Fairway negotiating for third Manhattan location

Upper East Siders already have Fresh Direct.

Any views on whether this would increase rents and property values in the neighborhood?

Fairway is great for quality and price, but Whole Foods and Trader Joes are an improvement in terms of total shopping experience IMO

This market should be a tremendous success. Much better prices than Eli's, Citarella, Vinegar Factory. Any idea when it will come to the UES?

Citarella's is better for fish and some apetizers
Fairways for everything else

I cannot express how joyful I would be if this came to pass!!! I am a huge Fairway fan but live in Yorkville. I take the crosstown bus to the Broadway store right now and shop locally at A+V (which I love but which doesn't compare to FW in price or breadth of merchandise). Ahh, Fairway...the cheese, the crimson raisins, the Fage yogurt a dollar less per container than anywhere else... :)

this neighborhood really needs a whole foods or fairway desperately! i agree it would be a BIG success!

i would rather have a whole foods there though, fairway a close 2nd...trader joes, ehh, dont care much for

UD, my guess is that one of the chain grocery stores, maybe the gristedes on 86th (or is that a d'ags?) will become a whole foods. have you spent much time in TJs? i used to be quite skeptical, now i love it, although it doesn't eliminate my need for whole foods. the produce at TJs is a bit sporadic, although they have some great things. their packaged meats, though, kick royal ass. as do many of their house brand options.

bottom line, higher-level competition is great!!

Whole Foods is very over-priced.

"Whole Foods is very over-priced."

And they don't take checks, which is a total PITA.

whole foods is very cheap for many things. very. expensive for others. often much less expensive than gristedes or associated (particularly) for produce. actually cheaper than gristedes for standard meat and poultry, much higher quality.

i doubt you shop there much, RS. but not taking checks may be a PITA for our man from the 60s, matt.

Matt, why don't you use your Mastercharge or BankAmericard (or, if you favor them, Diner's Club or Carte Blanche)? Do you just hate carting charge plates around?

bring it t'on. yum.

"And they don't take checks, which is a total PITA."

Who buys anything with checks at a store? D oyou not have a credit card? No offense, but you seem to be lstuck in the 1950s. You buy things with checks and you still have a 25 inch CRT tv.

More evidence of retro-Matt. Paying with checks, formica :)

Glad it's not just me. Every time Matt weighs in I can't seem to get formica out of my mind.

> i would rather have a whole foods there though, fairway a close 2nd...

Noah, don't forget the Whole Foods coming on 57th (UWSers were using the columbus circle, which was 59th).

hehe alanhart, "charge plates". Weren't they embossed metal, or something like that? Before those, I remember just plain "account", when the storekeeper had to keep track of everybody and their kids just by name.

name and sometimes vacuum tubes.

Wf on 57th and what?? didnt know about that...still, would be nice to have one less than 8-10 blocks away...86th st is a heavily trafficked st and there is a huge demand on this side of the park in the 80s for a fairway or WF! that I can tell you and will make lots of people's days when the lease is signed and work on store begins

If FW really opens on 86th won't have any real competition in terms of price/quality. WF is great but instead of opening on 57th they should have opened on Lex at 86th where Petco just relocated..

Whole Foods is coming to 57th on the east side?

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20080805/FREE/151753143

Upper East Siders will finally get to shop at Whole Foods without heading across town. The organic grocer just signed a lease for its first East Side location at 250 E. 57th St., on Second Avenue, in a building currently under development by the World-Wide Group, the developer’s publicists said. The three-floor space, to be located above the High School of Art and Design and P.S. 59, will be 47,000 square feet. Construction is expected to be completed by 2012.

Nice!

Thanks alan.

I enjoy how Crain's says UESers will get to shop there - most likely, more midtowners will shop there regularly. It's pretty much the same scenario as the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle, even though the UWS is much narrower, so even the UWSers who are "far away" are closer than some of their crosstown brethren will be to the midtown WF. The Fairway is easily a bigger deal.

Oh, and don't compare FD to WF or Fway. I had to use FD a month ago as I was bedridden and it sucked. Limited offerings, prepared foods were not as tasty as Fway or Cit or Zabar's.

