32 THE QUEENS COURIER • NOVEMBER 11, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
The warehouse window display of the Gorillas grocery delivery service in Chinatown, which promises to deliver within 10 minutes.
How new grocery delivery apps are
BY KIRSTYN
BRENDLEN
editorial
@qns.com
@QNS
Th is is the fi rst
story in Schneps
Media’s fi ve-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 appbased,
their couriers primarily travel on
electric bicycles and scooters, and their
goal is to get customers their groceries
within 20 minutes.
Th e speed of delivery is the backbone
of their business model, and they accomplish
it with “dark stores,” micro-warehouses
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
fi rst 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 fi nding an empty space that
checks all the boxes and won’t break
the bank is a challenge in the city, 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.
“Th is 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.”
Th e low prices and increasing popularity
of grocery delivery apps worry the
owners of existing grocery stores and
bodegas. While the pandemic saw grocery
store profi ts 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-andmortar
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.
Th ey’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. Th ey 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 break rooms
inside where couriers can sit down rather
than waiting for their next order outside.
While Gorillas is certainly well-funded,
they do have a cap on how much
they’re willing to spend on a lease, he
said. Getting started during the pandemic,
when rents were lower, gave the company
time to get a “good foothold,” he
said, and the company was getting established
before the boom of quick-commerce
apps. As they’re just looking for
storage, he said, Gorillas might get a little
more “bang for their buck,” in terms
of what they can fi t in each location, since
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