THE RACE TO DELIVER
How new grocery delivery apps are
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
This is the fourth story in
amNewYork Metro’s five-part
series examining the proliferation
of grocery delivery services
across the city — and the impact
they’re having on residents
and brick-and-mortar business
owners alike.
New quick-commerce
grocery delivery companies
sweeping New York City have
several things in common:
they’re all app-based, their
couriers primarily travel on
electric bicycles and scooters,
and their goal is to get customers
their groceries within 20
minutes.
The speed of delivery is the
backbone of their business
model, and they accomplish
it with “dark stores,” microwarehouses
stocked goods
and groceries and placed in
their target neighborhoods.
Each dark store serves about
one square mile, on average
— about an eight-minute ride
from the warehouse to the
edge of the delivery zone.
All launched in New York
City in the past year, apps like
JOKR, Gorillas, Buyk, and
Fridge No More have expanded
rapidly, and they’re not
done yet — JOKR started up in
June with only four warehouses
and plan to operate 20 by the
end of the year, and Buyk recently
announced their expansion
into Brooklyn, Queens,
and the Bronx, doubling their
number of dark stores to 20
and making them the first of
the companies with a presence
in the northernmost borough.
At the heart of this rapid
expansion is real estate. Any
retail business needs space,
whether it’s a warehouse or
a storefront, and finding an
empty space that checks all
the boxes and won’t break the
bank is a challenge in the city,
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.22 COM | NOV. 12 - NOV. 18, 2021
especially in the neighborhoods
occupied by the apps’
target demographics — mostly
young families or professionals
living in well-to-do areas
like Williamsburg and lower
Manhattan.
Alex Beard, a managing director
with Ripco Real Estate,
has worked in commercial
real estate in New York City
for 15 years. Earlier this year,
he started working with Gorillas
as they sought out available
space for their dark stores, including
a ten-year lease in the
former home of a grocery store
on the Lower East Side.
Gorillas is expanding faster
than any other business
he’s seen in his career, he said.
“This is new, as far as speed
of expansion,” he said. “I mean,
Gorillas’ motto is ‘Faster than
you,’ so it’s not surprising
that they’re expanding at the
rate that they’re expanding. I
started working with them in
March of this year, there’s now
16 units in the city, and more
coming, we have leases out.”
The low prices and increasing
popularity of grocery delivery
apps worry the owners
of existing grocery stores and
bodegas. While the pandemic
saw grocery store profits
soar, many bodegas are still
struggling to recover, and one
Brooklyn grocery store owner,
who asked not to be named,
said it’s likely easier for the
apps to expand than it would
be for a brick-and-mortar grocery.
“We’re looking for 60,000
feet minimum,” he said. “I’ve
seen some delivery app pop-up
locations where they’re taking
advantage of empty commercial
spaces in the city as a result
of the pandemic. They’re
putting up these gondolas,
putting limited SKUs, and
they’re off to the races on their
e-bikes.”
Beard said looking for
space for Gorillas isn’t necessarily
easier than looking for a
grocery store or other retailer.
They need 3,000 square feet at
minimum, and “at grade,” or
level with the street — no steps
up or down.
One thing that does work to
their advantage is that they’re
not looking for the most attractive,
easily-accessible location,
since the stores aren’t open to
customers.
“We just need to be in ‘A’
markets, not necessarily at ‘A’
locations in those markets,”
he said. “So we prefer side
streets.”
Many landlords are worried
about the prospect of delivery
workers milling around
outside the store, he said, but
he hasn’t found that to be a
problem — Gorillas employees
aren’t gig workers like Uber
Eats or Doordash employees,
and the dark stores do have
The warehouse window display of the Gorillas grocery delivery service in Chinatown, which promises to deliver within 10 minutes. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann