Grace’s Marketplace, the European-style neighborhood market in New York City, is offering online delivery through Mercato, the online grocery e-commerce platform for independently owned grocery and specialty food stores.
Grace’s Marketplace, which located on New York’s Upper East Side, with a second location in Greenvale, New York, will offer same-day delivery of globally sourced gourmet products, fresh produce, premium seafood and meats, party trays, and 150 prepared recipes handed down through the Doria family. The Dorias have been in the grocery business since 1916, when Louis Balducci, the family patriarch, founded Balducci’s Produce Market. Grace Balducci Doria, her husband Joe, and her father Louis Balducci were the first family in New York City to introduce what is known today as the modern grocery market with produce, pantry staples, butcher and fish shop in one store location.
Grace’s Doria’s grandson, Daniel Soares, says that going online is a natural progression for the market.
“It’s central to our history to find new ways to provide New Yorkers with our carefully curated menu of old-world style ingredients and recipes. We found that large providers such as Instacart and Amazon weren’t the right fit for the Grace’s Marketplace brand, which has always focused on high-touch customer service and same-day freshness.”
“We were looking for an online partner that cared about quality and service as much as we did, and also provided the e-commerce tools we needed to offer delivery of prepared foods and our vast inventory of hard-to-find, curated items. Mercato checked all the boxes,” says Soares.
New Yorkers can elect to visit Mercato.com for on-demand, same-day delivery from Grace’s Marketplace and hundreds of other merchants in their area, or they can sign up for one of Mercato’s two Mercato Green membership plans for a deep discount on unlimited, same-day deliveries from their favorite neighborhood grocers. Mercato’s Neighborhood plan covers deliveries up to three miles from the store and is $8/month or $96/year, and the City plan covers up to 10 miles and is $19/month or $228/year.
“This business is close to my heart because I grew up helping out in my dad’s small grocery store in Brooklyn,” says Mercato Founder and CEO Bobby Brannigan.