I like WF because they take mfr coupons. And they are sometimes better on price than Fway. Lately, I've been digging some of the new offerings at Fway - Ben's natural cream cheese is so darned good. Their whitefish salad still sucks compared to Zabar's.

bjw, that's kind of silly. 70th and lex, for example, will be closer to WF. who cares which is the "bigger" deal? i just think it's wonderful that so many options are now becoming available. higher quality, greater variety, competition is good.

aboutready, actually 70th/Lex is pretty much the same distance to both (checked on Google Maps to be safe). You're obviously right that more options is better, but I still find it silly that Crain's talked about UESers when the WF is actually in midtown.

Fairway, TJs, and Whole Foods in that order. The UES needs some price competition from the amazingly overpriced Vinegar Factory and Eli's.

in just the last month or two i've switched to favoring WF over Fairway (though i much prefer Fairway's bagels). 365 brand (is that the name of it?) is very affordable; some of the organic stuff, not so much.

I was mostly fairway for a while, and now I'm mostly whole foods. I don't love the lines at WF, but I prefer what they sell. Fairway is cheaper, but WF has better stuff in my book.

I'd be happy to have Fairway, only a block away from my building. I already walk (as some of you know) to the WholeFoods in Time Warner.
I was happy when we got a Bed Bath&Beyond, over on First Ave. Home Depot, under the Bloomberg Building is great.

Lobster and my other neighborhood commenters: How do you like the carpet that was installed at the Dag, on First&56th St.? Are they trying to be posh, or what? Cut down on breakage and slip-and-falls?

Truth, I'm a little further north but I'll check out Dagostino's on 1st/East 56th next time I'm over there. How can you wheel the shopping carts on carpet? Is there carpet throughout the whole shop? Bed Bath & Beyond is a great place to shop for toiletries- big selection and good prices. My husband loves Home Depot and would probably live there if they let him. I don't see the appeal of wandering two hours in Home Depot, but I think it's mostly a guy thing.

bjw, you're in w'burg, right? many people have terrible misconceptions about whole foods. is it cheap? no, but in terms of its own brand, yes, very. and compared to your standard supermarket in manhattan (associated was charging $7.00 the other day for raspberries), it is very, very competitive on a price basis, and a no-brainer on a price/value basis.

i go to whole foods and TJs (and other local merchants, we have a great fish market here in gramercy, and i love the east village cheese store). for different things. i trade off for my weekly shopping, and i have both deliver (TJs has the more flexible delivery options). and it's a twenty-five minute walk for me. i don't think i'm that unusual in this, although i think some people don't walk.

57th street is the northern edge of midtown. look at the SE listings. above 59th street is UES. you don't need to look at googlemaps. 70-57=13. 86-70=16. yes, just about the same. and thus i agree with the article. it will indeed be a resource for the residents of the UES. when WFs gets a more northern location it will be more accessible easily to even more UESers. WFs has been working on this for almost 10 years, and one day they'll come through with the lease. and hopefully a TJs will show as well.

didn't you suggest driving to the fairway in red hook? apologies if i'm mistaken, but hopping down to 57th is nothing compared to driving to red hook.

ar, yes I am. I'm not against Whole Foods in any way - totally agree on the 365 brand, it's great. I used to shop exclusively at the Bowery WF when I lived on Elizabeth St.

"and thus i agree with the article. it will indeed be a resource for the residents of the UES"

I think you missed my point - that the same author in one article says it'll be too far south to impact the neighborhood, yet in the other says UESers will benefit, while essentially ignoring the people who will most benefit from it (midtowners).

"didn't you suggest driving to the fairway in red hook? apologies if i'm mistaken, but hopping down to 57th is nothing compared to driving to red hook."

For regular grocery shopping, I'd only suggest going if you live in certain parts of Brooklyn. For Fairway fans, I think it's worth the visit at least, but that's kind of different, no? Walking/taking the bus/train down to 57th from much of the UES probably takes longer than it does for me to drive to Red Hook.

bjw, this is silly. why are we arguing? but no. taking the bus, a taxi, the train, walking, or a mixture of those probably does not take longer than your driving to red hook. for the vast majority of UES people that will use the midtown WFs.

ar, sorry, not really arguing, just debating. My drive to Fairway is 10-15 minutes, depending on when I hit the lights. I'm pretty sure it would take longer than that to get to 57th/2nd for the vast majority of UESers.

Lobster: Yes,the entire store: aisles,checkout,produce, deli/meats were all carpeted this past autumn. They told me that the owner saw it in a supermarket in the mid-west, and he liked it.
Could the mid-west possibly be ahead of the curve on N.Y.C., with this carpet where you least expect it thing?
The carts roll smoothly, and it's kind of quiet.

