In Brooklyn’s Boro Park, there is a widely held secret that one of its major kosher supermarkets is also a good destination for a good morning combination of a muffin, croissant, and coffee. At Evergreen Uptown in Pomona, it is the pizza and other dairy and pareve products from Basil. This is all part of a trend where many kosher independents are adding to the shopping experience by including sushi stands, cafes, pizza shops and more.
For some of the independents expanding the brand into other categories is simply a way of creating more profit centers. Some of the stores admitted that they were looking for categories that have greater margins to compensate for small margin aisles and in some cases shrinking margins. “Inflation is eating away at my margins,” one owner told me. “There is only so much that I can raise prices.”
