STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — I’ve been obsessed with grocery stores since childhood and now I’m going to devote time in the coming weeks to write in depth about Staten Island’s.
In the spring of 2020, while food reporting from Staten Island, my reporting, presented as a food diary, documented an unexpected and profound transformation of the food supply chain. Now, five years later, my admiration for national brand supermarkets, local grocers and our beloved borough specialty shops has reached new heights.
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I invite you to explore my aisle insights, market memos, and cart chronicles from the grocery grapevine itself. This new segment will explore markets of the past, present, and future. This will be paired with a dramatic reading of market circulars and general grocery gab at 11:30 a.m. each Friday from the Advance/SILive.com’s Facebook platform.
If you’re on this journey with me, please feel free to reach out and say “hello” — [email protected]. This is a project I hope will be enjoyable for all of us, and from which we can all learn, myself included.
Fine Fare in Dongan Hills recently opened to give the East Shore more options with Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Caribbean groceries. (Advance/SILive.com | Pamela Silvestri)–
Grocery evolution
Recalling our food experiences during the pandemic can evoke unease or anxiety.
Speaking for myself in 2020, for instance, I remember painstakingly choosing words, so as not to cause a panic. At that time, admittedly, I did feel alarmed, writing a piece for the Advance/SILive.com that read, “Starting April 1, ShopRite stores on Staten Island will close at 8 p.m. New daily hours will give associates more time to restock shelves with new products, said a spokeswoman for the stores. It will also allow for a complete additional cleaning each day.”
Flashback to 2020 when parties were illegal, a matter that sent a devastating ripple through the occasion cake and catering trades. Here: A Grant City couple, Charlie VanDeven and Kelsey Geisler, was surprised with a drive-by celebration on what would have been the eve of their wedding day. April 24, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/Jason Paderon)
No 24-hour ShopRite? That added to my own tenseness at the time, just reading about fistfights breaking out in the toilet paper aisle and myself observing the horror on people’s faces as they reacted to a fellow shopper’s spontaneous cough.
Key Food gets a shoutout from an appreciative artist in the community back in May, 2020. (Advance/SILive.com | Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri
Until COVID, I had always regarded ShopRite as a reliable and familiar experience at any time of day. For instance, when I was pregnant with my first son and couldn’t sleep for days, I did what many nesting mothers might do: stockpiled a basement from the New Dorp store’s inventory.
Remember Pantry Pride? Here is an image from the Advance archives from its time of closure in 1979 in Eltingville. The footprint is now home to Stop & Shop. (Advance file photo)
But even before then, grocery stores always held a special place for me. In the 1970s, the Pantry Pride in New Dorp was a prime spot for people-watching, much like a hot bar or the borough’s Riviera Chateau formerly of Bay Terrace.
The Pantry Pride time my mother spotted our pediatrician Dr. Betty in line, she was a little starstruck. She shared a startled, “Wow, he shops here, too.”
Flashback to the 1970s: The Old Penn Fruit supermarket in “The Plaza” shopping center in Port Richmond. Was later a Waldbaum’s. Plaza was later known as Forest Avenue Shopper’s Town (F.A.S.T.) (Advance file photo)
The 1980s saw my father enjoying spending sprees at the Waldbaum’s deli department. And the music at Pathmark could inspire anyone to do a supermarket cha-cha. Goofy dances in the aisles could put my mom in stitches.
Key Food in West Brighton had a captive audience on the North Shore until recently when C-Town opened up several blocks away. It has seen some improvements as of late, perhaps because of the added competition. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)silvestri
Indeed, a good music track in a grocery store is timeless. Met Foods in Castleton Corners puts you in the mood with the Crooners — perfectly charming. At Key Food in West Brighton, you can look past retro refrigeration and oddities like perishable pepperoni parked in the bread aisle to feel the beat of 70s disco music. When my kids were little, a regular shopper dressed like Elton John became a normal part of the shopping experience, as he routinely blasted Sir Elton’s tunes from his Toyota lift back.
Sri Lankan stores like Lanka Grocery at Victory Boulevard at Cebra Avenue in Tompkinsville is in a section of Staten Island called “Little Lanka.” It is a reflection of the changing demographic on Staten Island and proof one can find a wealth of cooking ingredients from around the world right here in the borough. (Advance/SILive.com | Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri
All ingredients can be found here
Returning briefly to the COVID period, we recall the frustrations directed at shoppers who chose not to wear masks. However, the sentiment on Staten Island regarding masks flipped upside down within months. A taste of this turnaround is highlighted with a May 2020 frenzy on the South Shore.
The Advance/SILive.com reported late that month, “As employees and shoppers berate the woman for not wearing a mask, one man calls her a ‘dirty a– pig,’ while another man off-camera is heard shouting, ‘get the f— out of here!’”
It continued, “One of the shoppers in the video who was wearing a mask claimed the woman was the aggressor.”
In 2020, even the Hummel in front of Killmeyer’s Old Bavaria Inn, Charleston, started wearing a mask. (Advance/SILive.com | Pamela Silvestri)
I occasionally revisit that video taken at the Charleston ShopRite. Indeed, the frenzy was both real and surreal, underscored by the “beep-beep-beep” of an automated courtesy-cart for the disabled. At family gatherings, my cousin, who was working in the store at that time, recounts the drama with a deadpan demeanor. It’s OK to laugh aloud now but no words could express things at the time.
When Restaurant Depot opened in Travis in 2023, it was a game-changer for restaurants and consumers alike with a wide range of basic ingredients for the professional chef. (Advance/SILive.com | Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri
To conclude this conversation now at the check out counter, I assure you: one can find any ingredient on earth right here on Staten Island. Our journey through these places will show you just that, a reflection of the incredibly diverse community that we have become.
Pamela Silvestri is Advance/Silive.com Food Editor. She can be reached at [email protected]. Her weekly live restaurant broadcasts also can be viewed at 11:30 a.m. each Wednesday from the paper’s Facebook platform — facebook.com/statenislandadvance/videos.
Catch up on supermarket news with these stories:
ShopRite to open fourth Staten Island supermarket in this popular shopping center
Staten Island will welcome new supermarket with a grand opening party
Aldi to open its second Staten Island location later this month
Trader Joe’s to open second Staten Island store in Pleasant Plains by 2025
New C-Town Market features tasting for the neighborhood
New market open on Staten Island with focus on fresh produce and global ingredients
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