Today at the First 100 Day Address, Mayor Mamdani announced the location of the first store at La Marqueta in East Harlem as part of an initial phase of five city-owned supermarkets, marking an important milestone in advancing city-owned supermarkets across New York City! This is a major step forward in advancing city-owned supermarkets as a core part of the Mayor’s affordability agenda, sending an early signal of the administration’s commitment.

Community Food Advocates and our Supermarket Access Coalition partners are playing an instrumental role in close collaboration with key members of the Mamdani administration to ensure the success of this major initiative – offering recommendations, essential analyses, and informing the development of the city-owned model as it quickly goes from concept to reality.

What we know so far points to a strong foundation:

• This is the first of five storesenvisioned as an initial phase, with the aim to build toward a broader, citywide system (we are advocating for a 20 store model)

• The Mayor has already committed $70 million toward the buildout of the first five stores, signaling meaningful public investment in getting this model off the ground

• The Mayor is committed to funding the operations costs—a critical element in assuring deep, sustained affordability for consumers

We spoke with The New York Times for their feature on the announcement (archived version accessible here), where Liz is quoted describing this as a “critical first step” toward a network of city-owned supermarkets. As she noted, “New Yorkers across income categories are struggling with grocery prices.” This is exactly the kind of investment needed to meet this moment. 

There couldn't be a more perfect time to introduce the newest member of our team: Meet Francis Yu! We are thrilled Francis came on board two months ago as the Director of Supermarket Access and they have been busy laying the groundwork in the past weeks in close partnership with coalition members and city leaders. We’re encouraged to see that collaboration reflected in yesterday’s announcement, and we look forward to continuing this work together as the model takes shape.

With Mayor Mamdani’s commitment to implementing a city-owned supermarket model officially underway, our team is eager to bring our expertise to this work alongside our incredible coalition partners and city leaders to help realize that vision.