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Garden of Eden To Close After More Than 20 Years on W. 23rd Street

By Maya Rajamani | August 4, 2017 5:01pm | Updated on August 7, 2017 8:47am
 The Garden of Eden at 162 W. 23rd St., near Seventh Avenue
The Garden of Eden at 162 W. 23rd St., near Seventh Avenue
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DNAinfo/Maya Rajamani

CHELSEA — The longtime West 23rd Street supermarket Garden of Eden will shut its doors in the face of competition from other grocery stores in the neighborhood, its manager said.

The store at 162 W. 23rd St., near Seventh Avenue, is slated to close imminently, manager Nargis Khatun said Friday.

The chain filed for bankruptcy last year due in part to a “historic lack of patronage,” the New York Post reported at the time.  

Signs hanging in the window of the 23rd Street space Friday thanked customers for their loyalty and offered a 40 percent discount on the store’s remaining items.

“GardenofEden"

“There’s a lot of competition in this area,” said Khatun, who has been working at the store for 21 years — nearly as long as it’s been open. “We have customers, but people don’t buy a lot."

“There’s a lot of choice in this area,” she added.

Last month, the chain’s owner and founder Mustafa Coskun said the store was in negotiations about its future, but declined to provide more details, Chelsea Now reported.

Coskun didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. 

Most of the shelves in the store were bare Friday, but Khatun said it would stay open to sell off its remaining items.

She couldn’t give an exact date for when it would close, saying only that it was “very, very sad.”

“I couldn’t accept it [at first]. Finally, I accepted it. There’s no other way," she said.

“The people appreciate this store — people are going to miss this store, definitely.”