By David Porat
Brooklyn Fare, a neighborhood food store from downtown Brooklyn, is replacing the D’Agostinos in the Archives Building at 666 Greenwich Street at Christopher. Curiously, Brooklyn is where people eat at home versus Manhattan where people dine out. In addition, within the food world, the Brooklyn label does have a good bit of appeal. New Yorkers and especially Brooklynites take food maybe a bit more seriously and Brooklyn Fare has developed from that consciousness.
Supermarkets are having tougher times within the city and especially in Manhattan based on old formulas dealing with how food is bought and sold and compounded by the soaring cost of real estate in NYC. Whole Foods Market—along with some smaller, more specialty focused stores—have made headway in taking over where food is sold in the city, as has Trader Joe’s.
Focused on quality and more specialty local and prepared food, these stores appeal to a more affluent, younger customer—more interested in trying something new and more interested in how and where the food is made. These customers are looking for convenience, often not eating the traditional breakfast, lunch and dinner, but smaller meals more frequently. Brooklyn Fare is about that customer and the phasing out of the supermarket as we know it.
The new location is in a higher rent residential building that is remote from other larger food stores. Brooklyn Fare has a second location on 38th street and both their Brooklyn and Manhattan stores are packed with many items that bridge the specialty and a traditional supermarket categories.
Brooklyn Fare is also home to Cesar Ramirez’s Chef’s Table, a celebrated Michelin 3 Star restaurant, upstairs from their Schermerhorn and Hoyt Street location in Brooklyn. It seats sixteen people for either one or two seatings, depending on the night of the week. They feature an Asian inspired, French technique-tasting dinner that is a hard reservation to book and goes for $306 a head, with the tip included, but not the tax.
