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."