A supermarket for all ‘Seasons’

The shelves of the Seasons store on Central Avenue in Lawrence were reported to be empty and rumors were running rampant on the financial health of the eight-store kosher supermarket chain.

Mayer Gold, chief executive officer of the Flushing-based company founded in 2010, issued this statement: “Seasons Kosher, and its predecessor Supersol, is proud to be a mainstay of the Far Rockaway/Five Towns community for almost four decades. Seasons has revolutionized the kosher shopping experience, and we look forward to serving the neighborhood and the kosher consumer for many years to come.”

Gold did not comment on whether any of the stores would close or if the company is seeking investors or purchasers. The chain includes stores in Baltimore, Cleveland, Clifton and Lakewood, New Jersey; Kew Gardens Hills, Manhattan, Seasons Express in Lawrence and Scarsdale. The Express store is, according to Gold, the only kosher supermarket in the United States that is open daily 24 hours — Sunday through Thursday — except during Shabbos, when it closes two hours before the Jewish Sabbath on Friday and opens two hours after the religious observance ends on Saturday.

In 2014, the Lawrence store was completely revamped — “reconfigured and repositioned within the existing building, with prep areas moved to the basement [to] provide more shopping space,” Gold told The Jewish Star in January of that year as the supermarket was about to reopen.

The Baltimore and Scarsdale stores opened last year and the Cleveland supermarket opened this year. In a 2017 article on progressivegrocer.com, the chain’s design firm New Jersey-based Ruitenberg Lind Design Group noted that the new stores would make Seasons “first national kosher supermarket chain.”

Seasons is also renowned for its online ordering and delivery service. On the South Shore that includes Atlantic Beach, Cedarhurst, East Rockaway, Far Rockaway, Hewlett, Inwood, Lawrence, Lido Beach, Long Beach Lynbrook, Valley Stream, West Hempstead and Woodmere.

The Five Towns kosher supermarket landscape has expanded and changed in the past three years. In 2015, Gourmet Glatt, which has a store in Cedarhurst, bought the Key Food building in Woodmere and opened another store there later that year. Brach’s in Lawrence closed in 2016. In January of this year, KolSave, which is considered a discount kosher supermarket similar to how Brach’s operated, opened in half of the 40,000-square-foot Lawrence Lane building that Brach’s occupied. The other half is an Amazing Savings discount store that sells a variety of merchandise, but not much food.

“It’s very convenient from my home, I live across Rockaway Turnpike,” said 20-year Lawrence resident Muriel L., as she sat on a bench on Central Avenue outside of Seasons on Aug. 1, adding she has shopped there since it opened. “They seem to have quality food and the produce is very nice.”