This Is The Worst Grocery Store In NYC

NEW YORK CITY — This is it. The moment you’ve been waiting for with breath that is not unlike your normal breath. The votes are in and we have a winner for the worst grocery store in New York City.

Patch has spent the past month asking you which of four types of grocery stores — pricey, discount, chain and online — enraged you the most. Hundreds of you answered the call.

First, you decided the worst pricey grocery store was Dean & Deluca, which you dubbed “one of the greatest tourist traps in the city.”

You then named the worst discount grocery store, Food Bazaar, a place “out of touch with times we are living in.”

The worst online grocery store was decided to be FreshDirect, which you gave a new slogan: "FreshDirect, not fresh or direct.”

And the worst chain grocery store was Gristedes, “A/K/A 'The Grimey Gristle.”

In this final round, we pitted the four semi-finalists against each other and one food vendor walked away with 54 percent of the vote. Here’s what you had to say about it:

“Gristedes. They are gross.”

“Gristedes is always dirty.”

“Gristedes sold me rotting chicken breast, overlaying original sticker with one with fresher sell-by date!!!”

“'I’ve seen roaches and mouse droppings on the shelves and most products are grossly over-priced.”

“Gristedes is Gross-tedes.”

Food Bazaar came in second with a meager 22 percent of the vote, Dean & Deluca placed third with 17 percent and FreshDirect walked away with a slim 7 percent.

So there you have it. An absolutely scientific survey has proved once and for all there are grocery stores in New York City.

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to vote, to comment and to follow this series — We couldn’t have done this important work without you.

We’d love to keep doing these kinds of projects at the NYC Patch, so if you have ideas for what competition should come next, please let us know on Facebook, Twitter or in the comments below.

And enjoy your rotting vegetables.

Gristedes, Food Bazaar and Dean & Deluca photos courtesy of GoogleMaps. FreshDirect photo courtesy of Shutterstock