A Japanese grocer is moving into the ground floor of a Lenox Hill building that has drawn plenty of neighborhood attention this year. Sakura Market has signed a lease for the former Goodwill store at 1114 First Avenue, at the corner of East 61st Street, with no opening date yet announced.
The deal was first reported by Patch, which described the new space as including 3,700 square feet on the ground floor plus a 2,700-square-foot lower level. Sakura Market is billed as a Japanese supermarket and grab-and-go dining option, and it already runs two Manhattan locations — one at Park Avenue and East 32nd Street, and another at Third Avenue and East 23rd Street, per the outlet's report.
At its existing stores, Sakura stocks fresh sushi and onigiri, Japanese snacks and drinks, and pantry basics, according to East Side Feed. The same outlet notes that no opening date has been set for the Lenox Hill location, leaving the timeline for the grocer's build-out unclear for now.
A Building With a Contentious Recent History
The storefront sits beneath a homeless shelter serving single women, which quietly opened in June after months of fighting, the publication reports. As Upper East Site has reported, that shelter has been described as troubled amid the debate that preceded its opening, and the Goodwill store closing beneath it will do so permanently.
The Goodwill location itself appears in the organization's own store directory as permanently closed, though that listing comes from a brief search-result snippet rather than a detailed statement. Sakura Market's arrival would put a retail tenant back into a storefront that has largely been defined, in recent coverage, by the fight over what happens upstairs rather than what's sold downstairs.
Part of a Broader Japanese Grocery Push on the East Side
Sakura's lease is not the only Japanese grocery news on the Upper East Side this year. East Side Feed has also reported that Hashi Market signed a lease for a 3,700-square-foot store at 1801 Second Avenue, at East 93rd Street, expected to open later that year — the chain's sixth New York City location and its first on the Upper East Side.
Hashi Market describes its format as a hybrid concept combining a fresh-food supermarket, mini department store, and catering service, according to the outlet's earlier report. Between that planned Second Avenue store and Sakura's move into the old Goodwill space, the neighborhood is shaping up to get two new entries in the Japanese grocery space within the same stretch of the Upper East Side, even as neither company has detailed a firm opening date.
