Grocery Shop Like A New Yorker For Efficiency And Freshness

Every rumor you've ever heard about New York City is true. Our streets are patrolled by ninja turtles. The Empire State Building is for lovers. There shall, indeed, be no sleep until Brooklyn. Plus, our kitchens are typically pretty small. But, characteristic of our municipal grit, we manage to flip that last fact from annoyance to advantage. And whether you're working with an enviable Nancy Meyers double island blueprint or a more realistically petite, Gotham-esque affair, these NYC-inspired food shopping tips can inform your own approach no matter where you live and save you from some common grocery shopping mistakes.

The primary grocery shopping tenets for most New York City tenants are geographical convenience, speed, and physical ease. That means that, as romantic as separate trips to the butcher shop, bakery, seafood market, and cheesemonger may seem, hardly anybody has time for all that. Pick the largest operation with the most options closest to your home and stick with it. New York City is blessed with an abundance of those smaller, frankly superior independent spots, but for weekly utilitarian shopping trips, we somewhat grudgingly frequent the larger, more corporate types.

Next, knowing your grocery store's layout should help you get the heck out of there in a New York minute. Memorize the aisles not just by category, but pinpoint the exact shelves where your particular picks are stocked. This also cuts down on browsing to assist with the most critical NYC grocery shopping requirement for ensuring efficiency and freshness: moderation.

Aside from larger families, car-owning bulk buyers, and the infrequent months-ahead meal preppers, most New Yorkers will only grocery shop for what they can somewhat comfortably carry home. Even with the assistance of a portable personal shopping cart, like Clax's famous folding trolley, that's only going to amount to about a week's worth of goods for the citywide average household size of 2.56 people (via U.S. Census Bureau). And what at first might seem like a limitation is actually another asset.

Shopping only for the week means that your produce should stay reasonably fresh for the full duration. (Plucking your perishables from the back of shelves also helps, just be polite about it.) Obvious taste and recipe performance perks aside, this reduces food waste. And it helps keep those miniature kitchens from becoming cluttered. 

To further optimize these methods, it's helpful, though not compulsory, to keep a nicely provisioned pantry. That means replacing items you know you'll use again — oils, spices, dry pasta, and certain must-have canned goods — as they run out, rather than as needed. Between these essential items and your weekly haul, if you can make dinner here, you can make it anywhere.