Fairway Market is a small American
grocery chain founded in 1933 by Nathan Glickberg.[1][2] It is one of the brands owned by the
Wakefern Food Corporation, whose flagship supermarket cooperative network is
ShopRite.[3]
Fairway Market is a specialty market with four locations in Manhattan. Founded in 1933.
Sterling Investment Partners, a
private equity firm in
Westport, Connecticut, bought a controlling stake in Fairway Market in January 2007 and expanded the chain in the
Greater New York area. Sterling made a $150 million capital investment in Fairway and enabled the enterprise to grow rapidly.[6]
In 2011, the chain had revenues of $550 million.[6] It was spun off in an
IPO on April 17, 2013, trading under its parent, Fairway Group Holdings Corp., on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "FWM".[7]
Stores
The original Fairway Market at West 74th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side was originally a produce shop. By 1997, it had expanded with a café that became a steakhouse at night.
As of 2020, all but five of these Fairway stores have either closed or sold to other retailers, including
Amazon.[5] The sequence of all stores is as follows:
1930s: The flagship store, still occupies the original Broadway location in the Upper West Side.
1995: Fairway's Harlem store opened in a significantly larger space. This store had a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) enclosed space, known as the "Cold Room," which contained the store's meats, seafood, dairy products, and beer. Silver coats hung nearby for customers who wished to keep warm while browsing the freezer. Without a bidder after the company's second bankruptcy, the store closed in July 2020.[8]
2001: The company opened its first store outside the city in the
Long Island community of
Plainview.
2006: The company opened its fourth store in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In July 2020 this store was sold to Bogopa Service Corporation to be reopened as a Food Bazaar supermarket.[9]
2009: On March 25, Fairway's fifth store opened in the
Fashion Center shopping mall in suburban
Paramus, New Jersey, taking up a majority of the mall's former interior space. This was the first Fairway store located west of the Hudson River and the first location ever to open in the entire state of
New Jersey. In March 2020, it was announced that the Paramus location would close.[10] The official closing date for the Paramus location was supposed to be May 15, 2020, but it was delayed to the summer of 2020 due to the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic. It was then replaced by an
Amazon Fresh store.[11]
2010: On April 14, Fairway opened a new branch in a former
Kmart in the
Westchester County village of
Pelham Manor, directly across the border with
the Bronx. This became Fairway's third location in the
New York City suburbs and sixth overall.[12] Fairway opened its first Wine and Spirit store adjacent to the market. The second wine and spirit superstore was opened adjacent to the Stamford market.
2010: In November, Fairway's seventh and largest location to date at over 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) opened in
Stamford, Connecticut.[13]
2011: Fairway opened a location on the
Upper East Side of Manhattan on 86th Street, between Second and Third Avenues.
Fairway also opened a location in
Douglaston, Queens in 2011. In July 2020 this store was sold to Bogopa Service Corporation to be reopened as a Food Bazaar supermarket.[9]
2012: In June, Fairway opened its tenth food store and third Wine and Spirits Store in
Woodland Park, New Jersey, in a renovated former
Pathmark Super Center store. The company closed this location on April 1, 2020, with the location being replaced by an
Amazon Go market
2012: In August, Fairway Market opened a 68,000-square-foot (6,300 m2) store in the Roosevelt Raceway Center in Westbury in August 2012.
2012: In December, Fairway opened their
Kips Bay, Manhattan location on East 30th Street and Second Avenue.
2013: In July, Fairway Market opened their 13th store in
Chelsea, Manhattan at Sixth Avenue on July 24, 2013.
2013: In October, Fairway opened their 14th store in
Nanuet, New York, at
The Shops at Nanuet mall on October 10, 2013. The store closed on September 25, 2019. It was then replaced by a
Stop & Shop. [14]
2014: Fairway Market opened a store in the DSW Plaza in
Lake Grove, New York, on July 23, 2014. This store was the first Fairway Market location in Suffolk County on Long Island and the 15th food store in the metropolitan area. The company closed the store after only two years.
2017: In January, Fairway opened a store in a
Georgetown (Brooklyn) strip mall. In March 2020, the store was sold to
Key Food for $5 million.[15]