BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — After more than 30 years in Brooklyn Heights, neighborhood grocery, deli and produce market All in One Deli Mart, fondly known as Peas N’ Pickles, has closed its doors.
The market, on the corner of 79 Henry St. and Pineapple Walk, is still known to many in the neighborhood by its original name, which changed when it expanded in 2012 to take over the adjacent Pineapple Walk storefront. (To add to the name confusion, the front awning is labeled “79 Green Apple Corp.”)
Throughout its last weekend, customers streamed into the store to reminisce, load up their carts, and say goodbye to owner Minki Lee, his family and familiar employees.
Fellow small business owner Estela Johannesen says goodbye to All in One Deli Mart owner Minki Lee. Johannesen owns James Weir Florist on Montague Street. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
Lee told the Brooklyn Eagle that he wanted to say “thank you” to his customers. He added that he has not made any future plans at this point.
“We would like to thank everyone for their kindness and support. We’re sorry that we could not stay,” the Lee family said in a statement. The family pointed to the rising cost of goods which affected sales, plus higher property tax and rent after COVID -19, as making the business “unsustainable” for the past few years.
“We’re very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve Brooklyn Heights and have interacted with many wonderful people all these years,” the statement said. Thank you so much. We will miss everyone.”
The Lees have been helping to find some of their workers alternate jobs. One employee found a spot at Han’s market on Clark Street.
Dalila Gomez, who has worked behind the register in the mornings for roughly 12 years, told the Eagle she first started there when her daughter was in middle school. “She’s been out of college for two years now,” she said.
Angus Hortsch-Kearney said he worked the register at night for just four months. However, as a local resident, “I’ve been coming here my whole life.” Other familiar cashiers included Zee, Indigo and Henry.
Neighbor Debbie Prince shakes the hand of All in One Deli Mart owner Minki Lee. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
‘Felt like a real community’
Numerous customers said Peas N’ Pickles played an important role in the life of their families.
“I might cry,” said Debbie Prince, who has lived next door for 42 years. “I come in every day. I depend on this place so much. I’ve been trying to think of where I will go now and I can’t — it’s irreplaceable.” Prince’s adult son Andrew said he grew up with the store. “I don’t remember it ever not being here.”
Another mother said her older son Noah, now almost 14, “Kind of grew up here; he knows all the people who have been here and looked after him. And when you live in a small apartment, your home extends to the bodega on the corner. … It just felt like a real community.”
“I’ve been coming here my whole life,” Noah said. “Thank you for being one of the good things in this town.”
Noah’s brother Ezra, age 7, added, “It’s been around here so much, and now that it’s closing it feels like so sad.”
Dalila Gomez, right, worked behind the market’s register in the mornings for roughly 12 years. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
“We were here multiple times a day,” said Tarik Tosun, shopping with his wife Elissa Wolf. Tosun described the time he and Wolf were planning dinner over text messages, and Wolf texted a recipe to him. So he stopped in at Peas N’ Pickles to buy the ingredients. “I was in the market with my hands full of groceries when they told me she had been here already,” saving him the trouble of having to return all the doubles.
The couple said they considered the market to be their pantry. “Lots of times we’d make a list, and be back 15 minutes later when we realized we forgot something,” Wolf said. “And we’d always have a nice conversation.”
Peas N’ Pickles’ closing hit him hard, said Nico Allais, a neighborhood father. “It’s very sad for me. There was a little ritual between me and my sons. The store is close enough that we would literally run here during half time of the sports shows we would watch, and make it back in time.” While they picked up a snack or a beer, “We would have conversations — serious conversations, funny conversations.”
Kids join their dad in picking up some essentials on the last day of operation for All in One Deli Mart, also known as Peas N’ Pickles. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
Both of his sons are grown now. “I’m going to miss that little late-night ritual.”
“Businesses like Peas N’ Pickles are so important to a community,” said local mother Mary Kim. “Longtime customers, including me, are saying they’re devastated, and it’s really not an exaggeration. It’s like losing a close friend.
Kim said people often don’t realize how much the small, daily interactions they have with people who work at places like Peas N’ Pickles affect them until they lose them.
“Mr. Lee, the family, and the cashiers who worked there over the years knew my son since he was a baby, and always asked about him if he hadn’t been to the store in a bit. You don’t get that at Whole Foods or other corporate supermarkets.”
Brooklyn Heights neighborhood grocery, deli and produce market All in One Deli Mart, fondly known as Peas N’ Pickles, has closed its doors. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
Can a small market still survive in Brooklyn Heights?
“It’s always really upsetting to lose a long-standing neighborhood small business, and I know many people in the neighborhood will miss them,” Lara Birnback, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association told the Eagle.
But a neighbor asks if the community could have done more to help Peas N’ Pickles survive.
The loss is heartbreaking, the neighbor said. “And there are important questions — Is this a defeat for everyone in the community? How can a small market face current operating costs, with insurance and taxes so high? Could our community leaders do more to support small businesses? Possibly check in with them, and keep in touch with our real community?
Andrew Porter, who has lived in the Heights since before the Whitman Owner complex was built in the 1960s, called the whole situation sad.
“Empty properties benefit no one, neither the landlords nor the business owners, and definitely not the consumers who shop there,” Porter said. He noted that the market’s closing places more financial pressures on the remaining stores in the row, which lose walk-by customer traffic. “It is, sadly, a lose-lose situation for everyone.”
The market’s landlord — cooperative Whitman Owners Corp. — owns and leases out the retail properties on the north side of Pineapple Walk. Last August, another long-time Pineapple Walk business, Park Plaza Restaurant, which fronts on Cadman Plaza West, closed. Owners told the Eagle at that time that the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the main factors.
From left: Customer Paula Gerson, market owner Minki Lee, and customer Janet V. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
Years of memories
So many neighbors reached out to the Eagle to share comments there isn’t room to print them all. Here is a sample:
“Really bad news,” said Dr. Jon Berall. “For so many things — for the vegetables, for the fruit, for the fresh fish. It’s such a loss, a tremendous loss.”
Janet V. said she has relied on the market for “for anything one might need — veggies, coffee, plant soil, candles, tools, a little bit of everything.”
Paula Gerson said she remembered when her mother, an original tenant of the tower at 75 Henry St., used to shop there. “I’ve been shopping here my whole life,” she said.
Shoppers and friends (from left) Janet V. and Cat DeWan. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
Pat Ross Spiller said she was “so sad to see them go. I’m always here for flowers and really great fresh fruit and sushi. And their ATM only charged $1.75.”
Kathleen Wolf said, “Our family has used it for the last 25 years, and we’re really going to miss the Lee’s and everybody else.”
“Besides having the best fruit and vegetables, this place was like ‘Cheers,’” said neighbor Beverly Closs. “Everybody knew each other even if we didn’t know their names.”
Historical note: Brooklyn Heights in the 1970s and early 1980s was home to a large number of gay residents and bars. Before Peas N’ Pickles opened at 79 Pineapple Walk, the spot was occupied from at least 1978-1981 by a gay bar/discotheque called Sal’s, according to “Queer Happened Here” and the recollection of long-time residents. An ad for the bar proclaimed it the “Home of the Harlequin Players,” which performed a show there called “Basically Bette Davis.”
The site may also have been the location of another gay bar known as Gracie’s Mansion, though some sources put it at Henry and Clark streets.