Dive Brief:

• Customers of the central New York State grocery chain have lobbied for stores in smaller communities.
• Driving from one small town to another to access any of Nice N' Easy's 81 locations can be challenging in the area, particularly in winter months.
• Nice N' Easy decided to open a much smaller than average store to serve customers in Brewerton, NY. A second small-format store opened a year later, just 22 miles away, in Sylvan Beach, and more may be on the way.

Dive Insight:

We have considerable affection for the small-format grocery, which reminds us of the corner grocery stores of years ago in the cities of the Northeast. Places like those, stocking 1,000 to 1,500 items or so, offered a level of service and familiarity that the supermarket chains could not. 

Still, as Nice N' Easy is the first to admit, mini stores pose some serious management challenges. It may be that in the present era such stores will only work in a particular type of location, like the hard-to-get-around towns of Central New York.