Bye-Bye, Balducci's: Store Will Close Manhattan Locations

The upscale gourmet grocery Balducci's is closing its two NYC locations. The Post reports that Lincoln Center-area West 66th location and the 17,000-square-foot store on Eighth Avenue at 14th Street will shutter at the end of April. Back in 2003, the longtime Balducci's location on 6th Avenue at 8th Street closed, after the store was sold to a larger supermarket chain, Sutton Place, after some Balducci family in-fighting. But now Sutton Place is closing other Balducci's locations—one in Ridgefield, CT and one in DC—a Balducci's marketing director told the Danbury Times, "Right now we are restructuring our company. We had to close some of our under-performing stores." Perhaps the store's prices weren't helping these days: The Post article leads with, "There will be two fewer places for Big Apple foodies to buy $39.99-a-pound triple-cream goat cheese and $23.99-per-pound veal chops" while a 2003 NY Times reader wrote, "If you wanted to spend $6 on a jar of imported marmalade that could be had for $4 elsewhere, then Balducci's was the store for you."

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By Jen Chung in News on April 4, 2009 4:28 PM

Comments [rss]

Gregoire

Dean and Deluca will follow suit soon, if they havent already.

angry_pickle

Dean and Deluca sucks. I'm surprised they aren't closed yet. I guess they have a great location with hardly any competitors nearby.

schadenfreudian mensch

Not likely. They get the spillover from the people coming out of the Apple store. They're use to paying for overpriced crap.

RedWhiteandBrooklyn

The only thing 'Balducci' about these rip-offs was the name, which the Balducci family sold, rather than work in the business their folks started. The original Balducci's was a delight and, as for the quality, I used to see James Beard shopping there. No better endorsement could be made. AND their prices were consistently lower than Dean & DeLuca!

ottoemezzo

I'm sorry they're closing. I shop there sometimes for certain items and I don't think that I'm one of the people pinball29's referring to tho' I'm not exactly sure who/what he means. Yeah pricey, but they had a sign-up for coupons deal and not everything was outrageous. Good cheese selection. Fresh ricotta in small quantities. Great apricot-pistachio biscotti. Beautiful use of that building. Nice to have a food hall. Well...let's hope for something good. How did Trader Joe do with that former bank building in Brooklyn?

NannyState

Yeah, Balducci's was the shizz back in the eighties but I haven't been there in ages and it's like everybody else caught up with them while they were still pricing their food like they were the only game in town. Memo to Sutton Place: next time, comp shop your competitors.

schadenfreudian mensch

Don't worry your little hearts. The $39.99-a-pound triple-cream goat cheese can still still be had a few avenues over at WholePaycheck between B'way and University for $42.00.

angry_pickle

I disagree; WholeFoods has some good stuff and variety. And many specialty items are priced as low as you are going to find them (obviously this excludes meat and fruits which are enormously overpriced; also their sushi rolls are overpriced).

NannyState

I was gonna say...

Snoopy

I guess Dean & DeLuca will have to pick up the slack in the $23.95 a pound prosciutto deParma field.

pinball29

Now, if the people who shopped there would leave too, that would be win/win. Lets just hope they leave the building on 23rd st in good condition, its a spectacular building, and hopefully wont be turned into a spa/guppie condo entrance like the one across the street. Bring back the 70s!!!