Antillana Supermarket

As another reviewer said, this place is truly a last resort for me. I have started buying all of my groceries online since moving to this neighborhood and having this place as one of the few grocery options within close walking distance. This place is overpriced for the neighborhood and plays the most annoying music. There’s always some sort of stink smell towards the back area that sells meat. Fruit and produce is horrible quality, everything looks like it’s wilting or rotten. Check your dairy products, lots of stuff are close to their expiration dates. I also always pay with cash here, use credit cards at your own risk. Last year there was an incident here where credit card information of customers were stolen. There’s a Key Food a few blocks down, try there if you’re in a pinch. Avoid this place!

Today my assistant purchased juice and granola bars for our campers in our spring break camp, my assistant noticed that the juice was expired. When we bought it to the attention of the store manager he said very passively, it was «your responsibility to check the explain date.»
I was like did he just say that.
The store manager begrudgingly exchanged the merchandise.
If you or your business are in the wrong, I strongly suggest you just fair fix the problem, immediately this is known as «good customer service». Please be advised if you are rude and unprofessional I’m gonna put you on blast.
Seriously if the juice is expired what the hell do you think is going on in the meat and dairy section?
Run.

This is one of those establishments I feel indifferent towards. I go here because its one of the few places in the area with Kombucha and decent lettuce. Their produce in general is okay. They also have other emergency items like natural laundry detergent and a selection of vegan chocolate. Within the dairy section you will see soy and almond milk and sometimes they have veganeise. What’s weirding me out is that they recently ran out of tofu and bought another brand instead of their usual Nasoya, which is GMO free and organic. This new brand seems to be alright in terms of the quality of the item. However, this supermarket keeps buying «natural» brands that not even the health food stores carry. They do this with other items too. I wonder who does their inventory. Of course some of these items are priced higher than stores downtown.
Recently, this place was stealing peoples debit information and taking their money. People were warned by Chase what was happening because customers were getting notified of transactions they never made in cities outside of NY. It was extremely hard for me to go back there after this occurrence, but they have amended their ways. I just get the most necessary.
Their workers in general are okay, mostly Dominican women from the area. The place is well kept and hardly dirty.

Dear Community,
As your neighbor I want to ALERT you of this business.
Check your receipts, I’ve been over charged a number of times and have brought this to the attention of the manager. My fellow neighbors have also been over charged as well.
The 34^th precinct has been notified of the bad business practices that continue.

This Supermarket is usually a last resort for me. They have a great selection of Mexican products that are pretty hard to find in a Dominican neighborhood, but almost always stick a ridiculous price tag on them.
Their produce is usually fresh but their meat is almost always on the verge of being spoiled. I general I thought there prices were on the higher side but then I moved to trendy area and found out how wrong I was!
I would never go out of my way to come here, but my apartment is less than a block away so it remains an option for me.

When I first moved to the neighborhood, I was stoked to find this market. After living in a community with numerous produce markets and a supermarket that consistently rocked my world with produce offerings, I knew I’d be hard to impress. Antillana (currently Associated) Supermarket is just … okay. Sometimes there are sales, but for someone like me who prefers that the sale items not be on the verge of spoilage (or that the regular priced items be just okay), Associated doesn’t really do it. I have had good meat purchases, and the deli counter staff is consistently awesome. I shop strategically at this market, and have no problems with that. I like the music that they play out front — it’s reflective of the community. Also the checkout staff is usually cheerful and helpful, even when customers are rude and/​or difficult. This is where you go to grab something quickly when you need it at the last minute — not where you do all of your shopping.

It is 10:45 am Sunday morning and the music is still playing. Yes, the music is softer but why on an early Sunday morning are they playing music AT ALL?
They have done away with the convenient carry baskets and replaced them with ones you drag along the floor (think dead poodle on a leash). This is probably done as the aisles are too narrow for a traditional grocery cart. But is not easy bending over each time to place items in those baskets (think the same body motions that agricultural field workers use).
It is summer so I was taking a look at the thermometers in the dairy case. The one near the cream was at 40% — a little high but acceptable. The one near the yogurt read 50% — yikes! According to the following study on dairy milk and bacteria count (at the point of production), milk stored 72 hours at 40 degrees has 0.14% of the bacteria count of milk stored 72 hours at 50%. Here is the study (see page #7)
Then I was looking at buying some ground beef. One section had packages at $ 4.xx and one section had packages at $ 1.xx. The $ 1.xx section meat was expiring the same day. It had been repackaged with a new price/​label. Let the buyer beware!
Do you want ice cream on a hot day? Oh no, the ice cream cooler is hot, empty and obviously broken.
Finally, I purchased a prepackaged bakery item. The price was $ 2.xx. When I got to the cash register, they told me no, the price is $ 5.xx. I accepted their thieving excuse as I needed to get back home but I am never going back. I will spend the money, rent a zip car, and go somewhere I can trust.

This is one of the most convenient grocery stores in my area. The staff are friendly, and the shelves are well stocked. Unfortunately, the layout and organisation could be better. I frequently have trouble finding things, because the layout is so sucky. The prices are pretty decent. The store is frequently cleaned, and kept that way. Unfortunately, during rush times, the registers tend to get backed up.

I really like coming to this market. I stay a block away and it is great to run in a grab a few things for dinner. They have a wide selection of fruit and produce plus a lot of organic items and a good selection of beer.

I want to support my local neighborhood businesses but it’s hard when I’m so underwhelmed by what they offer. Maybe consistently moldy, old produce works for everyone else who shops here but I’ve been burned far too many times in the past three years to even bother buying anything that was once alive at this particular grocery store. (My roommate who eats meat does say that their meats here are good, so do go for that.)
Also watch out for their dairy products. Be vigilant about checking expiration dates because I guarantee you you’ll find something that’s either expired or about to expire. Once I saw a yogurt cup covered in dust. How about that?
If you need nonperishable products though this place is ok. I see that over the years they’ve been trying to incorporate slightly «healthier» products like soy milk but it’s been coming so slowly and sporadically that I only come here when in need of basic staples and that’s it. The people here are cool though, they always treat me nicely even though my Spanish is terrible. (They know English, but I like to practice.)

There’s not much I can add to Christine’s review, but I wanted to put this on my Inwood list and to second the pleasant surprise in finding some organic stuff here. When the store that was in this space shut down last year I despaired of having a good grocery within short walking distance. I’m very glad that these folks opened up a better, cleaner store with a selection that allows me to buy food and not feel i have to trek all the way down to Whole Foods EVERY time I want some decent stuff. Granted, I’m still going to have to go elsewhere for more exotic fare, but Antilliana has my back for the staples.

I’m a bit picky when it comes to supermarkets these days. I like my organic food and good cuts of meats available to me. But I have to calm myself down because, hey, I live in Inwood. Some of these things just don’t work out quite that way.
That said, I’m surprised that this place has anything organic at all. They have a bit selection of Spanish veggie staples (yuca, plantain, etc), and they DO have a small selection of fresh herbs. They carry a small selection of organic milk and yogurt, which I greatly appreciate. Other than that, its your run-​of-​the-​mill supermarket. They don’t sell seafood, but they do have an on-​site butcher that’ll give you whatever cut of meat you want. That is really awesome.
Their deli section is stocked with 80% Boar’s Head products, which is also great. Those booty brands are just not worthy of entry into your mouth.
There’s an ATM on site and they do take debit/​credit cards without a price restriction. If you want cashback however, you need to spend at least $ 20 in the store (I tried to do this and found out the hard way).
Oh, and supposedly there’s free delivery for groceries! But I live across the street, so there isn’t much to deliver.