Openings & Closings: CVS, Ricky’s, Le Petit Rooster, Westside Wok, Dry Cleaner
CVS opened in the former Rite Aid at 110th Street and Broadway on March 17, though it looks like it doesn’t have a liquor license yet. And the beer has a pretty fancy price on it right now, according to Ira, who sent in the photo above. “The old Rite Aid was known for endless check out lines (and good beer prices, with many Columbia students who walked past the Duane Reade at 111th and BW to patiently wait at Rite Aid to pay for their ‘suitcases’ of Budweiser.)”
Ricky’s on 72nd Street near Columbus is expecting to close in August an employee said. The company did not respond to several requests for comment. Thanks to Jill for the tip.
Le Petit Rooster, the wine bar, bistro and rotisserie spot opening in place of Gastronomie 491 at 491 Columbus Avenue (83rd Street), is expected to open in about two weeks, Judy tells us.
And although we initially thought Sweetgreen was opening a new location on the northeast corner of 68th and Amsterdam, it turned out that was just an ad. In fact, it will be a dry cleaner, Yael tells us. “The doormen of my building have confirmed to me that instead, this retail space is going to be a Dry Cleaner. Very disappointing since there are two dry cleaners across the street from each other on Amsterdam between 69th & 70th.”
Kosher Chinese spot Westside Wok and Konata Sushi Bar opened in January (we wrote about it in August) at 691 Amsterdam Avenue between 93rd and 94th. The menu is very wide-ranging, from Chinese and Thai dishes to sushi and even Japanese truffle fries. If you’ve tried them, let us know what they’re like! See the menu here.
Pretty angel nail salon on 88th and Amsterdam has closed,that means 2 stores left between 88 & 89 st, sterling optical and laundromat mid block
Another dry cleaner? Hopefully that doorman got the wrong intel.
Ricky’s retail locations are dropping like flies. Looks like their online store will be about the only thing left at rate they are shutting down brick retail.
Rite-Aid is known for having dirt cheap prices on many “grocery” items like beer, milk, coffee, etc…. Many of their locations have become de facto local supermarkets. Our local RA sells out of milk, half/half and some other dairy literally within 24-48 hours after delivery.
You can’t beat RA’s sale prices either; especially for things like cleaning supplies, laundry detergent/fabric softener, toothpaste, etc….
CVS OTOH while not as high priced as Walgreens/Duane Reade isn’t cheap as Rite Aid IMHO.
Spot on B.B .. Rite Aide is the best . Harder and Harder to find them . Every time I’m in Grand Central I swing by to buy.. The low sales prices and other incentives are not matched anywhere.
You find plenty of instances where dry cleaners (not a proper noun btw), are across the street and or in close proximity to each other.
Many of the places opening up lately are just retail store fronts. Nearly all the dry cleaning and laundry is sent out to wholesale plants elsewhere, then returned. Maybe only onsite work might be tailoring, some pressing/hand finishing and so forth.
Correction from earlier post: there are 3 stores between 88 & 89 st…I left out Bodrum restaurant
That’s why I buy beer at Trader Joe’s. Not only is it less expensive but you can buy individual bottles for one-sixth the price of the six-pack, no penalty for buying just one bottle of something.
So disappointing about Ricky’s. They’ve been such a staple for beauty supply and other wacky stuff (have to laugh at the curtained off section of the store) that you can’t find in Ulta or Sephora. Amazon takes over yet another retail category.
totally agree about Rickys ..sad to see it go. it was my place when no one else had the shampoo or hair appliance or nail polish that I needed. Also, it is a fun place to browse and see what’s new in beauty and sundries. They have everything. I don’t think
this is Amazon’s fault-my friends and neighbors don’t buy beauty products, exotic soaps,and make-up on line. We need to sample and see live product. This sounds more like a landlord/rent problem. Sorry to see you go…wish you could STAY. Can you reconsider?good luck!
To be fair so much of the “professional” beauty/cosmetics or whatever sector has long moved onto the internet. Even before Amazon you could find tons of professional and so forth products on eBay.
More importantly unlike physical stores it is much more difficult to crack down on diversion (selling professional products/beauty supplies to non-professional/licensed retail customers)online, especially for places like eBay were you have individuals selling instead of an owner run site.
