Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise to open a city-run grocery store in every borough of New York City is not the radical “socialist” idea that his critics have suggested—but the revival of a nearly century-old policy by a former Republican mayor, Fiorello La Guardia.
One of Mamdani’s key campaign promises last year, in the face of rising grocery prices in New York City, was to introduce a “network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, not making a profit.” At the time, a March 2025 poll showed that two-thirds of New Yorkers supported the initiative—even as opponents called it a “Soviet-style disaster in waiting,” as reported by the New York Post.
The first of five city-owned grocery stores planned by the Mamdani administration, which will sell essential products to residents for a discounted price, is expected to open in the Bronx next year. Another one is expected to open in East Harlem by 2029. The city still has to confirm where the stores in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island will be located…