Billionaire John Catsimatidis threatens to close Gristedes chain if Zohran Mamdani elected NYC mayor

[In It to Win It]

I'm not sure Catsimatidis is allowed to donate to Mamdani in this manner under campaign finance law.

{Gristedes is genuinely an appalling store).

— Raffi Melkonian (@rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T14:39:34.547Z

I had to shop there for about a year because it was close to my first apartment, and hoo boy.

— Raffi Melkonian (@rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T14:41:51.010Z

Like take the worst supermarket in your town, triple the prices, and then replace all the produce with the produce your store had to throw away.

— Raffi Melkonian (@rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T14:45:00.293Z

The best way I can sum up Gristede's is, the one and only time I went to buy meat at one, I saw a woman poking a hole in each plastic-wrapped chicken container, sniffing it, and putting it back. When she saw me looking, she turned to me, shrugged, and said, "I just can't keep returning rotten meat."

— Tim Carvell (@timcarvell.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T16:41:46.999Z

I know only so many people care about New York City, and I respect that. But I want people to know that this potatohead goober owns the consensus Worst Grocery Store Chain, for price and for quality, in a city with some truly heinous grocery stores.

— David_j_roth (@davidjroth.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T16:26:25.491Z

[MineralMan]

1. Speak English, Dammit!

[Prairie Gates]

2. Truly Brer Rabbit stuff here. Gristedes is absolutely disgusting

Anyone who can avoids them.

[jmowreader]

3. I occasionally shop at the Gristedes at 103rd and Broadway

The term I tend to use is "highway robbery." The prices are at least 2x what they are in the most expensive supermarket in my area.

Interestingly, their pet food department, at least the last time I was in there, sold no dog food. Lots of overpriced cat food - think two bucks for a can of 9 Lives I can get for 75 cents in my area and you're on the right track - but nothing for Fido.

[hatrack]

5. Sounds like a shitty Whole Foods, with a really bad attitude for good measure . . .

Yeah, good luck with that, billionaire grocery-bro.

[RockRaven]

4. Don't tease me with a good time.

[Celerity]

6. fuck that MAGAt Catsimatidis

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/nyregion/giuliani-republican-party-nyc.html

In a vitriolic speech in New York in September, Mr. Giuliani said that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s biracial son should fear “another Black” more than a police officer, and that Black Lives Matter protesters are “cop killers” who might also want to kill white people. “When you see a police officer killed, which you are watching, somebody is carrying out what Black Lives Matter asked them to do,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Or if you see a white person killed, it could be that, too.”

Mr. Giuliani made his remarks at a forum hosted by the Manhattan Republican Party, which is now run by the family of John Catsimatidis, a billionaire Republican grocery magnate who has run for mayor. He has given the majority of the party’s recent political donations; his daughter, Andrea, 30, is the party chair.

Mr. Catsimatidis has evolved from a self-described undecided voter at the 2016 Republican convention to a full-throated Trump supporter in 2020. “If you vote on personality, Trump loses. If you vote on performance, Trump wins,” Mr. Catsimatidis said.

Ms. Catsimatidis also wholly embraces Trumpism, including the president’s rhetoric about New York City, and saw Mr. Giuliani’s recent speech as a way to highlight the city’s perils in the time of Covid: the frustrated small business owners, the cuts to sanitation services, the rise in shootings.

[electric_blue68]

21. Well, screw Mr. Catsimatidis, and Rudee.

[stillcool]

7. I worked at a Gristedes

way back in the 70's. Their inventory was interesting, and all the chefs from the way south side of Montauk Hwy used to come in there. Didn't think they were still around.

[delisen]

8. Catsimatidis is a major Trump MAGAman.

He was on NPR last election cycle claiming Trump would not a lot of things he was threatening to do.
Claimed he knew him and we all needed him as President.

We do not need Billionaire Catsimatidis. He is anti-democracy and pro not being fairly taxed. He is typical of those who want to use the infrastructure we have built up to make themselves super rich and then trash our society.

This chapter is fully responsible for the Trump tyranny. He appears to be totally unrepentant.

Gristedes’s sounds like a horror show. Wonder who works there.

[jrthin]

9. He's a pig. He's also managed to turned most of his employees into trumpeters.

Go ahead and do us NYers a favor and shut down your supermarkets.

[Jit423]

10. Not familiar with Gristedes. Is it located in poor neighborhoods?

That is usually the case when bad food markets are found.

[edhopper]

12. It is in the high end neighborhoods

In Manhattan. Before Whole Foods and Trader Joes came in, it was often the only nearby market.
It is a terrible place to shop.

[marybourg]

14. Way back in the 60's (I think) and 70's, it was a high end store with

excellent customer service. I guess it stayed in the same neighborhoods and rotted in place.

[edhopper]

17. I think because

This asshole bought them.

[jmowreader]

13. Until this eight-ball bought the company it was apparently a great supermarket

What he's pissed off about is Zohran Mamdani has as a campaign plank a pledge to open one city-run supermarket in each of the five boroughs. I suspect it'll take a lot more than that to solve the problem, but it's a start.

Given that, I suspect this won't be an issue because Andrew Cuomo will win the primary...and since the Republican candidate is the asshole Curtis Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels, Cuomo will almost certainly be the next mayor.

[tulipsandroses]

11. What I find appalling, is yet another wealthy person wanting to dictate politics. You have one vote. Just like everybody

else. Why should your voice count more than the voice of the people????

[mwmisses4289]

15. The first few times I read the name of the store as griFtedes stores.

Sounds like people in NYC are hoping he carries out his "threat". How have those stores lasted so long if they are so bad? How are they passing inspections if they are selling rotten meat, milk and veggies?

He is a really ugly looking person, isn't he?

[jmowreader]

22. Sometimes Gristedes is the only supermarket in the area

[Vinca]

16. Sounds like closing the chain would be a public service.

[musette_sf]

18. We used to call it Grisly-tedes

when frequenting the one across from our HS for lunch and snacks, but that was when it still had good merch back in the 60s, and we just said that to be clever. Looks like it’s fulfilled its own prophecy, though.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

19. Raging about union employees

and looking like the fugly felon's grotesque twin.

[harumph]

20. per Wikipedia:

"While in college, Catsimatidis worked for the uncle of a friend, Tony, in a small supermarket on 137th Street which Tony and his uncle owned. While Catsimatidis was still in college, Tony sold his half of the store to Catsimatidis.[3] Catsimatidis completed four years of college, but dropped out eight credits short of graduating.[1]"

Why would "Tony" sell him his half? What would possess a man to do that? What was the selling price - to a college student? Is anyone thinking Organized Crime and loan sharking? I am.

[Johonny]

23. Bye then