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Fairway Market
IndustryRetail
Founded1930s, Manhattan
HeadquartersNew York
Key people
Charles Santoro, Chairman
Howie Glickberg, CEO
Herb Reutsch, COO
ProductsSupermarket
Websitewww.fairwaymarket.com
www.discoverfairway.com

Fairway Market is a New York City grocery chain and one of the nation's highest grossing food retailers per square foot.[1] As a prominent brand, Fairway has been described as a "legendary giant" and a bellwether for trends in nationwide grocery consumption.[2] In 2007, Specialty Food Magazine named Fairway one of the country's six Outstanding Specialty Food Retailers for the Specialty Food Trade.[3] In May 2008, the grocer was named Consumer Deal of the Year by M&A Magazine.[4]

History

Nathan Glickberg opened his first fruit and vegetable store in 1940 at the corner of Broadway and West 74th Street in Manhattan.[5] Today his grandson, CEO Howie Glickberg, co-owns the five-store chain.[6][7]

The flagship store still occupies the original Broadway location, with larger outposts in Harlem[2] and the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn[8] as well as in the suburban towns of Paramus, New Jersey[9] and Plainview, Long Island.[10]

Today

Sterling Investment Partners of Westport, Connecticut acquired a share of the grocer in 2007 in an effort to expand the Fairway Market brand. Charles Santoro, a managing partner at Sterling and Chairman of Fairway, said the company initially planned to open other new stores “in a radius around New York City,” including New Jersey and Connecticut. Sterling also plans to invest in Fairway’s rapidly growing private label business.[4]

Through the partnership, Sterling provides ongoing capital and strategic resources to help Fairway continue to enhance its presence through select new store openings.[11] The founding family remains active in the business. Howie Glickberg (CEO), Herb Reutsch (COO) and a seasoned team of senior managers run the daily operations of the business. Today, Fairway employs over 2,500 people in New York and New Jersey to support their large scale and intensely service-oriented store environments.[12]

Locations

Grand opening at Fairway Market's Paramus location.

The original Fairway Market, located on Broadway at West 74th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, was once a modest produce shop.[13] By 1997 it had expanded to a multistory venue dominating an entire city block.[14] The store is characterized by floor-to-ceiling produce displays as well as the company's private-label brands of cheese, meats, fish, specialty foods, and organics.[2] A café within the store serves sandwiches, burgers, and breakfast fare by day and becomes a steakhouse by night.[8]

In 1995, Fairway's Harlem location opened in a space significantly larger than its Upper West Side parent. The Harlem branch features a frigid, 10,000 square foot enclosed space dubbed the "Cold Room," which contains the store's offerings of meats, seafood, flour, dairy products, and beer.[15] Silver coats hang just inside the front door of the space for customers who wish to keep warm while browsing the freezer's goods.[16] A year after opening, the store was threatened with closure, having applied for a wholesale rather than retail trading permit, but the situation was resolved and the store remains open to this day.[17]

In 2001, Fairway Market opened its third store - and first location outside of the city proper - in the suburban Long Island community of Plainview, New York. Then in 2006, the grocer opened a fourth branch in Red Hook, Brooklyn.[18]

Fairway's fifth and most recent branch opened on March 25, 2009 in the Fashion Center shopping mall in suburban Paramus, New Jersey. It is the grocer's first store west of the Hudson River.[19]

Future Expansion

In 2007, Fairway Market announced plans for a national expansion after receiving a $150 million equity investment from its co-owner, Sterling Investment Partners.[20]

To that end, the grocer will open a new branch in the Westchester County, New York village of Pelham Manor in late 2009. This would be Fairway's third location in the New York City suburbs and sixth overall. The company signed a lease on a 75,000 ft2 site formerly occupied by Kmart.[21] Construction is also underway for a new 75,000 ft2 Fairway location in Stamford, Ct, which will employ 460 people.[22]

