Discount grocer Lidl closing its only store in the Hamptons

Lidl wasn’t a good fit for Westhampton Beach, which is why the discount grocer is closing its only store in the Hamptons, a real estate official said.

The store, at 70 Sunset Ave., will close at the end of October, said Cary Staller, president and co-owner of Staller Associates Realty Inc., the Islandia-based firm representing the landlord.

"I think they felt the market really wasn’t right for them. It was sort of this upscale vacation market and it didn’t fit in with their prototype," Staller said.

The 29,118-square-foot Lidl is the largest grocery store in the village of Westhampton Beach, which has several small markets.

Lidl's lease on the store expired in March, and the grocer received an extension to late October, Staller said.

Lidl did not respond to Newsday’s questions about the impending closing, including the number of employees who will be affected.

The retailer's Westhampton Beach space was previously occupied by several other grocers, including a Best Market, and before that, a Waldbaum's supermarket.

Lidl entered the Long Island market in January 2019, when the German retailer’s U.S. arm finalized its purchase from Bethpage-based Best Market of 27 stores, including all 24 on the Island, for an undisclosed price.

Lidl remodeled the former Best Market stores in phases and converted them to the Lidl name. The former Best Market in Westhampton Beach opened as a Lidl in 2021.

Best Market, which opened in the space in 2016, had replaced a Waldbaum's that closed in September 2015, after Waldbaum's parent company, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., better known as A&P, filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2015.

Best Market bought the Waldbaum's store in bankruptcy court for $4 million.

'It wasn’t really what the community wanted'

Lidl is a limited-assortment grocer, which is smaller than a traditional supermarket and carries a high percentage of its own private-label brands.

About 80% of Lidl’s products are its own private-label brands.

"It wasn’t really what the community wanted, I think," Staller said of the grocer’s Westhampton Beach store.

A full-service supermarket will be opening in the Westhampton Beach space that Lidl is vacating, said Staller, who declined to disclose the name of the incoming tenant due to a confidentiality agreement.

There are a few delis and small food markets in Westhampton Beach, including a specialty upscale retailer, Citarella, that opened in May. The Manhattan-based chain has three other markets in the Hamptons.

While the Hamptons are known for drawing wealthy vacationers during the summers, business slowdowns during the other seasons of the year can present challenges for retailers, village Mayor Ralph Urban said Wednesday.

Still, Lidl fulfills food needs for some of the year-round, less "well-off" residents, he said.

“I think it did serve a portion of the community,” he said.

Urban said he reached out to Lidl's corporate office, which is in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday to inquire about the Westhampton Beach store. He was told that the retailer's public relations department would contact him when it had more information to share, he said.

Lidl has about 12,900 stores in 32 countries. In the United States, the chain has more than 200 stores in nine East Coast states.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.