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.
Yellow Banana declined to blame theft for its store closures, instead choosing to blame President Donald Trump and the food stamp cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Oddly, Yellow Banana did not explain why these nationwide cuts did not cause closures at the other 38 stores it operates across the country.
Yellow Banana did run afoul of Chicago’s DEI regulations, however. The company was forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines to the city for failing to meet minority-owned and Women Business Enterprise set-asides for the construction work involved in refurbishing the stores.
Chicago’s socialist grocery store program is admittedly not identical to Mamdani’s plan, but the two are more similar than some might think. Although Mamdani’s stores will be city-owned, unlike Yellow Banana’s Save A Lot locations, New York City will not operate any of the five stores itself. Instead, Mamdani is looking for middlemen to handle each store’s day-to-day operations.
“We are also issuing a request for proposals for private operators to help us with the day-to-day management of our five city-run grocery stores,” Mamdani said Monday. “If you know how to run a grocery store and you want to do more to help your fellow New Yorkers, I encourage you to head to grocery.nyc or scan the QR code to learn more about how to apply.”
THE REAL AND LASTING HARM OF FAUCI’S EGO
So, to recap, Mamdani is promising a 30% discount on all fresh produce, meat, seafood, cheese, milk, beans, and bread, but he has not identified a single person or entity that says it can make the math work. Oh, and the first store is supposedly set to open next year.
Maybe there is some amateur grocery store genius with the knowledge, discipline, creativity, and logistical skills necessary to source, stock, secure, and sell groceries for 30% less than existing competitors. Or maybe Mamdani’s socialist experiment will fail just as Chicago’s did.