Online Presence

In addition to Fairway's main website at fairwaymarket.com, the grocer also runs a video-based site, discoverfairway.com, which features weekly interviews with various employees and the head chef, Mitchel London. The site includes information such as weekly specials, FAQs and interactive polls. Popular recipes from the store are posted every week, and recipes can be uploaded by visitors to the site.[23]

On February 26, 2009, Fairway Market was featured on MTV's The Real World. While Fairway was producing a webisode for its microsite DiscoverFairway.com, the cast of the show stopped by the grocer's Red Hook location during a demonstration on how to carve a turkey.[24]

References

  1. ^ "New York City's Fairway Market Deploys Hypercom Value-Packed Card Payment Systems". Business Wire. 23 November 1999. Retrieved 6 March 2009.
  2. ^ a b c Witchel, Alex (November 1, 1995). "Irrepressible Appetites". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2009. Nowhere is this more true than on the Upper West Side, where two legendary giants, Fairway Market and Zabar's...have found themselves competing for an ever-growing market. Even food professionals are looking to these six blocks on Broadway, from 74th Street to 80th Street, as a laboratory for a nationwide trend in the accelerating consumption of prepared foods.
  3. ^ Everage, Laura (June 2007). "Fairway Market: Great food in volume". Specialty Food Magazine. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  4. ^ a b "Fairway Market Awarded Consumer – Deal of the Year". Sterling Investment Partners News Releases. 15 May 2008. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
  5. ^ Grace, Matthew (25 April 2006). "Fairway Watch". New York Observer. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  6. ^ Fabricant, Florence (17 May 1989). "An Even Richer Butter". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  7. ^ Fabricant, Florence (17 May 2006). "FOOD STUFF: Fairway opens its Brooklyn doors". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  8. ^ a b Meehan, Peter (17 April 2007). "Two new markets, with food to stay". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  9. ^ http://www.northjersey.com/business/fairway.html
  10. ^ Fickenscher, Lisa (13 May 2008). "Fairway continues metro expansion". Crane's New York Business. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  11. ^ "Fairway Market Joins with Sterling Investment Partners to Expand Renowned Grocery Experience throughout Region". Sterling Investment Partners News Releases. 27 January 2007. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
  12. ^ "Sterling Seals the 'Deal' with Fairway Market". Sterling Investment Partners News Releases. 15 May 2008. Retrieved 27 March 2009.
  13. ^ "A Family Business". Fairway Market. Retrieved 25 February 2009.
  14. ^ Fabricant, Florence (1 October 1997). "Food stuff: Changing tastes in chocolates". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  15. ^ Pristin, Terry (21 December 2000). "Fairway Pays $6.5 Million For Properties in Harlem". New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  16. ^ Parker, Eloise (August 1 2007). "NYC's 10 coolest spots". NY Daily News. Retrieved 25 February 2009. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ "Save the Harlem Fairway". New York Times. 15 February 1996. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  18. ^ Theodore, Leticia (June 2006). "Fairway Market Open For Business in Red Hook". Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved 20 February 2009.
  19. ^ Verdon, Joan (15 March 2008). "Fashion Center Adding Fairway Market". NorthJersey.com. North Jersey Media Group. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  20. ^ http://www.northjersey.com/business/news/Out_to_conquer_North_Jersey_market.html
  21. ^ http://www.progressivegrocer.com/progressivegrocer/content_display/supermarket-industry-news/e3ie08e6244501937513003fe0f36feeb99?imw=Y
  22. ^ Healy, Peter (20 April 2009). "Antares loses control of Stamford office complex". Greenwich Time.com. Greenwich Time. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
  23. ^ Meoli, Daria (February 2009). "How Fairway plans to stay unique while doubling the size of its business". The New York Enterprise Report. Retrieved 20 February 2009.
  24. ^ MTV's The Real World. 26 February 2009 http://www.mtv.com/videos/real-world-brooklyn-ep-8-angry-boys-and-dirty-girls/1605449/playlist.jhtml. Retrieved 9 March 2009. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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