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LAKE GROVE, N.Y. — Wegmans held a “sneak peak” for the press as the company was putting the finishing touches on its new store here. The chain will celebrate the grand opening on Wednesday. Located on Middle Country Road, the 101,000-square-foot supermarket is the first Wegmans on Long Island.
“We have been actively hiring and training new employees, and our team is gearing up for opening day,” states store manager Dawn Cooper. “We are excited to open our doors on February 26 to serve the Lake Grove community.”
The new store employs over 500 people in full- and part-time positions.
Wegmans Lake Grove offers all the traditional departments Wegmans customers have come to know and love, including delicious restaurant foods (sushi, pizza, chef-made salads, and sandwiches); an abundant produce department with hundreds of different fruits and vegetables; and a wide variety of seafood, meat, bakery, deli and cheese options. The store has a wide selection of health and beauty products.
The Lake Grove location is said to feature the largest sub sandwich station in the NYC market, according to the company. Other items will include restaurant-style pizza, sushi, sandwiches, salads, and more prototypical deli, seafood and produce sections.
Mandee Puleo, senior public relations coordinator at Wegmans, says a lot of factors went into opening the company’s first location on Long Island. The chain also liked the fact that it is located across from Smith Haven Mall and near Stony Brook University. “We think college students will love our Market Café.”
She adds that the they plan to bring in local foods from Long Island including beer and wine from local breweries and wineries.
“We want to be a good neighbor in every community we serve — working with our customers to help improve lives and make our neighborhoods stronger. We provide such services as Meals 2GO and Cart-to-Curb pickup. We try to meet the needs of the shopper, whether they are here in the store or ordering at home,” says Iliana Tunison, service area assistant store manager. “We also have partnered with Island Harvest and Long Island Care for near-daily food bank donations.”
Tunison was most recently the front-end manager at the Manalapan store before relocating to Long Island to open the Lake Grove store as a service manager. At Lake Grove she will support the front-end manager and leaders efficiently run the front end, service desk, accounting office, maintenance team, helping hands (cart attendants), eCommerce team for Cart-to-Curb/Meals 2GO and will also supervise local community giving.
Dawn Cooper began her career as a bakery department manager in 2004 at the Princeton, New Jersey location. She then served as merchandising manager at the Bridgewater, New Jersey store beginning in 2016 followed by perishable area manager at Cherry Hill in 2020. She relocated to Lake Grove in early 2023 to become store manager for the first Wegmans on Long Island.
“There will be an equal number of full-service and self-checkout registers and plenty of parking. Casanova the Rooster, the company’s mascot, will greet customers at the top of every hour, and there is a designated seating area to enjoy eat-in meals. Each visit, customers can rely on Wegmans’ knowledgeable and caring employees to provide an unparalleled shopping experience,” says Cooper.
The Lake Grove store is the first to open in 2025, followed by locations in Norwalk, Conn., and Rockville, Md., later in the summer.
