Excited Crowd Heads To 1st LI Wegmans: 'It's A Beautiful Store'

LAKE GROVE, NY — Wegmans opened in Lake Grove — its first store on Long Island — on Wednesday morning to much fanfare.

Thousands of Long Islanders flocked to the store on its opening day; some experiencing Wegmans for the first time and some even getting to experience nostalgia.

The food market, located at 3270 Middle Country Road, will operate regularly from 6 a.m. to midnight — it opened at 9 a.m. for its debut. The store is 100,000 square-feet.

Linda Sbarra moved from Rochester — where Wegmans is headquartered — to Port Jefferson and said she grew up going to Wegmans. Sbarra wasted no time visiting the Lake Grove store.

"I'm so excited. I'm so excited," Sbarra told Patch. "It's great. It's amazing. A piece of Rochester, a piece of home. We've been waiting for it, so it's nice."

Sbarra said Wegmans has "everything and anything you could want."

"[It's] big, clean, has friendly people," she said. "It's really nice. It's just great. I'm so excited to go around and see everything."

Wegmans of Lake Grove will offer an abundant selection of ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat restaurant foods prepared by Executive Chef Nick Lizo and his culinary staff. Food options include everything from fresh sushi, pizza, and wings, to hot soup, freshly made salads, and sandwiches.

Customers can enjoy Asian-inspired cuisine, a self-serve coffee station featuring Wegmans’ signature coffee, hot cocoa, and espresso drinks, and packaged, ready-to-go entrees and sides.

People can fill a box with hot, ready-to-eat food, pay for it at a register, and take their meal over to the nearby dining area. The price depends on how much one's box of food weighs.

The seafood department features fish sourced daily from fishing families on the East Coast, across the country, and around the world.

The store also features a produce section with hundreds of different fruits and vegetables, including many organic choices, and a cheese shop that has specialty and artisan cheeses produced domestically or imported from around the world.

Matt Warshaw, a personal trainer at the Crunch Fitness located in the same shopping center as Wegmans, said the protein and vegetable selection at the new supermarket is "great."

"To be able to train [at Crunch Fitness] and come here for the healthy options of food is something; we all look forward to coming here," he said. "We're really happy to have them in the community."

Eating healthy is an important part of fitness. Warshaw said the meats offered at Wegmans all look "so fresh" and "fantastic."

"With the healthy options, you have real chicken, the cuts of steak, the cuts of turkey," he said. "Everything they have here, in terms of looking to eat healthy, they have it all, which I think is spectacular."

Warshaw and fellow Crunch Fitness members staff checked out the cafeteria that Wegmans offers.

"It caters to my diet and offers an array of healthy options, so you're not pigeonholed into getting one thing," he said. "I think it gives people a great selection of what they need to have a great diet."

Warshaw, a "big sushi guy," said he plans to eat sashimi offered at the Wegmans market.

"The good protein from the fish; I think that's going to be my go-to any day of the week."

Carmine Spinelli said the new store offers a "huge selection" with a lot of prepared foods that he did not realize was offered. Spinelli had shopped at a competing supermarket before going to Wegmans for the first time on Wednesday, but he said he thinks he will shop at Wegmans instead now.

"It's a one-stop shop. You can get everything," said Spinelli, a resident of Ronkonkoma. "I think there's the same, if not, more [variety] here, and the pricing seems to be better here."

Spinelli said the selection offered at the cafeteria is "overwhelming, but in a good way."

"I'm just happy to be here."

Melissa Messina said Wegmans is "very nice" with a "good selection" of varied items. When asked her favorite part of the new supermarket, she said, "the pizza and the cleanliness."

Warshaw said he hopes the Wegmans opening will attract more people to the area.

"It's a beautiful store," he said. "All the workers here have been so welcoming. I just think it's really cool to have this for the community. At Crunch Fitness Lake Grove, it's been emptier a lot here. Being able to see the community flourish with a whole bunch of people coming in here; Wegmans has just done a spectacular job. Over [at Crunch Fitness], we've seen the production of it being built and all the work they put in, so it's cool to see it finally come to fruition."

Wegmans replaced an old Toys"R"Us and Babies"R"Us. An Ashley's Furniture moved to another space in the shopping center to pave the way for Wegmans.

"It's cool to see the community flourish, and we'll hopefully welcome new members into our gym," Warshaw said. "I think it's going to be a really good opportunity, and we're happy to see the community doing really well."

Customers can click here to sign up for Wegmans Shoppers Club and download the Wegmans app, which offers recipes, digital coupons, and the ability to create shopping lists sorted by aisle. The Wegmans website and app also allow customers to complete all their grocery shopping online for curbside pickup or delivery to their door in as little as one hour.

Founded in 1984, the Wegmans Employee Scholarship Program awards tuition assistance to employees who meet specific academic, employment and work-performance criteria. Part-time workers can receive up to $1,500 per year and full-time workers up to $2,200 per year for four years, with no restrictions on the course of study or post-college career path.

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. is a regional supermarket chain with 111 stores located along the East coast. The family company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2016.