Type Subsidiary Founder Louis Balducci Products Specialty Gourmet | Industry Retail Key people Judy Spires (CEO) | |
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Area served Connecticut, New York
Maryland, Virginia Headquarters Bethesda, Maryland, United States Founded 1916, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States Parent organizations Kings Food Markets, Bear Stearns Profiles | ||
Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market is a specialty gourmet food retailer in the United States with six grocery stores. The company headquarters is in Germantown, Maryland.
Contents
History
Balducci's was the first company in New York City to sell premium quality foods with a butcher, fishmonger, delicatessen and greengrocer all in the same store. It became a model for specialty markets all over the city.
In 1999, Balducci Enterprises became a subsidiary of Sutton Place Gourmet, a Maryland-based company. Sales for the combined company were more than $130 million per year.
The flagship store in Greenwich Village closed earlier in January 2003. In November 2003, the company was purchased by an investment group led by Bear Stearns Merchant Banking.
Balducci's after 2005
The new flagship store on Eighth Avenue at 14th Street in Manhattan opened in December 2005. Following its opening, Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union began protesting outside the store against the non-unionized status of employees.
"Right now we are restructuring our company," said Jennifer Barton, Marketing Director with Balducci's LLC. "We had to close some of our under-performing stores."
There are currently six full-service retail stores in Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and New York (Scarsdale). In 2012, Balducci's returned to New York with Balducci's Gourmet on the Go Café in Hearst Tower, which serves prepared meals and soups as well as a gourmet salad and coffee bar. There are four Balducci's Express locations: three in JFK Airport in New York and one at the Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets in Virginia. There is also a Balducci's Gourmet on the Go Café located in the Bloomberg Children's Center in Johns Hopkins Hospital.
In April 2009 Balducci's was sold to Kings Food Markets, a portfolio company of Angelo, Gordon and Co.. The current CEO is Judy Spires.
In fiction
In the popular television sitcom, Will and Grace, the character Will Truman regularly visited the original Greenwich Village store in New York before it was closed in 2003.
In a scene from the movie Fatso, the character Dominick Anthony "Dom" DiNapoli, played by actor Dom DeLuise, visits a weight-loss clinic with a bag of groceries from Balducci's.
In a scene of the movie 25th Hour, the character Montgomery "Monty" Brogan, played by Edward Norton, mentions Balducci's in his soliloquy in front of the mirror.
In Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, set in the 1980s, characters Ned and Felix eat Balducci's Gourmet Ice Cream, which they say cost $18 per pint.
In a scene from the 2006 movie Just My Luck, the character Ashley Albright, played by Lindsay Lohan, brings a bag of Balducci's pastries to work for her friends.
In a scene from the 1998 romantic comedy film The Object of My Affection, characters Sidney Miller (Alan Alda), George Hanson, (Paul Rudd), Nina Borowski (Jennifer Aniston), Constance Miller (Allison Janney), and Vince McBride (John Pankow) gather in the kitchen enjoying gourmet foods from Balducci's at a kitchen table, apparent from the Balducci's paper grocery bags Vince McBride brings to Nina and George's apartment in Brooklyn for dinner.