![]() ![]() “Ever since this company came, the Key Food, they said ‘No, we don’t want no union people here,’” Montes said. They deserve the same service.”Īs he stood outside on a sultry summer Friday, customers walking out of the store instantly recognized Montes, stopping to talk to him about what they were finding inside the store - and how things are going for Montes with his children and family at home. People need to have something on the table. “Even during these bad times in the pandemic, I was coming. “I try to give all the customers the best of what they deserve,” Montes said. And while he had felt less enthusiastic about some owners and managers, he had formed connections with the community. He and other long-term employees had always moved between owners and managers without a problem, he said. I have worked with all three different companies, and so many managers have come into the store.” “Ever since I came here, I came as a produce manager. “My job there was a produce manager,” Montes said. Throughout that time, he was known as the man behind the vegetables, grown all over the world. Those employees may not be welcomed inside the store anymore, but that hasn’t stopped some of them from making regular visits to the parking lot, protesting what they say was an unlawful - yet successful - attempt at union busting.įrancisco Montes has worked at Key Food for 28 years, starting back when it was known as A&P. And it no longer employed 21 people who just happened to also be members of Local 338 of the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union. It has a new owner - one who refuses to share her name with The Riverdale Press, and refused to comment for this story. And customers were welcome back into a grocery store that, seemingly overnight, transformed from a Key Food to … a Key Food.īut this Key Food was different. It didn’t take two weeks for the store to reopen - just a few days. ![]() Could Garden Gourmet expand its popular Broadway location? Could Trader Joe’s finally set up shop? That led to a lot of community speculation as to what would go in there. Braun Management, Skyview’s landlord, promised a new super market would open within two weeks. Franchise owners Kevin and Jamie Luna would later share how rent had simply become too much.īut it wasn’t forever. Customers showed up that Monday morning to find the doors locked and its inventory cleared out. ![]() The super market did just that on July 6. And at least a few times a year, rumors begin to circulate the Key Food is getting ready to close forever. For years, the Key Food grocery store at the Skyview Shopping Center in North Riverdale has been subject to criticism.Ĭustomers have found an outlet on social media to complain about old food, wet floors and crumbling ceiling tiles on what almost seems like a daily basis. ![]()
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