DeCicco Family Markets has opened its seventh ”“ and largest ”“ location near the Southeast train station in Brewster.
The 39,000-square-foot destination store and warehouse will supply and distribute DeCicco”™s store-made food to all other store locations in Westchester and Rockland counties.
“Harold Lepler and Larry Nadel are the landlords of the piece of property (Highland Plaza) and they sought us out and pursued us,” said John DeCicco Jr. “They helped connect us to the Putnam County Economic Development Corp. and industrial development agencies to find state and local funding that would motivate us to make the one-hour trip up here from where some of our other stores are located.”
DeCicco”™s occupies the space vacated by Linens ”™n Things, which is adjacent to Kohl”™s department store.
The store will employ 130 workers; the estimated cost of the build-out was $5 million to $6 million.
“This is definitely the most easily accessible store of ours right off of Interstate 84,” said Chris DeCicco Jr. “We really tried to build a destination store for that reason. This is one of our first stores where you don”™t have to worry about parking. In southern Westchester, that”™s always a challenge.”
Nadel, an owner in Covington Development L.L.C. and Prudential Commercial Real Estate Covington Properties, the landlord, agreed.
“We had seen their operations in Westchester and I always went out of my way to shop there myself and we thought it would work well with the demographics up here and help build traffic here,” he said.
In designing DeCicco”™s Southeast, John DeCicco Jr. said the family added several departments that aren”™t available in other store locations.
“We”™re doing coffee and nut roasting for the first time,” he said. “This will be the first store with a full bakery on premise, brick oven pizza, gelato and a café-bar with beer and wine by the glass.”
The store will employ a fisherman with fleeter ships in Maine who will catch fish and lead in-store cutting and cooking demonstrations on weekends; traditional grocery items will also be available.
Joe DeCicco Jr. said the store”™s major competitors range from more of a specialty Stew Leonard”™s to the big box grocery store.
“In this particular store, we do have a very large catering and prepared food production component,” John DeCicco Jr. said. “Since the beginning, catering began with my grandmother cooking in the kitchen at her house and bringing it to her first little store in the 1970s, then creating the catering business and building it up over the years. It is a pretty vital part of our business today.”
The DeCicco dynasty of Italian specialty markets began with a 1972 Bronx storefront.
“My dad, Uncle John and Uncle Frank came from Italy in 1957 and they grew up working at fruit stands and in butcher shops down on Bleecker Street,” Joe DeCicco Jr. said. “That”™s what started this whole thing.”
Future expansion is always a possibility, Chris DeCicco said.
“We”™re always looking and we get offers all the time,” he said. “But getting the right location is not too easy and the right space is the biggest challenge. We”™ve looked at Connecticut before, we”™ve looked at Jersey a little bit. Anywhere in the tri-state region, we”™re pretty open to.”
