Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Key Food returned to a 24/7 schedule
last October after shortened hours during the pandemic.
Ownership — the Mandell family operates this location as well as the Key Food outposts in Park Slope and Astoria, part of the Key Food Stores Co-Operative — invited me into the grocery during the overnight hours... and even provided an all-access tour of the space.
Aside from knowing EVG's affinity for the grocery (
for better or worse!), the store on Avenue A and Fourth Street is trying to encourage people to shop between midnight and 6 a.m. and has a
promo through July 27 — $5 off a purchase of $50 or more.
While I didn't receive a laminated all-access badge, I did have a tour guide in Dwyane "Petie" Reddy, who has worked for Key Food since 1987 — starting at the Queens store, and here for the past seven years ...
Also on duty this night — store manager Richie Gaitan, who has also been with Key Food since 1987...
...and away we went ... here are some behind-the-scenes
scenes ... away from what shoppers might see... the place is a lot bigger than you might think at first glance rounding aisle 1...
A few things I learned... the ready-to-eat salads and prepared meals you see when you enter Key are made in-house. (The sushi is delivered each day from an outside vendor.) The meat department is staffed daily as well...
Key Food management also showed off a new employees-only T-shirt design (and I pitched them on making merch for the store because we'd buy this)...
And some Key trivia — these 24-packs of Poland Spring water are the store's top-selling product. (I'm told this is
a loss-leader item)...
Richie's (iconic?) yellow sale signs and other various notices that are everywhere are designed and printed in-house...
And there's a reason for the seemingly never-ending supply of Keebler Export Sodas canisters and those 18-pound bags of wild bird food by the exit — they are big sellers...
We also cracked the mystery of the store music, often heavy on the semi-forgotten and/or guilty pleasure hits from the mid-to-late 1980s (from Level 42 to Glass Tiger to Mike + the Mechanics).
However, my editor is making me save this scoop for another post so he can list all the random songs he's heard while shopping at Key.
Speaking of shopping, the overnight hours proved to be a good time to knock this errand off your to-do list ... if it fits into your schedule.
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