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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Halfway between Zabar’s and the new Key Food on 88th, with Fresh Direct and Instacart around?
It didn’t stand a chance.
It’s been there forever, and there was always a supermarket up the street. It was always busy because it had a lot of street traffic. They actually expanded to the store next door.
My guess is that there is a rent raise that’s untenable and they don’t want to pay for it.
But there was the Gristedes on 86th and Broadway AND Food Emporium on 90th and Broadway and Red Apple was in the Key Foods space for years too.
I remember Broadway Farms had been. 24 Hours for a long time and it used expanded to have the seafood section. Then it started closing at 10 and then it closed the seafood section and their checkout has never been updated
I think it is more that than the completion.
Gristedes? The place where you had to put on surgical gloves to look through the produce? The new Key Food is much better.
And Fresh Direct and especially Instacart have emerged since that old Gristedes went out.
not to mention having to take out a loan to shop at Gristedes
And descend into what was effectively a basement.
Fresh Direct was there way before Gristedes closed. Food Emporium closed before it became huge though.
I think it opened in like 1991
I was a kid.
Remarks in this NYT story (https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/nyregion/neighborhood-report-upper-west-side-cheers-for-resurrection-much-loved-grocery.html) imply 1991 might indeed be the correct date.
I was post-kid but highly distracted then.
I can’t document Broadway Farm’s opening date but, in 1994 it was located in a building at 1335 Broadway (and 85th). It was replaced at that location in May of 2001 by a Victoria’s Secret.
Yes, it was on the opposite corner (SW) of Broadway and 85th before it moved the current locations.
Certainly not “1335 Broadway”, which is near Macy’s in Herald Square.
Sorry about that. I meant 2335 Broadway.
Victoria’s Secret was on a different corner, south of Broadway Farm.
South of the CURRENT Broadway Farm, yes, but also where the grocer began in (most likely) 1991: they just moved north across 85th St. The same site had also once been a Charavari, I hear, one of a cluster in that vicinity.
Both NW and SW corners of 85th and Broadway were CHARIVARI some time before they were Broadway Farm. One was men’s; the other women’s but more casual than the one a few blocks south. (I lived on 85th between Bway and WEA.)
And I’ve lived in the building which housed Charavari prior to Broadway Farm and Victoria’s secret since January of 1972.
As I recall, Charivari was between 84th/83rd on Broadway. Closer to 84th.
Wrong. Neither of the two were for women. https://www.westsiderag.com/2017/07/16/charivari-a-fashionable-upper-west-side-story
The store for women was on the north east side of the street. One for women one for me.
I mean,neither of the two stores were exclusively for women. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/26/style/new-on-the-block-charivari.html
Looks like it’s run by NYC.
Wait til the find out the biggest slumlord in NYC is the City of New York!
It has that post-DOGE look, almost as if it had been ICE’d.
That is not a bad thing.
DOGE’s/ICE’s America:
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Interesting metaphor for the autopen.
Another zero value add comment from OPOD.
Perhaps life among the ‘gators in FL has become a little tedious and he wishes to share the tedium with us.
Setting aside that “Rip-Off Farms” has always been the worst-stocked, worst-managed, overly priced grocery store in the area, it would not necessarily be a loss if it closed. With the opening of the new Key Food on Bway/88 and the new Morton Williams on Bway/68, as well as all the new food-oriented convenience stores, its loss would barely be felt. (And we also have Key Food on Amst/86th, Gristedes on Col/84, and Pioneer on Col/74, among others).
Having said that, I spoke with the Asst. Manager of Bway Farms just yesterday (Mon, 1/12). He said that the current owner is looking for a new buyer, and that they are “close.” He said that if they find a buyer, the store would have to close for “up to a few days” in order to fully re-stock, and “reset” the store. So there is still hope for those who want to continue to patronize it.
I had essentially the same conversation Monday evening. Staff was friendly. Don’t need my ring kissed to shop in a grocery store.
Broadway Farm is the closest grocery to us. We never go there. The staff is surly. The physical facility is depressing. No great loss.
This is a very bad situation. The people who live on WEA in the mid to high 80s have nothing if this closes. It is baffling to me that this area is a food desert. There are so many families and KeyFood is not really close on a bitterly cold day or if you need to grab one thing. How come the lower 70s can support so many markets?
There’s also a Gristedes on 85th and Columbus? More expensive but it’s not exactly nothing.
You can’t succeed as a store existing for the purpose of selling a couple of things to people who only come in because the weather is too bad to warrant walking two more blocks.
And people who only go in under those conditions ought to be the least surprised when that store closes.
The Key Food on Amsterdam between 85 and 86 really isn’t that much further. I think you will survive. I am on WEA near there so I prefer to go to Broadway Farm if I need something quickly but I will make do. And the number of times this is even an issue is slightly greater than zero.
I wish I had such tsuris.
Ha ha!!! Yes, I should only be so lucky.
Broadway Farm started out on the southwest corner of 85th Street. It was replaced by Victoris’s Secret, now also gone, and reopened in its present locarion, but not immediately.
Isn’t the new Wegman’s opening near there?
Wegmans. Funny. So many say they’re looking forward to it. But once it opens, people will complain that it’s too expensive, too far, and not as good as other Wegmans locations. And I will be laughing, but not with you.
