesto sauce, you've got to come to us to get it."

On June 21, Balducci's and Sutton Place Gourmet, Bethesda, Md., merged. The announcement was made jointly by Andy and Nina Balducci, founders of the gourmet specialty store, and Tom Johnston, president and chief executive officer of Sutton Place Gourmet.

Sutton Place Gourmet opened its first store in Washington in 1980, and now has 12 stores and a restaurant. Eight stores are under the Sutton Place banner; four are called Hay Day and are located in Connecticut and Westchester County, N.Y.