{"id":147237,"date":"2026-02-27T11:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/147237\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T11:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:50:07","slug":"nycs-city-owned-markets-keep-food-cheap-at-a-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/147237\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC’s city-owned markets keep food cheap, at a cost"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Mayor Zohran Mamdani proposed a pilot project for city-owned grocery stores during his election campaign last year, critics like Gristedes CEO John Catsimatidis derided<\/a> the idea as \u201ca delusional notion in the name of radical socialism.\u201d<\/p>\n

But New York already has a version<\/a> of city-owned groceries: its six public retail markets<\/a>. Three of them \u2014 Essex Market on the Lower East Side, La Marqueta in East Harlem, and Moore Street Market in Brooklyn \u2014 are directly managed by the city\u2019s Economic Development Corporation, or EDC.<\/p>\n

Newly obtained financial records show that those three markets ran a combined operating loss of roughly $3.6 million in fiscal year 2024, a modest subsidy by city standards that helps keep food prices low, preserves legacy vendors, and, in one case, incubates a restaurant group that reshaped NYC\u2019s dining scene.<\/p>\n

EDC rents city-owned properties to private vendors at below-market rates, while covering operational costs such as utilities, security, janitorial services and maintenance.<\/p>\n

According to an appraisal that EDC commissioned in 2025, retail space at Essex Market could command $115 per square foot in rent on the open market.<\/p>\n

But records show that some vendors paid as little as $38 per square foot in base rent that fiscal year, with an average rent of around $91 per square foot. Records for La Marqueta and Moore Street Market showed even lower base rents.<\/p>\n

The EDC, a quasi-public nonprofit that manages city-owned property, claims that the other three public markets \u2014 at Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, 13th Avenue in Brooklyn, and in Jamaica, Queens \u2014 were each profitable and helped EDC offset expenses elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The EDC says the point of the markets is not to turn a profit but to provide access to affordable, healthy food.<\/p>\n

Nevin Cohen, director of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, which works \u201cto make the food system just, healthy and resilient,\u201d said in an email that the markets\u2019 costs are modest, comparable to a different EDC program called FRESH (Food Retail Expansion to Support Health), which provides tax breaks to companies that put grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods. The FRESH program costs $3 million-$4 million a year, according to a city comptroller report<\/a> from 2024.<\/p>\n

Many vendors pass along their considerable savings on rent to customers in the form of deeply discounted prices. At Luna Brothers Fruit Plaza, a produce and grocery stand at Essex Market, prices are low, with five limes selling for $1 and large bunches of fresh herbs for $1 each.<\/p>\n

In at least one case, the favorable rents don\u2019t just help grocery vendors, but restaurants as well.<\/p>\n

‘The single biggest inflection point’<\/p>\n

When Roni Mazumdar and his father opened Masalawala on the Lower East Side in 2011, it served Indian food familiar to American palates like chaats, tikka masala, and tandoor dishes.<\/p>\n

In 2018, Mazumdar teamed up with chef Chintan Pandya to open Adda in Long Island City, under a new restaurant group called Unapologetic Foods, serving authentic Indian cuisine representing regions and styles beyond standard Americanized dishes.<\/p>\n

Early rave reviews<\/a> had New Yorkers flocking to Queens. But Mazumdar said Manhattan real estate was harder to crack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason you see a lot of \u2018ethnic food\u2019 \u2013 a term I\u2019m not a fan of \u2013 in the fringes of the city, not necessarily on Park Avenue, is because it\u2019s cost-prohibitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mazumdar said some landlords rejected the group outright. \u201cI don\u2019t want Indian cuisine here,\u201d he recalled them saying. \u201cI don\u2019t want my building smelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Unapologetic won a bid for the marquee space at Essex Market: a turnkey restaurant layout at the front of the building, facing Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge.<\/p>\n

Mazumdar said the difference wasn\u2019t just the location, but the lease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe single biggest fixed cost for a restaurant is rent,\u201d Mazumdar said. \u201cIf that rent goes above 10% [of revenue], you really have an uphill battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

EDC\u2019s appraisal estimated the space could fetch $130 per square foot, which would have required the restaurant to do more than $1.6 million in sales in its first year. For a new concept built around lesser-known regional Indian cuisine, that would be a high bar to clear.<\/p>\n

Instead, EDC offered a lower base rent of $80 per square foot, plus a percentage of revenue over a certain threshold. That risk-sharing model lowered the restaurant\u2019s fixed costs in its earliest, most precarious months.<\/p>\n

Dhamaka opened in 2021 with regional dishes like goat neck biryani and rabbit curry with no attempt to soften flavors for Western palates. The New York Times made it a critic\u2019s pick<\/a>; Pandya won<\/a> a James Beard Award for Best New Chef in New York State. The restaurant turned Unapologetic Foods into one of the most influential Indian restaurant groups in the country.<\/p>\n

The group went on to relocate Adda to the East Village, move Masalawala to Park Slope, and open four additional restaurants, Semma, Rowdy Rooster, Naks, and Kebabwala. Semma, which earned a Michelin star and topped the New York Times\u2019 list<\/a> of 100 best restaurants in New York City in 2025, was the first in a wave<\/a> of high-end South Indian restaurants that have opened in the city in recent years.<\/p>\n

Mazumdar called the Essex Market lease the single biggest inflection point for the restaurant group’s trajectory.<\/p>\n

\u201cA normal flat rent structure makes it impossibly difficult for somebody to take a chance like we did,\u201d he said. \u201cDhamaka would not have existed if it wasn\u2019t for this structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, Dhamaka\u2019s rent increases over time while the revenue-sharing component decreases.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost developers think if you do something like this, you\u2019ll make less money,\u201d Mazumdar said. \u201cBut if the business works, you actually end up making more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mayor Zohran Mamdani proposed a pilot project for city-owned grocery stores during his election campaign last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-147237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}