New Supermarket Opens in Huntington Station

Curb appeal ruled Friday as banners and bunting fluttered when the new Huntington Station Food Plaza held its grand opening.

The full-service grocery store, at 2035 New York Ave. between 21^st and 22^nd streets, opened for business. Construction workers were finishing pouring concrete sidewalks and repairing parts of the parking lot as shoppers checked out the new store.

 Javier Tineo, who owns the store with his father, Juan, and his uncle, Porifiro, will manage the 20,000-square-foot store. He said it is his family’s first store on Long Island, with the others in Brooklyn and Queens.

Along with a full line of groceries and a deli, the store has in-store seating and will offer hot, cooked foods along with organic meat and fruit, rotisserie chickens, a fish market, flowers and Carvel ice cream cakes, as well as Lotto and MoneyGram. It plans to employ 35 people, and once things get settled it will offer delivery service.

Hours will be from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays.

“The town has been working hard to make this happen,” Supervisor Frank Petrone told those assembled for the opening. “I want to thank Javier and his family for stepping forward and coming into Huntington Station. We wish you wealth, health and we wish you to be another member of the community.”

Shopper Juliette Ulell liked the produce she saw, as well as the Jamaican seasonings. “They had very nice produce, and yams and green bananas. I plan on coming back.”

Two out-of-town shoppers visiting a friend saw the grand opening signs and stopped to check it out, then left happy with fresh fish and other supplies. Teresa Fecentese of Commack was happy with the fresh whiting she bought from the Clare Seafood Corp. fish market in the store.

Shoppers pay separately and operators Mr.Lee and Jason Oh will clean and bone the fish you choose. Oh said he picks up fresh fish each morning at 4 a.m. at the market in Hunts Point.

The new store, combined with the streetscaping under way along New York Avenue and the proposed Station Sports Family Rec Center, are all positive signs, Petrone said. “It’s another beginning for Huntington Station.” Petrone said he also was speaking with other developers who do large developments and hoped to be able to make other announcements.

The store received a $5,000 grant to help with landscaping. The Economic Development Corp. awarded the Huntington Station Food Plaza a $2,500 facade improvement grant that matches one from the Huntington Station Business Improvement District for landscaping at the front end of the building on 22^nd Street, where there will be a plaza with green space.

Joan Cergol, EDC director, noted the store also received technical and administrative assistance from the Community Development Agency, which partners with the EDC and business improvement district to help improve the physical as well as economic environment of the Huntington Station business corridor. A new supermarket has been a stated need, and since it is on the HART bus line and the county S1 route, it can be reached by shoppers outside the area as well, Cergol noted.

Those improvements are important, Cergol said, to meet a desire stated in a survey of community residents to improve Huntington Station’s “ambience.” That led to an incentive to inspire better-looking building facades, Cergol said. “With the BID's contribution of the hanging baskets, garbage cans, landscaping projects, holiday decorations and banners that adorn New York Avenue, as well as a new retaining wall coming soon at the corner of Broadway and New York Avenue, the ambience factor is increasing daily,” she said.

Aside from the grant, the EDC helped the Huntington Station Food Plaza project with the planning and engineering phases of its development, as it does for other Huntington Station projects that promise to revitalize the area and also bring in services residents want, she said, including the Station Sports Family Fun Center project on Depot Road.

“The EDC follows and monitors these development projects closely as they work their way through Town Hall, and intervenes as needed to help untie the knots that often occur along the way. Our expediting saves time, and saving time saves money. This kind of help is priceless to any business, and most especially a start-up,” Cergol said.