FAIRWAY NEARLY DOUBLING SIZE OF NEW YORK'S BROADWAY UNIT

BARBARA MURRAY

NEW YORK -- Fairway Market here on Broadway is nearly doubling in size, adding a second floor of natural foods and five aisles of groceries on the first floor.

The unit, on Broadway at 74th Street, is now a full-service supermarket. The grocery department, which is 300 square feet and includes paper products and cleaning supplies as well as other items, opened early this month.

"We want to make it a one-stop shop for our customers," said Howie Glickberg, one of the owners. The company purchased the adjoining building -- which had a D'Agostino grocery store on the ground floor and a gym on the second floor -- to expand from 15,000 to 23,000 square feet.

"We did it uptown, and it's been very successful," Glickberg added, referring to the Fairway Wholesale Market on 125th Street at 12th Avenue. The Broadway store gets an average of 65,000 customers a week, according to Paul Weiner, the natural foods manager. "Obviously, we're expecting that to grow," he said.

The second floor is 7,000 square feet, Weiner said, and will be a self-contained natural and organic foods store with its own cash registers.

The frozen food department also dramatically increased, from 16 feet to 60 feet. Formerly it sold mostly ice cream and sorbets; now it carries vegetables, fruits, pizza and entrees, like a conventional supermarket. Another section stocking frozen organic products will be put in upstairs.

Remodeling began in February and was almost completed when SN visited the store June 2. A grand opening is planned for later in the summer.

The new downstairs portion has an intentional warehouse feel to it, with products displayed on metal shelving. It is more spacious than the original section, with wider aisles. Meat, fish and dairy are also on the ground floor, as well as packaged and refrigerated kosher food.

Upstairs will be more upscale, with a 60-seat cafe facing Broadway, a sushi bar and a juice bar on a classic green and white terrazzo floor, uncovered when the gym lockers and showers were knocked out. Along the natural brick wall will be 170 plastic bins of bulk grains, mostly organic. Rice and beans will be sold from sacks, and six varieties of organic coffee will be available "at the best price you've ever seen," Weiner said. Fairway is striving for an old-time neighborhood ambience in its natural foods store, with antique chandeliers, extra employees to provide service and lots of literature on products and wellness.

The natural foods area is expected to open June 24, but the grand opening celebration will be held after Labor Day, when author and nutrition guru Gary Null will sign his new book, an encyclopedia of women's nutrition, Weiner said.

"We'll do cooking classes every Wednesday night, which will be videotaped and shown on monitors downstairs," Weiner continued. The current series is sold out, even though Fairway charges $30 for one class. (Proceeds are donated to City Meals on Wheels.)

Fairway plans to make organic pasta right in the natural foods shop. It will be sold fresh from a refrigerated case, said Weiner.