New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised Monday that his city-owned grocery stores would offer high-quality fresh produce and other basic groceries at prices guaranteed to be 30% lower than those at surrounding privately owned stores. But before New Yorkers start counting their potential savings, they might want to look at Chicago, where a similar experiment has just failed under Democratic Socialists of America Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Seven Save A Lot grocery stores operated by a company called Yellow Banana closed this past weekend after receiving $13.5 million in subsidies to refurbish and reopen the locations. When Yellow Banana first signed its agreement with the city, it was promised $26 million over 10 years to keep all seven stores open. But Yellow Banana will never see the second half of that payment because the stores all closed after less than two years of operation.
Chicago’s deal with Yellow Banana came after Walmart closed four megastores on the city’s South and West sides. Walmart had worked with the city to find ways to keep the stores open, but ultimately decided to close them after their losses doubled in just five years. The four stores reportedly suffered from “theft and security issues” that made them consistently unprofitable…