Barzini’s, Longtime UWS Grocery Store, to Permanently Close at End of Month: Employee Says

By Gus Saltonstall

Barzini’s, the longtime Upper West Side grocery store, will close at the end of August, an employee who did not provide his name, confirmed to West Side Rag over the phone on Monday afternoon.

Barzini’s has served customers on Broadway, between West 90th and 91st streets, since 1983.

Here is the Rag’s exchange with the Barzini’s employee who picked up the phone at the grocer on Monday.

WSR: Is the store closing at the end of the month?

Employee: Yes.

WSR: Do you know why it’s closing?

Employee: I don’t know, sir.

WSR: But it’s closing?

Employee: Yes.

The Rag then called the manager of Barzini’s, Parviz Abde, who provided the following when asked for more information about the impending closure.

“I don’t want to have any comment,” Abde said, as he hung up the phone.

WSR reported on August 5 about the “Every Thing Must Go!” discount signs that went up at Barzini’s at the beginning of the month. At the time, two employees told the Rag that despite the signs, the store wouldn’t be closing, and instead explained it as “too much inventory.”

In recent days, though, the signs changed from “Every Thing Must Go!” with a 30 percent discount and a list of excluded items, to “Every Thing Must Go!” with a 40 percent discount, and no mention of excluded items.

Additionally, since the Rag talked to Barzini’s at the beginning of August, we have had three tipsters reach out to say they spoke with either the Barzini’s owner or an employee, who told them the store would be permanently closing at the end of August.

“Barzini’s is closing August 31,” Michael Bernard emailed on August 18 to West Side Rag. “I spoke with the owner.”

A different tipster wrote in on August 20, “Barzini’s is closing. Spoke to the owner, who agreed it was the end of an era.”

Barzini’s has been a staple of its section of the Upper West Side for more than 40 years. For much of that time, the grocer has operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is not a chain grocery store, as its Upper West Side outpost was its single location.

“We opened Barzini’s in 1983 to offer this neighborhood a wider selection of foods: an eclectic range of gourmet items and glorious produce,” reads a blurb about the store. “My brother Parviz and I saw the need for more food choices around 91st Street, so we started up our business on the Upper West Side.”

The Rag will update this story if more information is learned.

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