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While residents of the south part of Bay Ridge watch helplessly as their beloved Key Food becomes a Walgreens drug store, a new Key Food is coming to the north part of Bay Ridge.

The new market is scheduled to open this fall on Bay Ridge Avenue between Ridge Boulevard and Third Avenue — about 25 blocks from the Third Avenue Key Food that will close at the end of the month.

As such, shoppers say the new Key Food is no substitute.

“It’s just too far, especially for the elderly and the disabled,” said Annette Gerage. “I don’t have a car. How am I supposed to get there?”

Denise Loli, who led a drive that gathered 1,400 signatures to retain the Key Food, is happy that her neighbors to the north will get a new grocery store in an age of shuttering supermarkets, but she says it’s little consolation.

“This won’t do the residents immediately in the vicinity of [the old Key Food] any good,” Loli said.

To fill the gap, the owner of the new Key Food said he’ll make deliveries to all parts of Bay Ridge.

“I just felt that the area needed a supermarket,” said Sammy Abed, who also owns a Key Food in Bensonhurst on Kings Highway.

“When [the Key Food on 95th Street closes], people will have to go to Foodtown,” he said, referring to a supermarket at Third Avenue and 91st Street.

“And if they don’t like Foodtown, they don’t have any choice,” he added. “When we open, we’ll give people choice.”

His soon-to-open grocery is in a building that once housed the Harry’s for the Home, a furniture store. It will also have a parking lot.

Residents say that the new supermarket will provide a much-needed alternative for shoppers in the north side of Bay Ridge, who tend to pick up their groceries at mom and pop shops or at the Food City at 74th Street and Third Avenue.

“There is really a big grocery void in this part of the neighborhood,” said Josephine Beckmann, district manager of Community Board 10. “This could really fill that void for people who live in the 60s.”

— with Marie Cunningham

©2008 Community Newspaper Group