Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Holyland Market, the Israeli grocery at 122 St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue, closes at the end of the month after 18 years in business.
Moving forward, owner Eran Hileli (pictured above and below) will focus his time and attention on his blossoming hummus business — the 4-year-old Holy Hummus, now available at 700-plus stores in the United States, including locally at Westside Market, Union Market — and Holyland Market. (He said he has 12 new products/flavors on the horizon, including spicy w/red s'chüg, roasted pepper, roasted garlic, za'atar flavored and green s'chüg.)
In an interview with EVG contributor Stacie Joy, Hileli said that he was having challenges finding help and felt burned out after working through the pandemic. (He was also unable to find a buyer for the market.)
From Friday, here's a look around the shop, stocked almost entirely with Israeli products ... 
Hileli first opened a record store — House of Trance — at this location in 1998 before pivoting to the market.
As he told The Times of Israel in an August 2020 feature:
"The industry was changing. People weren’t really buying music anymore," he lamented, saying customers would enter the store, listen to music and then go home to purchase it on the computer. "But you can’t download Bamba," he joked, explaining his decision to start selling the peanut butter-flavored puffed corn snack along with the hundreds of other Israeli products that line Holyland's shelves.
