Thrift-store chain Savers leases former King Kullen supermarket, Chase Bank spaces in Hewlett

Thrift-store chain Savers’ expansion on Long Island, where it recently opened an eighth store, will include the former King Kullen supermarket and Chase Bank spaces in Hewlett.

Savers will open a store next year in the former King Kullen space it has leased in a Hewlett shopping center, said Sean Elias, a principal with Elias Properties, the Jericho-based company that owns the Hewlett property. But he said it's as yet unclear how the thrift chain will use the freestanding former bank building, which has a drive-through, that it has leased on the same property.

"They can use it for whatever they want to use it for, whether it’s for drop-off [of donated goods]  or whatever they decide to use it for," he said.

Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, the thrift chain's parent company, Savers Value Village Inc., did not respond to Newsday’s requests for comment.

Founded in 1954, Savers is a for-profit retailer that is experiencing strong growth as it and other thrift stores draw more affluent shoppers amid consumers’ growing affordability concerns.

The shift in consumer demographics is helping secondhand shopping to go more mainstream, Jubran Tanious, president and chief operating officer of Savers, told Newsday last week.

"The way that we show up with quality merchandise, strong value proposition, is allowing us to reach many shoppers that ... are just discovering secondhand," he said.

The overall growth in thrift store sales also is being fueled by young consumers who prefer to buy unique items and who also are more concerned about environmental sustainability, according to experts.

Savers has opened four Long Island stores since December 2024, including one in a former Big Lots discount store space in Carle Place last week.

Savers Value Village Inc. operated 375 thrift stores in the United States, Canada and Australia under six names, including Savers, Value Village and Value Village Boutique, as of July 4, the end of its fiscal second quarter. Savers is the largest for-profit chain of thrift stores in the United States, where it had 185 stores as of July 4.

Of the 25 stores Savers is opening this year, more than 20 will be in 11 states, Mark T. Walsh, Savers' CEO, told analysts in August during a call about the company's second-quarter earnings.

The publicly traded company has the capacity to open 20 to 25 U.S. stores annually "for many years," Tanious told Newsday last week.

Savers’ U.S. net sales increased 11.6% to $255.3 million in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, while net sales at stores open at least one year increased 6.6%.

Savers collects donations of clothing and household goods "on behalf of local nonprofits." Those donations typically are tax-deductible, but that varies by state, according to the company.

Savers pays nonprofit partners based on the weight of the goods, and then put the items up for sale in its stores, the company said.

For 29 years, Savers’ nonprofit partner on Long Island has been Big Brothers Big Sisters Long Island, a mentorship program for children and young adults that has offices in Islandia and Westbury.

King Kullen's exit

King Kullen vacated its 20,395-square-foot Hewlett space, at 1765 Peninsula Blvd., in May after 45 years of operation. Chase Bank, which was in a 3,199-square-foot space at 1735 Peninsula Blvd., closed a few years ago, Elias said.

King Kullen Grocery Co. Inc.’s Hewlett supermarket was the 14th store the Hauppauge-based company had closed since 2015, as the grocer and other traditional supermarket chains have faced more competition from discount and specialty grocers pulling in a growing share of food spending.

On Friday, Oakdale-based Giunta’s Meat Farms finalized its purchase of King Kullen Grocery Co., including its remaining 24 supermarkets and four Wild by Nature natural food stores, all of which are on the Island.

"King Kullen’s primary challenges were increased competition and rising operating costs. This led the company’s leadership to determine that a sale to the right partner was the best path forward for King Kullen and its employees," Giunta's Meat Farms, which had 10 Long Island stores before the purchase, and King Kullen said in a joint statement Saturday.

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.