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A beloved Upper West Side grocery store dramatically shut down Monday after inspectors allegedly found the shop crawling with vermin, its staff hawking 7-year-old expired cheese and rats nesting in coolers and boxes of prosciutto, officials said.
The popular Barzini’s was allegedly operating illegally for a week before the closure in a bizarre act of defiance, even though state officials say a dead rat was found under the deli sink, bread was found with gnaw marks and the grain was infested with beetles.
On Tuesday, the allegedly infested store’s manager tried to put a good spin on the stomach-churning situation, as he admitted the shop may have been “neglected” but said they were doing what they could to clean the vile situation.
“It’s been open since 1980. Never once been closed. Even during Hurricane Sandy. 24/7. You see so many shops, they have closed for business around here. We have always stayed open,” said Parviz Abde as he watched an exterminator head into the Broadway and West 91st Street shop.
“It’s been open for so long and maybe we’ve neglected it a bit, but we are hoping to fix it up.”
Barzini’s was served last Wednesday with a court order directing it to close until a hearing at the end of the month after a court found that allowing the store to stay open would result in “immediate and irreparable injury … to the public health, safety and welfare” of its customers.
But the store continued serving customers until Monday night when it garnered publicity for the vile and disturbing inspection findings, witnesses and officials said.
Rats — both dead and alive — were found Jan. 10 strewn across Barzini’s, including one corpse that lay directly beneath the equipment wash sink in the deli, according to a state Department of Agriculture and Markets complaint.
One brood of six kits was allegedly found living in a kitchen cooler, with investigators stating they spotted nesting material piled up in “boxes of pre-packaged prosciutto.” More than 750 specimens of fresh and old rat droppings were also discovered around Barzini’s, according to the complaint.
While it was clear the vermin was living off the produce and goods, the rodents weren’t the only pests found in the store — grain beetles had infested the boxed pasta and cockroaches were found scurrying on the cutting boards in the kitchen, the lawsuit alleged.
Additionally, Barzini’s was accused of harboring foods with expiration dates as old as 2018, including a putrid and molding 51.5 pounds of Brie Cheese.
It’s not the first time Barzini’s had a brush up with the law — the grocery store was slapped with three violations for price gauging at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the city’s Consumer and Worker Protection office confirmed.
Shockingly, the deplorable conditions did little to stop locals looking to get their grocery shopping done on Tuesday.
“The neighborhood needs this store. There’s not enough of them around. They have tremendous variety. They have everything there,” Stan Green, 78, who has lived on the Upper West Side for 20 years, told The Post after he was turned away when he tried to buy his lunch.
The longtime patron claims he never saw the piles of rat droppings or crawling cockroaches, but wouldn’t have been deterred from frequenting the mom-and-pop.
“I never saw any of that. I’ve been buying their cold cuts for years and I’m still here! I really hope they clean that place up. The neighborhood needs it.”
For some, the revolting conditions were something of an open secret in the neighborhood, but one they were willing to put up with.
One customer, who asked to not be named, didn’t know the extent of the vermin invasion, but had seen mice inside the store in the past.
“Oh, wow,” he said when The Post relayed the news. “It’s a nice convenient spot. I’ve never bought anything expired, but I certainly will look twice.”
Only one Upper West Sider who talked with The Post on Tuesday admitted that the nauseating history was enough to deter him from entering the store.
“Expired food, moldy cheese, rats — you name it. You see things and you wonder how long they’ve been there,” the resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
“It’s a neighborhood spot and you want to support it. But I generally just walk to the Key Food down the block.”
Councilmember Gale Brewer called for the inspection earlier this month after numerous locals lodged complaints about rats running rampant inside the Barzini’s — and glue traps being placed on top of produce.
One such person was a friend, who told Brewer she picked up a loaf of bread from the shop only to find it was covered with rodent gnaw marks.
“It’s going to take a massive amount of cleanup. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to be honest with you,” the Democrat told The Post.
“From the basement to the upstairs — it’s almost three floors — have to be completely revamped.”
Brewer confirmed that the store was operating Monday, with one customer shopping when she stopped in for a surprise visit, but that it had finally relented to shut down orders on Tuesday.
Abde, the store manager, said efforts to re-open legally were underway and that exterminators have already laid about 100 traps in the basement.
— Additional reporting by Matthew Sedacca
English (US)