Grocery Chain with 100 New York Locations Closing Nearly a Dozen Stores in the State

One of the best-known grocery chains in the Northeast announced that it's closing several "underperforming" stores in New York State.

Another business with ties to New York announced just how many stores it's closing in the state. The news follows what can only be described as a landslide of abrupt closings.

Wheelock Rides out of Syracuse took its final bow a few weeks ago, around the same time Freihofer's bakery shut its doors for good after 140 years, including its Verona location. Then, BNY Mellon, a major employer in the area, said it was forced to close its Oriskany Business Park location.

The scene is somewhat worse on a national level, with chains like Red Lobster and Applebees shutting down many locations due to financial constraints. As of print time, the Red Lobster in New Hartford remains open.

After announcing last month that it'll be closing a number of "underperforming" supermarkets, Stop & Shop revealed just how many of its 100 New York stores are getting the axe.

kc0uvb from pixabay

The Tri State area will see 32 supermarkets close over the next four months. Of that number, Ahold Delhaize, the chain’s Dutch parent company, said 8 stores in New York will shutter by November. The stores are located in Brooklyn, Coram, East Meadow, Greenvale, Hempstead, Mt. Vernon, and West Haverstraw.

Ten New Jersey stores are on the chopping block and five stores will shut down in Connecticut. Rhode Island and the company's home state of Massachusetts will also see a number of supermarkets shut down for good.

The grocery chain didn't reveal if more closures are slated for the future, but it did say all the stores slated for closure were "underperforming". A spokesman said the company wants to ensure a "stable and thriving future" by focusing on its core markets.

This news is a little heartbreaking to me because I grew up buying my groceries at Stop & Shop, as it was the closest grocery store to my house. I also shopped at the location in Milford when I lived in the area.

In the years since, Stop & Shop became somewhat of a meme to those who frequented the stores because they unleashed googly-eyed robots to patrol the aisles. If this is news to you, just know these machines are very real and very, VERY unsettling.

It soon became a game to not run into Marty the Robot during a grocery run and you could echolocate his whereabouts at all time because he always let off a shrill and constant beeping noise.

Perhaps Marty is the reason Stop & Shop is struggling. No one likes picking up a box of Juicy Juice while looking into the soulless, yet giant eyes of a roaming robot. It's always easier to blame the robot.