After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) announced it was set to sell 25 stores in New York City to Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. and Key Food Stores Co-Operative.
Ten of those stores, scattered throughout Brooklyn and Queens, were Waldbaum's supermarkets.
Waldbaum's had its start as a family business in 1904, when an Austrian immigrant by the name of Israel Waldbaum began selling butter and eggs out of a small store on DeKalb Street.
By the time Waldbaum died in 1947, at age 55, he had seven outposts in Brooklyn. His widow, Julia, who would live to the ripe age of 99, made surprise inspections of about 30 stores a month even after A&P acquired the chain in 1986.
She kept a special eye out for her pet peeves: bruised fruit, dusty shelves and checkout clerks who didn't thank patrons for their business.
One of the charming things about the chain is that customers have different ways of pronouncing its name. "Wald-baum's." "Wall-baum's." "Wah-bum's."
We took a survey outside the Waldbaum's in East Elmhurst — inside the shopping plaza on 31st Avenue near 75th Street — to find out what patrons call their store and how they feel about Key Food's bid for it.
