If the socialist vision of Zohran Mamdani becomes reality, New York City could soon find itself in the grocery business—and on the hook for hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies each year. After winning the Democratic primary in a stunning upset over former governor Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani is poised to advance his plan for government-run supermarkets, a campaign promise critics say could turn into an expensive fiasco for the taxpayers.
Billionaire grocer John Catsimatidis, owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain, has already issued a dire ultimatum: if Mamdani socializes the food business, he will shut down his stores and potentially relocate his corporate headquarters out of the city.
“We can’t compete with Mamdani opening city-run supermarkets for free,” Catsimatidis said on his Red Apple radio show. “If New York is going socialist, we’re out.” A former candidate for mayor himself, he built a grocery, energy, and real estate empire after immigrating from Greece when he was six.
At the heart of the controversy is Mamdani’s proposal to establish a network of city-run grocery stores aimed at ending so-called “food apartheid” in low-income neighborhoods. But critics say the math simply doesn’t work, and New Yorkers will end up paying the price.
A financial analysis conducted by Artificial Intelligence using conservative assumptions projects shows that running just 100 government-owned stores would cost the city an estimated $262.5 million annually, with only about 70% of that covered by sales. That would pile $78.75 million in yearly subsidies on the backs of the taxpayers. Expand that system to 200 stores, and the yearly taxpayer bill jumps to over $157 million, not including startup costs such as leasing, outfitting, or renovating retail space.
“The numbers are frightening,” one economist familiar with municipal budgets said. “New York is already drowning in obligations—pension debt, infrastructure, rising crime, illegal immigration costs—and now it’s going to sell bananas at a loss?”
The idea of public grocery stores isn’t new, and neither is its track record. Los Angeles and Philadelphia have dabbled in municipal food markets, only to see them collapse under ballooning costs, mismanagement, and limited community interest.
In Europe, state-backed supermarkets have been phased out or privatized. And in Venezuela, a once-ambitious public food network degenerated into rationing, corruption, and chronic shortages.
“These socialist experiments always sound noble,” said one retail analyst. “But without profit incentives or accountability, they collapse under their own weight.”
Government-run food chains would also create a massive new bureaucracy, with procurement, transportation, labor contracts, and distribution all ripe for waste, fraud, and political abuse.
“Once you build a $500 million-a-year food system funded by taxpayers,” warned a former NYC Comptroller staffer, “it becomes a piggy bank for the politically connected. Who’s going to get the trucking contracts? Who decides which neighborhoods get the stores? It’s a corruption trap.”
Mamdani’s plan could also devastate existing shops, bodegas, and independent grocers already struggling to compete with inflation and rising theft. If publicly subsidized stores take over the market with artificially low prices, private competitors will be forced to close, taking thousands of union and non-union jobs with them.
“This isn’t about solving food insecurity,” Catsimatidis said. “It’s about crushing the private market and replacing it with a government monopoly.”
Critics argue that Mamdani’s plan reflects a broader pattern: idealistic socialist proposals that implode once confronted with reality. From New York’s failed attempts at public housing maintenance to the city’s ongoing struggles with cost overruns in public works projects, many fear that a publicly run grocery chain will become yet another cautionary tale of government overreach and fiscal irresponsibility.
Though Mamdani will be the Democrat candidate in a heavily Blue city, he still has to get past Republican Curtis Sliwa, who gave the current mayor, Eric Adams, a run for his money four years ago. Adams, along with Cuomo and a few other wannabees, are considering runs as Independents, campaigns that could split the Progressive Democrat ticket and give Sliwa an edge.
As November’s general election looms, the stakes are clear: Will New York embrace Mamdani's radical transformation or pull back before the first taxpayer-subsidized loaf of bread hits the shelf?