Twenty-four hour shopping in Lawrence — beat that, Brooklyn

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of Nov. 28, 2008 / 1 Kislev 5769

After waiting several long months for final sign-offs by health and building inspectors, the Five Town’s fourth full-service all-kosher supermarket opened its doors last week. Glatt Kosher Kingdom may have seemed a little quiet in its first few days, but by Sunday the calm was shattered. Crowds of shoppers descended on Rockaway Turnpike to try the new store on for size, practically picking the shelves clean.

Glatt Kosher Kingdom has entered into head-to-head competition with three other stores — Gourmet Glatt, Supersol and, particularly, with Brach’s, located just a stone’s throw away, off Burnside Avenue. Each is popular with its own regular shoppers, sometimes in a very partisan way, and Glatt Kosher Kingdom needed something to set it apart from the very beginning. Twenty-four hour a day, six day a week shopping is the answer, and while not everyone is inclined to shop for groceries at 1:00 a.m., it works well for Stephen Wallach of Woodmere. He stopped in early last Friday to pick up a few things on his way home from a Hatzalah call.

“It was like being in Brooklyn and being able to eat after a call,” he joked. “Instead I can be in the Five Towns and go shop.”

The staff was helpful, he reported, and the shelves were stocked, as were the meat and bakery aisles. Challahs were “stacked up,” and the prices were competitive for the neighborhood.

“I will definitely go there again because I’m sure that my wife will send me an e-mail,” he said, with an early morning shopping list to work through. “When I finally get around to coming home at 1 or 2 in the morning I’ll be able to shop at a kosher supermarket.”

A self-described food snob who asked to not be identified in print as a snob of any sort pronounced herself impressed with the selection, in general, and with the high quality of the offerings in the produce department, in particular.

That’s no surprise to Eric Haziza, one of the owners of Glatt Kosher Kingdom.

“The produce department is run by a guy, Summer, from Dean and Deluca, which has the most extravagant, most-anything-you-can-think-of produce department in the world. If an executive chef from I-don’t-know-what-hotel walks in and asks for an item, he’ll make sure that item is here within 24 hours,” Haziza promised.

“We’re trying to create an environment – a feeling – that the customer knows he can come to us and tell us what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong – what items are we missing. Service is number one. Shopping should be enjoyable and not just at Macy’s.”

On day two a visitor was greeted with a smile by an employee stationed at the door. A few minutes later another employee went out of his way to say hello as the visitor strode past the registers.

“This is how I make the staff understand their job,” Haziza said. “Anything you missed? Anything we don’t have? How often do you buy it? Should we buy 10 boxes, 20 boxes?”

Remaining open from two hours after Shabbos until two hours before the following Shabbos is not only about providing late night shopping. In fact, it may not be about the late night shopping at all. Instead, Haziza explains, it’s about always making sure the store is clean and fresh and the only way to do it, he said, is to spend the extra money.

“The most important thing for me is that people can walk into a store at 7:00 I the morning, and it’s clean, it’s fresh, the produce looks amazing, the dairy looks amazing. Believe me, the night shift costs a lot of money. But [otherwise] the 9:00 in the morning shopper is going to find a mess. We don’t want that.”

The store features a full-service butcher department, a bakery, and a pizza counter. Fresh fish arrives every day and a take-out department will open for business in a week to 10 days, Haziza said.

“What makes us different is the crew. We hired a top notch guy in every department.”

“The most important thing is that you come here and you spend an hour, and it’s enjoyable,” he added.