Food Bazaar Operator Acquires 2 Fairway Stores

7/22/2020

Food Bazaar Operator Acquires 2 Fairway Stores

Food Bazaar, which has 26 stores in the New York metro area, including this location in the Bronx, is adding two former Fairway stores -- one in Brooklyn, the other in Queens -- to its store count.

Bogopa Service Corporation, the Brooklyn, New York-based operator of 26 Food Bazaar supermarkets in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, has acquired Fairway Markets stores in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook and the Douglaston section of Queens. The two locations will be converted to the Food Bazaar banner.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“These two new Food Bazaar locations will continue to provide the Douglaston and Red Hook communities with the highest quality and variety of perishables, groceries, and other unique food offerings that our shoppers have come to expect,” said Abel Porter, CEO of New York-based Fairway Markets. “We are pleased to pass the baton to Food Bazaar, knowing they will welcome our employees to the Bogopa family and will deliver a world-class shopping experience for their customers.”

The first Food Bazaar supermarket opened in New York in 1988.

After Fairway filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past January, its stores attracted interest from ShopRite operator Village Super Market Inc. and even Amazon, who was said to want to convert the four locations in which it was interested – including the Red Hook store now acquired by Bogopa – into distribution centers. Back in March, Bogopa made a “qualified overbid” of $75 million for six Fairway stores – five in Manhattan and one in Pelham Manor, N.Y. – and a distribution center.

Ultimately, following a virtual auction later in March, the five Manhattan stores and a production and distribution center went to Springfield, N.J.-based Village Super Market for about $76 million, beating out Bogopa, and one Brooklyn store went to Seven Seas Georgetowne LLC, a member of the Staten Island, N.Y.-based Key Food co-op, for around $5 million, while the real estate leases for the Paramus and Woodland Park, N.J., locations went to Seattle-based Amazon for $1.5 million.

The largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States, Wakefern Food Corp. comprises 51 members that independently own and operate more than 350 supermarkets under the ShopRite, The Fresh Grocer, Price Rite Marketplace, Gourmet Garage and Dearborn Market banners in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The company is No. 25 on The PG 100 2020 listing of North America’s top retailers of food and consumables. Amazon is No. 2 on the list.