Aldi Grocery Chain Slated to Open Within Weeks

The area's newest grocery store will likely open April 5, according to an employee at the store who declined to provide a name.

A spokeswoman for Aldi, which bills itself as a discount grocery store, .

Aldi, short for Albrecht Discount, will occupy the 19,000-square-foot location formerly home to Circuit City, Long Island Business News reported in November. The grocery chain was established in 1913, opened its first U.S. store in Iowa in 1976, and has expanded to own more than 1,000 locations in 31 states. Originally founded by members of the same family that launched Trader Joe's, the two companies are operated independently of one another.

An Aldi regional director told New York Times last March: "There is a little bit of an education that comes along with shopping the store." NYT also reported that the grocer has inched ahead of the competition particularly in urban areas, as better-known retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target have often come up against fierce opposition. According to that article, Aldi is the eighth largest retailer in the world behind Costco but ahead of Home Depot and Target.

The store sells its own exclusive brand, not unlike Trader Joe's, and encourages the use of reusable shopping bags by charging for them. Using a shopping cart requires a 25-cent deposit returnable when the customer returns the shopping cart to its original location.

Aldi's only other Long Island location is in Bay Shore, though a spokesman for the real estate company that represents the shopping center told LIBN that the supermarket has plans to open 12 more stores in Nassau and Suffolk.

Editor's Note: This article has been corrected to clarify the company's parent origins.