No place left to shop

"There's No full service grocery store left in Northeast Queens. With Pathmark and Bay Terrace Waldbaum's sold to Stop 'n Shop and the rest of the Waldbaum's closing, they are not getting deliveries of most items.

They've already all run out of my egg whites and some other items..... The Whitestone Key food also is selling out of several items...

A & P pretty much had a monopoly in the North east part of Queens, at least. I don't know about other areas of Queens or the 5 boros.

Where are we supposed to go, to Los Angeles for groceries? Ha Ha Ha." - anonymous

Goodbye Pathmark & Waldbaum's, hello Stop & Shop

Queens Courier

From the Queens Courier:

Stop & Shop is looking to grab six Queens supermarkets off the clearance rack.

The company announced Monday it is acquiring local Pathmark and Waldbaum’s supermarkets from the struggling Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which filed for bankruptcy. In all, Stop & Shop is purchasing 25 Pathmark, Waldbaum’s and A&P locations in the tri-state area from the grocery giant for $146 million. The deal is subject to court approval, but is expected to be finalized before the end of this calendar year.

Stop & Shop currently has five locations in Queens, including on Myrtle Avenue in Glendale; on Union Turnpike on the Glendale/Forest Hills border; on Northern Boulevard in Little Neck; and on 48th Street in Long Island City.

The chain will more than double its presence in the “World’s Borough” with the addition of three Waldbaum’s stores on 26th Avenue in Bayside, Beach Channel Drive in Belle Harbor and Cross Bay Boulevard in Howard Beach, as well as three Pathmark locations on Farrington Street in Flushing, Atlantic Avenue in Ozone Park and Springfield Boulevard in Springfield Gardens.

Waldbaum's becomes staging area for drag racers

From the Queens Chronicle:

A group of streets in Howard Beach are being overtaken by people meeting up in the Waldbaum’s parking lot on Cross Bay Boulevard and playing loud music, conducting lewd acts and racing along the corridor.

“This needs to stop,” one resident who identified himself as Neal said.

Neal, who lives near the Waldbaum’s at 156-01 Cross Bay Blvd., said people have been gathering inside the parking lot to prepare for races down the boulevard.

He said the group has overrun his quiet block, which consists primarily of senior citizens.

“I never thought this would’ve happened on my block,” he said. “I would have never moved here if I thought this was going to happen.”

Neal said the people who gather in the parking lot have also taken to littering the nearby streets with garbage, beer bottles and drug paraphernalia.

He also told the story of how one night he saw a female driver sleeping in her car, with her foot on the brake.

Neal has called the cops on the group many times, but claims that someone must have a police scanner because the cars disperse before the authorities arrive.

Bayside Waldbaum's to close

From Bayside Patch:

The Waldbaum's on Francis Lewis Boulevard near Garden World is set to close, Community Board 11 Chair Jerry Iannece announced at Monday night's meeting.

“We worked hard to get Fairway in, and hard to get Stop and Shop in, but [closures are] just a fact of life now,” Iannece said, adding that 77 of the store's employees would be put out of work by the closure.

Unfortunately, the employees aren't the only ones who will be affected, according to Iannece.

“When you close the local super market, it sort of disrupts life because people are used to shopping there,” he said.