A storm is quietly brewing across New York City’s retail landscape as mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani unveils his plan to launch city-owned grocery stores. Marketed as a bold move to cut food costs for struggling New Yorkers, the proposal has triggered sharp alarms from local bodega owners who fear for their survival. With rent-free, tax-exempt city stores potentially selling essentials at rock-bottom prices, small merchants say their livelihoods hang in the balance. As Mamdani defends his affordability vision, the city’s corner shopkeepers brace for an uncertain, high-stakes showdown.
🔎 STORY HIGHLIGHTS
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Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani proposes $60 million pilot program to launch city-owned grocery stores
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One store per borough planned, aimed at offering lower food prices
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Bodega owners fear unfair competition due to tax exemptions and rent-free status of city stores
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Critics label the idea as a “Soviet-style” plan threatening thousands of jobs
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Mamdani insists the plan is experimental and won’t scale up if ineffective
A new proposal from Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is stirring controversy across New York City’s small business community, particularly among bodega owners and workers who say the plan threatens their very survival. At the heart of the dispute is Mamdani’s vision to create city-owned grocery stores aimed at lowering food prices for everyday New Yorkers. But local shopkeepers argue the government-backed competition could tip the balance against them.
The plan, which is part of Mamdani’s wider “affordability” platform, proposes a $60 million pilot program to open one city-run grocery store in each of the five boroughs. These stores, if implemented, would be exempt from rent and property tax obligations — two major costs that private businesses must shoulder. According to the candidate, the intention is to offer affordable access to basic essentials like eggs, milk, and bread amid inflation and growing food insecurity.
But for many bodega operators, this vision represents more of a threat than a solution. At a press conference held Monday outside a Gristedes supermarket in Midtown, members of the United Bodegas of America gathered to voice their opposition.
“Competing with the city having business is not going to be something that we can support,” said Radhames Rodriguez, president of the United Bodegas of America.
Rodriguez, who owns four bodegas in the Bronx and has been in the business for decades, painted a dire picture of what such a program might mean for him and others in the industry.
“Let’s say they sell a dozen eggs for $1 and the cost to us is $4 … that is going to destroy our business,” he said, emphasizing the impossibility of competing with a tax-exempt, rent-free operation.
This concern isn’t isolated. Fellow Bronx bodega owner Miguel Valerio, who employs 12 people, said he worries not only about the future of his business but about the livelihoods of those who depend on it.
“I don’t want to lose my job,” said Valerio, a father of two.
“The government doesn’t want to do the same thing I do every day. I wake up at 5:00, I go to sleep by 11:00 every day,” he added.
“What is going to happen to people running their business? I have 12 people working for me, that’s what I care about.”
While Mamdani promotes the idea as a way to ease the financial burden on consumers, business owners argue the model lacks balance. They say small businesses are already struggling under inflation, rent hikes, and taxes — and adding government-sponsored competitors into the mix could be catastrophic.
“You can’t force us to pay taxes and then be our adversary,” said Rafael Garcia, who runs La Economica Meat Choice store on University Avenue in the Bronx.
Garcia noted that a significant portion of his clientele relies on government-financed food programs like EBT or SNAP. With city stores potentially offering lower prices, he fears many of these customers would abandon neighborhood bodegas for subsidized groceries.
During a Monday appearance on the “Plain English” podcast with Derek Thompson, Mamdani responded to criticisms, framing the project as experimental.
“If it isn’t effective at a pilot level, it doesn’t deserve to be scaled up,” the Queens assemblyman explained.
Mamdani defended the proposal as a reaction to mounting complaints from constituents about rising grocery prices.
“There is a sticker shock that New Yorkers tell me about all the time,” he said.
“And the most obvious examples here are eggs and milk and bread that have been cited again and again.”
However, many in the business community remain unconvinced. Critics have labeled the plan as a misguided attempt at government intervention in the private market — drawing comparisons to failed socialist models from the past.
“Socialism hasn’t been successful anywhere in the world. Even China has turned to capitalism,” said Francisco Marte, president of the Bodega and Small Business Association.
“Come on, this is stupid.”
Some business leaders even questioned the fundamental competence of government in running such operations.
“City-owned supermarkets don’t work. Cities do not know how to run a business,” said John Catsimatidis, owner of the Gristedes chain and a longtime voice in the city’s retail food sector.
While the debate plays out in New York, it’s worth noting that the idea of municipal grocery stores isn’t new. Chicago’s progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson had floated a similar concept in response to the city’s “food deserts” — areas with limited access to fresh groceries. However, after private companies expressed interest in collaborating, Johnson hit pause on the municipal approach in favor of exploring public-private partnerships.
Elsewhere in America, especially in rural regions where supermarkets have vanished, city-run groceries have seen mixed results. In Baldwin, Florida — a town of just 1,400 — a government-run grocery opened in 2019 but closed in March after operating at a loss. Erie, Kansas, faced a similar outcome and eventually handed over operations to a private grocer while retaining city ownership of the building.
Still, Mamdani pointed to one municipal grocery success story. In St. Paul, Kansas — a town of 600 — a government-owned store has remained operational since 2013 after the local supermarket shut down. It’s the rare example of municipal intervention working under specific rural conditions — though whether that can translate to a dense and diverse city like New York remains uncertain.
As the conversation around Mamdani’s proposal grows louder, one thing is clear: while affordability remains a pressing issue for many New Yorkers, the path toward solving it is shaping up to be anything but straightforward. Small business owners say they are not opposed to solutions, but they want fairness — not competition from the very government that regulates and taxes them.
As Zohran Mamdani’s city-run grocery store proposal gains public attention, it opens a deep divide between affordability promises and small business survival. While the plan aims to ease rising food costs for New Yorkers, it simultaneously risks unsettling a fragile ecosystem of local bodegas that serve as lifelines in many neighborhoods. The debate now stands at a crossroads — one where economic justice meets entrepreneurial survival. Whether this pilot project becomes a progressive breakthrough or a miscalculated blow to the city’s corner stores remains a question only time, and voters, can answer.
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