Long Island Western Beef supermarkets getting new name, owner

All four Western Beef Supermarkets on Long Island will be getting a new name soon.

The parent company of the Food Bazaar Supermarket chain is purchasing 14 of the 19 Western Beef Supermarket locations in New York, including the Long Island stores.

Owned by Long Island City-headquartered Bogopa Enterprises Inc., Food Bazaar had 38 stores in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, including three on Long Island, before it began its purchase of the Western Beef stores last Wednesday.

The acquisition of the 14 Western Beef stores will allow Food Bazaar "to continue expanding our footprint. And ... to continue providing variety, value and fresh, quality products in the communities," said Edward Suh, Bogopa’s president and CEO.

The purchase price is not being publicly disclosed, he said.

Peter Castellana Jr., president and CEO of Western Beef, declined to comment on the deal until all the store sales close on Oct. 28.

The four Western Beef stores on Long Island are located at 1717 Old Dutch Broadway in Elmont, 322 Nassau Rd. in Roosevelt, 605 Woodfield Rd. in West Hempstead and 192 Glen Cove Rd. in Carle Place.

Also being purchased are six Western Beef stores in the Bronx, one in Brooklyn, one in Queens and two on Staten Island.

The 14 stores are being purchased by Bogopa separately, not as a group, so their signage will change to Food Bazaar as each sale closes through Oct. 28, Suh said.

The 14 Western Beef stores employ 1,000 people, all of whom will be offered the opportunity to stay on as Food Bazaar employees, Suh said.

Some Western Beef corporate employees will be offered employment at Bogopa, Suh said, but he didn’t know how many.

Bogopa has about 5,000 corporate and Food Bazaar employees, he said.

The Western Beef stores are not unionized, but Food Bazaar employees are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Western Beef employees will become members of UFCW after the stores are sold, Suh said.

In addition to the name switch at Western Beef supermarkets, other store changes will include the addition of a wider variety of products, Suh said.

Food Bazaar has larger service counters for deli, seafood, butcher and bakery departments than Western Beef, where stores will be renovated to align with Food Bazaar’s offerings, Suh said.

Also more international foods may be added to some stores, depending on their locations, he said.

The sale of the 14 supermarkets will leave Western Beef with five stores — two in Queens, two in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx — and a wholesale division.

Both Western Beef and Food Bazaar are full-service supermarkets.

The first Western Beef store opened in Flushing, Queens, in 1980.

The Ridgewood, Queens-based retailer is a warehouse-style supermarket chain with stores ranging from about 10,000 square feet to approximately 50,000 square feet, according to Food Trade News, a Columbia, Maryland-based trade publication.

Western Beef has been owned by employee shareholders since the chain sold 100% of its stock to an employee stock ownership plan in 2025.

Bogopa was founded in 1988 in Queens by Francis An, who was born in Korea. The company’s name means "Yearning for You" in Korean.

Bogopa’s Food Bazaar stores prioritize entering “so-called ‘underserved’ communities that other major supermarket chains flee from,’ ” according to its website.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.