MOM’s Organic Market is scheduled to open today (Friday), snow or shine at Rivertowns Square in Dobbs Ferry. It’s the first store in New York state for the chain. The market is in the space formerly occupied by Brooklyn Market at the intersection of the Saw Mill River Parkway and Lawrence Street.
The Dobbs Ferry location is the 21st store for MOM’s, which is based in Rockville, Maryland. MOM’s has been operating sites in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The company’s founder, Scott Nash, told the Business Journal that the company is looking at additional expansion opportunities now in Paramus, New Jersey, and Boston.
Nash started the company in 1987 with an initial investment of $100. Working out of his mother’s garage, he began by delivering organic produce, then expanded into mail order and finally began opening brick-and-mortar stores.
A constant theme has been promoting organic produce and products while also advocating for environmental causes. The Dobbs Ferry store, for example, features a large health and wellness section including organic vitamins and supplements, bulk organic herbs and special soaps and beauty products.
The store features free electric car charging stations along with a recycling dropoff where customers can leave old cellphones, tablets, batteries and other items.
The store’s website links with nonprofits including Groundwork Hudson Valley, Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, Greenburgh Nature Center and Sustainable Westchester and each of the four will have its own weekend during the store’s first month to receive 5% of the sales.
“New York is obviously the gateway to the Northeast for us and Dobbs Ferry is a good way for us to test the waters and to learn the region,” Nash said.
“There’s no way of truly knowing if a store is going to be successful, but we generally look at demographics, density and the traffic patterns. We understand that the region moves largely north and south with a few east-west corridors, so we’ve sort of gotten on a great north and south corridor with the Saw Mill River Parkway. In the end, it’s not a hard science; you sort of open your doors and hope for the best.”
Nash said that he’s the 100% owner of the chain and he considers it to be a family operation.
“Where it comes to value for our customers, we only carry organic produce and we think it’s the highest quality produce that’s available for any chain of grocery stores. We also have a really incredible selection of high-quality products and the ingredients standards are the highest in the industry,” Nash said.
“We feel like we have great customer service and don’t do a lot of advertising. We invest in the customer experience within our four walls. We promote a stress-free shopping experience. We have really wide aisles and leave our customers alone.”
Nash said that the Dobbs Ferry store “is about 20,000 square feet, which is a little bit on the large side for us. We are pretty flexible depending on the market. We have stores that are 11,000 feet and as large as 20,000. We usually do a larger store when we’re in a fairly dense urban or suburban area.”
“We plan on eventually rolling out throughout northern New Jersey and New York and then also to Boston and spots between,” Nash said.
“Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are really everywhere these days. We’re sort of the third leg on that stool. We’re more dedicated toward organics and environmentalism and we’re sort of a hybrid between those two when it comes to a shopping experience.
“Whole Foods has, I think, 40,000 items and Trader Joe’s has about 4,000 items. We have about 15,000 to 20,000 items and our shopping experience is focused on the product. We’re very dedicated to organics and environmentalism.”
