Hell's Kitchen Delivery Center Is Open Illegally, Boro Prez Says

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — At least one rapid grocery-delivery business may be operating illegally in a Hell's Kitchen storefront, according to a new investigation into the controversial sites led by Manhattan's top elected official.

The well-funded startups have expanded rapidly across the city in recent months, promising to deliver groceries to customers' doorstep within 15 minutes via a few clicks on an app or website. To make good on that pledge, the companies have taken over dozens of storefronts and converted them into mini-warehouses known as "dark stores," where workers stock up on groceries before venturing out into the neighborhood on e-bikes.

The trend has prompted concern that the dark stores could lead to "dark cities," threatening to eliminate street commerce and put traditional corner shops out of business. What's more, according to Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, they may be illegal.

Of 22 dark stores that Brewer's office surveyed around Manhattan last weekend, all but four are based in storefronts that were not zoned for warehouses or distribution centers.

That includes a grocery-delivery site in Hell's Kitchen: Gopuff at 323 West 37th St., between Eighth and Ninth avenues — a block whose zoning only allows for more typical commercial uses.

After this story was published, Gopuff responded to several of the borough president's claims, including the contention that the storefront is inaccessible to the public — in fact, customers can enter all of their Manhattan locations, the company said.

Elsewhere in Midtown, a JOKR location on East 25th Street in Kips Bay also violates zoning, Brewer says. Meanwhile, two other Midtown dark stores appear in Brewer's report — a Gorillas near Bryant Park and Dash Market on West 25th Street — but unlike the others, they are on blocks appropriately zoned for warehouses.

"Zoning protections exist so that we have well-balanced streets, neighborhoods, and communities," Brewer said in a statement. "We don't want warehouses and distribution centers next to coffee shops, daycare centers, and bookstores where these dead storefronts attract vandalism, stymie an active street life, and raise quality of life concerns."

JOKR did not respond to a request for comment.

Brewer is not alone in her concern about the businesses' effect on the urban fabric. In an essay this week in Bloomberg's CityLab, two researchers called on cities to "delineate the increasingly fuzzy boundary between stealth micro-fulfillment outposts and the traditional commerce of bodegas."

"If not, our post-pandemic urban future is less likely to be one where we’re on a first-name basis with the neighborhood baker than one where the streets are filled with workers ferrying cilantro for impromptu tacos," they wrote.

In October, Brewer wrote to city and state agencies with a request that they do more to regulate the grocery centers. If no action is taken, Brewer has said, bodegas and neighborhood grocery stores could suffer the same fate as taxis following the explosion of ride-share apps.

This story has been updated with a response from Gopuff.

Have a Midtown news tip? Email reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.