Stewart’s Shops hopes to fill void of closing grocer

Stewart’s Shops hopes to fill a grocery void when the supermarket Nojaim Brothers in Marcellus, New York, closes this spring after more than four decades in business.

“It’s very early in the process,” Robin Cooper, public relations manager for the convenience-store chain, told CSP. “We’ve had discussions with the owner and are under a contract to buy the property, but we still have to get approvals from the village before moving forward.”

If approved, this won’t be the first time Ballston Spa, New York-based Stewart’s Shops has added a grocery section in an area losing a supermarket. Cooper said Stewart’s Shops started doing this about five years ago.

“In Port Henry, New York, just before the pandemic, that town lost its supermarket,” he said. “We already had a shop and saw an opportunity to build a bigger store—with more frozen, a bigger grocery area—to try to fill the gap.

“It’s a model,” Cooper continued. “We’ve done it in several other places in Upstate New York.”

There is a shrinking number of small grocers because they do not have the buying power or scale to compete with Amazon and big-box retailers, Cooper said. “The issue is exacerbated by the fact that many small grocers are ready to retire without a younger generation interested in stepping in and taking over,” he said.

“We’re doing more of this,” Cooper said of Stewart’s Shops filling the void. “Maybe we can play a bigger role without straying too far from our core business, which is food to go, ice cream and dairy.”

In the Marcellus case, Stewart’s Shops would demolish the old property and build a new structure of 4,300 square feet, Cooper said. A regular Stewart’s Shops is about 4,000 square feet. The project would take about 10 weeks.

A key difference with these larger Stewart’s Shops is while they sell many grocery items, they don’t sell fresh meat; however, in a similar scenario with the closing of a grocery store in Frankfort, New York, “some of folks opened a butcher shop across the road, creating an opportunity for someone else,” Cooper said.

The Marcellus shop also will include a large outdoor picnic area to tie into the community setting, Cooper said.

Founded in 1945, Stewart’s Shops is an employee- and family-owned c-store chain known for its milk, ice cream, coffee, Easy Food meals and other convenience items. There are 357 Stewart’s Shops in upstate New York and southern Vermont.

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