Discount grocer Lidl closing only store in the Hamptons
Discount grocer Lidl will close its Westhampton Beach Store in late October. Credit: Google
Lidl wasn’t a good fit for Westhampton Beach, which is why the discount grocer is closing its only store in the Hamptons, a real estate official said.
The store, located at 70 Sunset Ave., will close at the end of October, said Cary Staller, president and co-owner of Staller Associates, the Islandia-based real estate firm representing the landlord.
"I think they felt the market really wasn’t right for them. It was sort of this upscale vacation market and it didn’t fit in with their prototype," Staller said.
Lidl did not respond to Newsday’s questions about the impending closing, including the number of employees who will be affected.
Lidl entered the Long Island market in January 2019, when the German retailer’s U.S. arm finalized its purchase from Bethpage-based Best Market of 27 stores, including all 24 on the Island, for an undisclosed price.
Lidl remodeled the former Best Market stores in phases and converted them to the Lidl name. The former Best Market in Westhampton Beach opened as a Lidl in May 2021.
Lidl’s lease on that store expired in March, and the grocer received an extension to late October, Staller said.
Lidl is a limited-assortment grocer with a high percentage of inventory, 80%, under its own private-label brands.
"It wasn’t really what the community wanted, I think," Staller said of the grocer’s Westhampton Beach store.
A full-service supermarket will be opening in the 29,118-square-foot space in Westhampton Beach that Lidl is vacating, said Staller, who declined to disclose the name of the incoming tenant due to a confidentiality agreement.
There are a few small food markets in Westhampton Beach, including a specialty upscale retailer, Citarella, that opened in May. The Manhattan-based chain has three other stores in the Hamptons.
Lidl has about 12,900 stores in 32 countries. In the United States, the chain has more than 200 stores in nine East Coast states.
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.
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