Wegmans to open 1st Manhattan store in October

Wegmans Food Markets plans to open its second New York City supermarket—and first in Manhattan—on Oct. 18.

The 87,500-square-foot store will occupy space on the street and lower levels of the historic Wannamaker building at 770 Broadway in the Astor Place neighborhood of Manhattan’s East Village, Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans said Thursday.

Wegmans had announced plans for the store in late July 2021 and projected a second-half 2023 opening. With the new location, the chain takes over the site of the former Astor Place Kmart, which closed in July 2021 after nearly 25 years in operation as an anchor store in the trendy NoHo/East Village district.

The grocer entered New York City in October 2019 with the opening of a 74,000-square-foot store at the Navy Yard development in the borough of Brooklyn. Another metropolitan New York store also is planned for Lake Grove, N.Y., marking Wegmans’ entry into New York’s suburban Long Island market. Currently, no timetable has been announced for the construction and opening of the 100,000-square-foot store.

The new Wegmans store takes over the space of the Astor Place Kmart, which closed in July 2021. / Photo courtesy of Wegmans

A 1.2-million-square-foot landmarked building, 770 Broadway is the site of the former Wanamaker’s department store that Vornado Realty Trust (from which Wegmans secured a 30-year lease) transformed into premier office space for technology and media leaders such as Facebook, Yahoo!, Verizon and Nielsen. Wegmans said its upcoming store, with more than 600 employees, will offer an atmosphere that reflects the original architecture of the Wannamaker building.

Headlining the new store will be an extensive selection of prepared and restaurant foods, made by executive chef David Lopatynski and his culinary staff. Offerings will include fresh-made sushi, salads, cold and hot sandwiches, soup, pizza, wings and hot Asian cuisine. Customers also will find a wide assortment ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat entrees and side dishes, in both individual and family sizes, plus made-to-order and packaged Mezze options, inspired by a Mediterranean diet, Wegmans said.

Plans call for an on-site dining room, including the Sushi Bar and Champagne-Oyster Bar at Astor Place, to open in the first half of 2024, the retailer said.

The store also will enable customers to use the Wegmans meals2GO app to order and customize prepared foods for pickup or delivery. In addition, they can go online to wegmans.com/Astor-Place-NYC to download the Wegmans store app and create an online account, which offers recipes, digital coupons and the ability to create shopping lists sorted by aisle.

A broad array hot and cold prepared foods headlines the upcoming store, which also will house the Sushi Bar and Champagne-Oyster Bar at Astor Place restaurant, due to open next year. / Photo courtesy of Wegmans

“We know our customers can’t wait to come see what we have in store and our employees have been training, in some cases, for over a year to get ready for this day,” Astor Place Wegmans store manager Matt Dailor said in a statement. “Wegmans is a celebration of food and people, and we can’t wait to open the doors on October 18 to our community here in the east village.”

Overall, Wegmans operates 109 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Delaware and the District of Columbia. Other future store locations include Rockville, Maryland; Yardley, Pennsylvania.; Norwalk, Connecticut; and Holly Springs, North Carolina, according to Wegmans. The Holly Springs store would be the chain’s southernmost location, and the Norwalk location would be the retailer’s first in Connecticut. Earlier this summer, Wegmans closed its first multilevel location within a major mall—Natick Mall in Natick, Massachusetts—citing underperformance.