Ask which supermarket is the “best” on Long Island and you’ll start an argument. So we did something different: we pulled the foot-traffic and estimated-sales data on every major grocery banner from Commack to Garden City and let the numbers settle it. The answer turned out to be two answers — because “busiest,” “biggest-selling,” and “most productive” are not the same store. And the single most remarkable finding wasn’t one store at all — it was one shopping corridor that holds two of the strongest.
Data source: every visit count, sales estimate, and per-square-foot figure in this analysis comes from Placer.ai analytics (last full 12 months) — the primary source for all numbers below. Sales figures are Placer’s modeled estimates.
The Busiest: Whole Foods, Garden City
By raw foot traffic, the single busiest supermarket on Long Island is the Whole Foods Market in Garden City, in the Old Country Road retail corridor at the Gallery at Westbury. It draws roughly 1.6 million visits a year — well clear of the field — and it backs that up with the highest total estimated sales on the Island at about $90 million. Premium grocers dominate the top of the list: three of the ten busiest supermarkets are Whole Foods (Garden City, Jericho and Commack), and four are Trader Joe’s (Commack, Garden City, Plainview and Lake Grove).
The Garden City Whole Foods — #1 on Long Island in both foot traffic and total estimated sales (source: Placer.ai).
| # | Store | Town | Visits | Est. Sales | Sales/Sq Ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Whole Foods Market | Garden City (Gallery at Westbury) | 1.6M | $90.3M | $1.6K |
| 2 | Whole Foods Market | Jericho | 1.1M | $65.3M | $1.6K |
| 3 | Trader Joe’s | Commack | 1.1M | $55.3M | $3.4K |
| 4 | Trader Joe’s | Garden City (Gallery at Westbury) | 1.1M | $48.5M | $3.4K |
| 5 | Trader Joe’s | Plainview | 1.0M | $45.9M | $3.8K |
| 6 | Whole Foods Market | Commack | 963K | $56.0M | $1.2K |
| 7 | Stop & Shop | Hicksville | 929K | $46.7M | $800 |
| 8 | Stew Leonard’s | Farmingdale | 896K | n/a | n/a |
| 9 | King Kullen | Garden City Park | 818K | $39.5M | $728 |
| 10 | Trader Joe’s | Lake Grove | 773K | $34.4M | $1.8K |
Ranked by annual visits. Whole Foods Lake Grove (771K) and ShopRite Patchogue (768K) land just outside the top ten at #11 and #12. Sales are Placer.ai estimates; Stew Leonard’s had no sales estimate available.
The Powerhouse: One Corridor, Two Anchors
Here is the finding that should stop any retail landlord cold. The #1 busiest supermarket and the #4 busiest supermarket sit in the same retail corridor — Old Country Road at the Gallery at Westbury in Garden City. The Whole Foods does 1.6 million visits and ~$90M a year; a Trader Joe’s less than a mile away does another 1.1 million visits and ~$48M out of a 14,000-square-foot box, at a blistering 77 visits per square foot. No other stretch of road on Long Island concentrates this much premium-grocery firepower — and it is exactly the kind of trade area that makes the inline space around it some of the most valuable retail on the Island.
Now Add the Dollars: Who Actually Sells the Most
Foot traffic tells you who’s busy. Sales tell you who’s productive — and the two rankings are not the same. By total estimated sales, the big boxes lead: Whole Foods Garden City (~$90M), Whole Foods Jericho (~$65M) and Whole Foods Commack (~$56M) sit on top, the last one out-selling every Trader Joe’s on the list despite fewer visits — that’s the big-box effect of a 47,000-square-foot store.
But flip to the metric a landlord actually underwrites — sales per square foot — and the order inverts hard. Trader Joe’s Plainview leads the Island at about $3,800 per square foot, with Commack and the Gallery at Westbury both around $3,400. That is roughly double Whole Foods (~$1,600/sq ft) and four to five times a conventional grocer — Stop & Shop Hicksville runs about $800 per foot and King Kullen Garden City Park about $728. Trader Joe’s doesn’t win by selling the most in total. It wins by selling the most per foot of rent — the number that prices a lease.
Trader Joe’s Plainview — the most productive supermarket on Long Island by estimated sales per square foot, ~2× Whole Foods and ~5× a conventional grocer (source: Placer.ai).
Where the Giants Land
The conventional names anchor the middle of the list, not the top. Stop & Shop Hicksville (929K visits, ~$47M), King Kullen Garden City Park (818K, ~$40M) and ShopRite Patchogue — one of the largest supermarkets in the entire country — all trail the premium leaders on the per-foot line. The reason is density: Long Island is blanketed with conventional grocers, so dozens split the same daily-needs trade areas. And Stew Leonard’s Farmingdale (896K visits), for all its fame, is a few-times-a-year destination — high on charm, lower on weekly frequency.
The Lesson for Landlords
There is no single “best” supermarket — there’s the best one for your objective. If you want sheer traffic and the biggest top-line sales to lift a whole center, Whole Foods is the magnet. If you want the highest rent coverage and the most sales squeezed from the least space, nothing on Long Island touches Trader Joe’s — which claims four of the ten busiest stores and the top three spots for sales per square foot. Underwriting any of them starts with the same discipline we preach on every grocery deal: judge the tenant on productivity, not on its price image or its store count.
- Primary source — Placer.ai analytics: all visit counts, estimated sales, and per-square-foot figures for Long Island supermarket venues, last full 12 months (Schuckman Realty analysis, June 2026). Sales are Placer modeled estimates.
- Schuckman Realty Inc. grocery-anchor productivity research, 2026.
President & CEO, Schuckman Realty Inc.
Ken Schuckman is President & CEO of Schuckman Realty Inc., a retail-focused commercial real estate brokerage founded by Stanley Schuckman in 1978 in Hicksville, NY. With 30+ years of experience specializing in supermarket-anchored shopping centers, Ken is a CoStar Power Broker and member of X-Team Retail Advisors. SchuckmanRealty.com