Seven checkout lines stretched to the back of the store on the day after The Produce Spot opened in its new location.
Customers found out through Facebook and Instagram posts and came for too-good-to-be-true deals on lemons, limes, mango, pasta and much more.
Owner Doug Habe, who spent seven months renovating the store he leased at 150 N. Powerline Road, at the northeast corner of West Atlantic Boulevard and Powerline Road in Pompano Beach, said customers were stretched 500 to 600 deep across the parking lot when doors opened for the first time on Sunday morning.
“I need a bigger store, believe it or not,” the former New York City resident lamented, before adding, “But I can’t. I have no money left after opening this.”
Habe said the store is triple the size, with triple the merchandise, as the original location he opened in 2023 in an industrial park next to the Festival Flea Market. That one became a local phenomenon, also thanks to awareness generated on Facebook and Instagram.
But business died down because the location wasn’t visible from Sample Road. Last spring, Habe asked the store’s fans on Facebook to suggest other locations, and one told him about the store he ended up choosing — a 17,000-square-foot building that was most recently home to a Save-A-Lot discount grocery store, and prior to that, Furniture Power.