Balducci

Balducci's was founded as a fruit-and-vegetable stand in Brooklyn in 1915 by a young immigrant from Bari, Italy named Louis "Pop" Balducci. Balducci's quickly acquired an outstanding reputation throughout New York. In 1946, Pop and his son Andy opened their first retail store in Greenwich Village; this expanded, department by department, until they finally opened a new store on 9th Street that would become known as the food mecca in New York. Balducci's merged with Sutton Place Gourmet and Hay Day in 1999. The Greenwich Village store remained in operation until 2003. Sutton Place Gourmet was founded in 1980 by Jeffrey Cohen in a location near American University in Washington, DC. It featured a European-style marketplace, abundant fresh produce, prime meats, freshly caught seafood, and imported dry goods from around the world. At the time, Sutton Place stood out as a revolutionary alternative in a market that was dominated by large, traditional supermarkets. In the 1980s and 1990s, Sutton Place expanded to other locations throughout the DC area, and into the food service business with the opening of the Blue Point Grill restaurant in Alexandria, VA. The first Hay Day Country Farm Market was opened in Westport, CT in 1978. The concept of these stores is evident in their name: small, community-based markets that feature fresh local produce and other homegrown foods. Hay Day was purchased by Sutton Place in 1995. High Noon was the brainchild of Mark Ordan, who had built Fresh Fields natural foods supermarkets into a $150 million company in 5 years before selling it in 1996. Building on his experience, he opened the first High Noon in 1999 as an upscale breakfast-and-lunch restaurant, serving hearty foods made from top quality ingredients. It became part of the Sutton Place family in 2003. In late 2003, all of the stores and restaurants, under the legal entity Sutton Place Group, LLC, were purchased by an investment group led by Bear Stearns Merchant Bank and renamed Balducci's. With these resources and a new management team now in place, the company is poised for dramatic change and growth in the months ahead.