Are aboutready and bjw still debating their land-speed record? Let's make it really interesting, and put some money down on it. The Great Race to Fairway.

for me it breaks down like this
1)produce from farmers market or whole foods
2)salad bar or prepared foods(when lazy)from whole foods
3)all quality pantry items, cheese, day to day groceries from fairway
i find it very rare to find WF prices to be lower than fairway
I'm curious as to what items are best purchased at TJ? i have never been

Truth, I'm in! Actually heading over there in a bit - I've timed it before, but definitely have incentive to go for the record now!

moxie, TJ's is great for frozen and packaged stuff. Cheap, good quality in general, and not devastatingly unhealthy. But 365 (from Whole Foods) and Fairway brand are comparable, though there's less selection, I think.

ALLRIGHT, bjw!!! Go for the gold!!!

bjw, i walk it in 20. traffic or no.

moxie, you have to check it out yourself. people have different criteria. tj's will never be number one for produce (although they often have some great produce options, and their bagged greens selection is awesome and cheap), but they have some things that are both extremely high quality and low priced.

i always buy, for example, their non-fat greek yogurt, non-fat feta, peanut butter, olive oil, nuts, chocolate, pesto, pita chips, tortillas, winter-blend coffee (i like it, so sue me), organic teas (particularly the white pom one, and the blueberry green tea), frozen dumplings, pesto, omega-3 eggs, etc. and yes, both wf and trader joes have some really high quality frozen goods. both relatively inexpensive. tj's has some extra variety, however. my kid loves some of the frozen veg options from tjs.

some of their prepared meats are awesome. pick up the pesto chicken pieces, bake it at 450 for about 20 minutes, chop it up and add it to anything. and the tj's meats often have the most amazing pull dates. and they're accurate. i've tested.

the important thing here is choice! lots and lots of choice.

thx for all the TJ input..i will definitely check it out..as a veggie the meat options don't intrigue me but the frozen selection does

Bjw: Are you back home, yet? What did you get? What's for dinner?

aboutready: you're a good, healthy eater. No wonder you can walk it in 20!

Truth, I'm back - it took 14 minutes, so not one of my better showings, but I hit almost every red light and was stuck behind one particularly bad driver for a while there (I have to admit it was fun to battle the clock though). Anyway, got some nice hanger steaks for $4.99/lb - that's my Super Bowl dinner, with some spinach and potatoes.

"bjw, i walk it in 20. traffic or no."

You walked to 57th and 2nd? From where? Don't you live in PCV? I'm not trying to bash this thing, but just a bit skeptical that most UESers will find this location convenient enough to do their regular shopping. Maybe for those below 69th or so, but as you know, the UES goes way above that.

Bjw, I agree with you that the Whole Food coming to 57th and 2nd probably won't be that accessible to large parts of the UES because it's located at the border of UES/Midtown East. Someone living north of East 72nd(?) probably would prefer traveling to Fairway on East 86th and 2nd Avenue instead of going to Whole Foods unless they really prefer WF to Fairway. They're definitely different types of markets, but convenience is a big factor when you shop more than a few times a month. Anyway, it's very exciting to have both markets on the UES.

bjw. really. of course i don't walk to a store that doesn't yet exist. i walk to the union square location for the whole foods. and the east village location for the TJs. it's about 15-20 minutes.

ar, that's what I thought, but you never know - people have done far crazier things on here (like buy overpriced real estate). You obviously live in a better location for food shopping (and well, I prefer the east village by far in general). Forgot to mention I stopped by the Brooklyn TJ's on the way back tonight. I'm a fan, though I'm not sure it's that much less crazy than the one on 14th.

Dent in the plans?

http://dnainfo.com/20100421/upper-east-side/fairway-market-may-be-driven-from-upper-east-side-by-second-avenue-subway

I would rather have a Fairway, instead of the Whole Foods that is under construction on E. 57th St.
But it's certainly moving right along. The bulldozers are in there, behind the fence.

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/fairway-set-to-open-new-store-on-upper-east-side/

great news - it's happening. this is tremendous for my pocketbook and quality of life. On milk alone I'll save a few hundred a year.

Great news for the upper east side. The Fairway olive bar is amazing. Still prefer the Harlem store for convenience.

your usual drivel. who cares which store you prefer?

"I would rather have a Fairway, instead of the Whole Foods"
Me too! But, both would be real nice. Now, open a Loehmann's & I'm in heaven.