Greek Migrant Grocery Store Branches Out

The New York Times published an article on Ioannis Zoitas, the Greek migrant from the island of Lefkada, who now has his own grocery store chain, Westside Markets, in New York City.

The 69-year-old opened his first grocery store in 1977 on Broadway, near 110th Street. Today,  he owns five grocery stores in different locations and he is preparing to open a sixth.

In the extensive NYT article about Ioannis Zoitas’ life, it is mentioned that his store on 110th Street sells more than 20,000 products, including almonds, coconuts and organic milk, while customers can choose between 48 varieties of eggs and 250 brands of beer.

Ioannis Zoitas grew up in Lefkada and had a difficult childhood. As he told NYT reporter Kia Gregory, food was scarce back then. “As a boy, he worked the farm of mostly olives and grapes with his father. He recalled how he would close his eyes and smell the tomatoes. He quit school after the sixth grade so that he could work, a circumstance that still stings,” notes the article.

At the age of 26, he left Greece and migrated to the United States where he started working at a small grocery store on 110th Street. In 1977 he bought the business. He paid part of the total amount in advance and promised the previous owner that he would continue to pay in installments. He changed the store’s name to Westside Market and expanded to the bar next door. “People started to eat more quality food and they will spend more for it,” says Zoitas.

Customers can also taste and buy homemade dishes and desserts made by Ioannis’ wife, Maria, who uses her own recipes. “I think it’s good to give something to people, and they like it,” says Maria, who recently started adding ingredients such as quinoa, kale and wheat berries to her recipes.

Ioannis’ son, George, says that the sixth store “is something of a gamble: It will be less convenient to a subway station than the other stores, and it will also be going up against two nearby giants, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.”