The new Wegman’s (which I’m personally REALLY looking forward to) will be in the old Bed Bath and Beyond space on Broadway between 65th and 66th.
Say “cheese”!
If you consider 65th and Broadway “near there.”
No, a Wegmans (https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-wegmans-is-storing-biometric-data-on-shoppers-eyes-voices-and-faces) is coming to the former BB&B site at 1932 Broadway, near Lincoln Center. Another place into which I’ll never set foot.
I spoke to the owner. They are indeed closing within 2 weeks.
Make Shoplifting Illegal Again
(MSIA)
For years it was about a block south, maybe 84th. Don’ know whether it was corner block.
With the closure of Gristedes at 86th/ Broadway, Westside Market between 767/Broadway and now Broadway Farms, we are now getting less and further access to fresh produce. We need more options. So let there be more groceries and supermarkets, not ice cream, cookies and coffee parlors.
Generally what kills many stores in NYC is a rent increase. Stores that own their real estate last as long as they want.
The word is that there was embezzlement from people I will not mention and that’s what caused their downward spiral
It’s been clear for some time. I would be sorry to see it go and I hope another grocery will open there. The new Key Food on bway is nice but still a Key Food.
Sad to hear this, although as a regular customer, the signs were clear that something was happening. Broadway Farm has the friendliest staff, freshest produce, and unique products. The OG grocer for our neighborhood. I’m curious to learn what’s next for this institution.
This is very sad. They are such a good store. They have the best fruits and vegetables Especially the summer fruits which were always sweet and juicy. Not like the rock hard, unripened, over refrigerated fruit in the larger stores.
Broadway Farm used to be a few blocks away on the West Side of Broadway until about 30 or 40 years ago. The old store was there when I moved to the UWS in 1973 and didn’t look new then. I remember when it closed because of a huge rent increase, and we were worried that they wouldn’t find a new location. Although my memory might be distorted after all these years, I think it took several months b before they reopened.
Were they called Broadway Farm then? There’s no listing for them by that name in my 1980–81 White Pages.
Not a fan, but it was convenient if you did not have time to walk to some other market.
This Broadway Farm is extremely convenient to me, and it stocked a lot of staples. I shopped there for something every week and often many times. It is handy. The management has changed over the years, and the current manager is a surly man who blames his customers for not buying all the Asian food they started carrying.. Some of the cashiers are nice, but have a siege-like mentality because of the awful manager. Since walking is getting more difficult for me, I will be sad to see it go– even walking to Amsterdam to the Key store is an effort. I really regret not being able to make a quick stop for some ice cream, which they stopped carrying many months ago when they shut down all the freezers.
Our wish is to have FAIRWAY on Broadway &76th close ASAP or renovate now. It’s such a dirty, disrespectful, rude store. The block is very very dirty with shopping carts and gangs of insta cart guys hanging outside. Third world for sure. AND a bottle machine out front WHY?
No longer the “charming” NYC store. HELP!! Reaching into the hot food bar you’ll surely get your clothes dirty. Morton Williams is great but a little too small. Wegmans please hurry. Thanks!
It’s not *that* bad….jeez…
Did you mean this to be as much of a “ew, the poors!” comment as it came off as?
Fairway has been scruffy for decades.
Wakefern has managed it largely incompetently, so that’s increased the problems, one of which is not the bottle machines out front.
Morton Williams (now also owned by Wakefern) doesn’t have especially good fruits and vegetables — Fairway ain’t great, but it’s better than MW.
Fairway was never charming, albeit Steve Jenkins’s signs were fun.
Fairway is a mess for ALL the reasons you state! It IS dirty, rude, disrespectful, and all the Instacart people make the 2 checkout lines VERY SLOW and endless. It’s horrible. I once witnessed an employee open a container of 6 cupcakes, stick his finger in the frosting, eating it and then returning it the shelf!! I complained but nothing was done. Without even West Side Market, I’m forced to go there. Trader Joe’s on 72nd is good but doesn’t have a lot of many necessary and very basic household good, and having to shop while on line to pay is ridiculous.. Pioneer on Columbus between 74th and 73rd is not very convenient for me, but the staff is exemplary in terms of help finding things, knowing what they have, and friendly helpful employees. It is somewhat overpriced but the agony of going to Fairway sends me to Pioneer regularly.
The inventory in that store has been thinning out for months now. This was in the wrosk for a while.
Speaking of UWS grocers gone or going, anyone else remember the LifeThyme II Market at 2275 (2277?) Broadway or Healthy Pleasures at 2491 (2493?) Broadway? I was a far more avid customer of both than I ever was of Broadway Farm.
The ability for UWS white-collar types to work from home one or two days a week has upended the Manhattan grocery business. I’m sorry to see it go, but I haven’t been to Broadway Farm since the pandemic.
I can do the majority of my shopping in the mornings or at lunch on WFH days, and I have enough time to go to Trader Joe’s rather than one of the closer (and so-so) West ’80s offerings. It’d be great if they could reinvent themselves around what TJs doesn’t do well (eg produce, fresh baked goods, etc.) but it would require a narrowing of the store’s scope.
Is there any news about the Staples on 81st that might become a West Side Market?
Key on 88 sold me moldy pasta…and the manager never returned my call.
When I was there the other day, I asked a cashier and all she said was “new owners.”