The long-awaited Key Food supermarket on Bay Ridge Avenue should finally be open next month.
Sam Abed, the store’s owner, told this paper that he “anticipates opening in early February.”
That’s about a year after the store, at 244 Bay Ridge Avenue, was originally supposed to open.
Neighborhood residents have been anxious for a new supermarket since the closure of another Key Food, at Third Avenue and 94th Street, in June 2008.
The new store – whose opening was first reported in this newspaper in May, 2008 — will be approximately 13,000 square feet in size, and have attendant parking in a garage across the street for about 75 cars.
Some of the recent delays, said Abed, have to do with the holidays, which caused a loss of about two work weeks because companies closed for extended periods around both Christmas and New Year’s, Abed said
“It’s all in the works. The store is about 95 percent done,” Abed said.
While Abed is relatively new to Bay Ridge, he is not new to the supermarket business. He has run a Key Food at Kings Highway and West Fifth Street for the past 16 years.
At this point, the only other supermarkets within Bay Ridge currently are the Foodtown at Third Avenue and 91st Street; the Food City at Third Avenue and Bay Ridge Parkway; a Met Food at 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue; and a small Associated at Third Avenue and 79th Street.
In recent years, several supermarkets within the community have closed down. Besides the 94th Street Key Food, the neighborhood lost the Waldbaum’s at Fourth Avenue and Senator Street, as well as a Grand Union that had been located on Fifth Avenue at 94th Street.
The Key Food replaces Harry’s for the Home. The location had been available for about 15 months before the Key Food deal was reached.
