Something is Going on With Longtime UWS Grocery Store Broadway Farm: Closure Rumors Swirl

By Gus Saltonstall

In 2025, West Side Rag received a handful of emails questioning the dwindling selection within Broadway Farm, a longtime grocery store on Broadway between West 85th and 86th streets.

In the past week, those queries have intensified, as the Rag received five emails from Upper West Siders, some mentioning the depleted shelves at the grocer and others stating that they were told by employees that the store would be closing soon.

“The Broadway Farm grocery store at 85th and Broadway is shutting down,” one reader wrote on January 6. “Shelves almost empty. This is a local disaster.”

Another tipster mentioned that the store had been “soft closing” for a year, while three different readers said they were told by cashiers in recent days that Broadway Farm would be closing its doors by the end of this January.

“A great loss for the neighborhood,” UWSer Annie Reingold wrote about the possible closure. “Great produce, grocery items, friendly staff and community mainstay.”

In an attempt to confirm the closure, West Side Rag called the grocer last week and was told by an employee to call back later that afternoon to speak with a manager. When the Rag did call back at the requested time, a woman was eventually put on the phone who did not identify herself, but said that they wouldn’t be able to tell us anything for a few weeks, “until they had something in writing,” but did not specify who the person or entity would be to deliver that message in writing, and then hung up the phone.

On Monday, a Rag reporter visited Broadway Farm and was told by one cashier that the store would be closing in three weeks, while another said they would not be closing. A third employee of the grocer then mentioned there was a rumor that new management would be taking over the store next month.

In that vein, it is worth mentioning that many locals also thought Harry’s Shoes was on its way to permanently closure in January of 2025 as its shelves were emptied out, but the store instead had been sold to a new owner and closed for renovations, before fully reopening.

The Rag also spoke to a manager on Monday at Broadway Farm, who said they would call us back with more details about what is happening at the Upper West Side grocer.

Broadway Farm has been operating on the Upper West Side since at least the 1990s. If any reader knows the exact opening year, please let us know in the comment section. The Rag does not know of another location of Broadway Farm besides the one on the Upper West Side.

We will update this story, when more is learned.

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