Over the years Ricky’s had no end of legal action brought against them by Schwarzkopf and other professional/to the trade only beauty product lines for selling their products to non-licensed retail consumers.
If you noticed over the years many of the professional products (especially hair coloring) found in Ricky’s stores was either old (in some cases very) or long discontinued stock. Professionals only use fresh stock, but others……
Ricky’s also faced competition from Love’s and similar stores along with Duane Reade, Rite Aid and Walgreen’s type stores that also sold professional health and beauty products. Again where they go them from (diversion) is anyone’s guess.
Ricky’s and Loves stores aren’t the only such “professional” type stores vanishing; beauty supply stores which once were everywhere are going as well. Ray’s Beauty Supply down on 8th Avenue was way better than Ricky’s.
I haven’t seen a Love’s in the area in 20+ years! Where are they?
Yes I’m shocked to hear and read that several Ricky’s in the city are closing. The location on 72nd street was my spot and I will never forget the time I saw Halle Berry shopping in there. I left NYC 4 years ago and many of my favorite stores are disappearing.
How many and what locations are still open?
I used to shop at the one on 23rd street and the one on Broadway in the village.
According to their website, there are just nine locations left in Manhattan (and one of these is the 72nd Street store that will close in August.) It looks as though their online store is completely gone; it’s now just a one-page website with a list of store locations and a phone number. They also recently closed their salons, discontinued their subscription box service, and stopped manufacturing their store brand products (I used to love their nail polish!) All of the above lead me to believe that Ricky’s is not long for this world…wouldn’t be surprised to see the entire chain gone within the next year or so.
That’s about right…$166.665 per bottle for Heineken?
That Korean steak place on Broadway between 79/80th closes on Sunday. I never saw anyone in there.
CVS has a terrible policy of throwing out unsold items instead of donating or reusing them. They slash and destroy unsold items so they cannot be reused or let employees take home themselves after a hard day of work. First aid items, granola bars, greeting cards, toiletries, you name it. Follow thetrashwalker on instagram for more info about the upper west side’s waste problem and how chain stores like this do nothing to address this issue.
Nearly all supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores, and so forth forbid distribution of anything to employees for various reasons.
Know this because have asked several times, and response is always “we cannot, and will be fired…..”.
Besides if the products in question are expired, damaged or otherwise deemed “not for sale”, then you cannot turn around and give them away to anyone much less employees without possible liability issues.
Shelf pulls, customer returns, etc.. once were routinely just thrown out as is; that was until everyone and their mother began “dumpster diving”. Stores are tired of having to clean up the mess left (or face possible DSNY ticket), and other games run by those dumpster divers.
People actually do take things they’ve found in garbage from say Duane Reade and attempt to return it for a cash or other refund. To prevent this items are usually damaged and or marked to prevent resale and or at least show they were discarded as trash.
Has been years since studied the matter; but also believe for a retail place to claim credit for unsold inventory (damaged, expired, customer return, et…) both from vendor and or tax wise it must be discarded and marked “unsold”.
I always liked Ricky’s. It’s a small NYC chain, I hope the other stores are staying open?
Anyone remember Cosmetics Plus?
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/nyregion/competition-s-not-pretty-in-lipstick-wars.html
Yes I loved Cosmetics Plus and used to shop at the one on the Upper West Side all the time.
I think ones on 37th bet Mad/5th
They’ve divided the space in half. Half will be a dry cleaner and the other half will be a ceramics place.
I miss the Rite Aid. The lines were long and service spotty, at best, but the prices couldn’t be beat. And they had a surprisingly wide selection of items.
Th CVS is only open until 10pm, unlike the Rite Aid, which was 24-hours. Apparently, they were told that the shoplifting problem in the neighborhood becomes too unmanageable at night, so they decided it was not worth staying open.
In a direct message on Instagram, I asked Sweetgreen if they were opening a location there. They said “we can’t confirm or deny 💚”. And, the outside facade so far certainly looks like a sweetgreen. You never know though, could be wrong
Those Trump tariffs are starting to take effect on imported beers
nice one ROBERT!!!
Ricky’s in Astoria is closing. I hear that the Chelsea one is closing too.
Any idea what’s taking over the spot where the Westside Cafe and Pizza was located, on 72nd btwn Broadway and WEA?
The Korean steak place on Broadway is closing? I’m not surprised. I ate there once and left hungry! A total ripoff.