Schmidt's Market Will Close After 43 Years in Business

“It’s been a year of hell.”

That’s how Dan Schmidt describes what it’s been like trying to run Schmidt’s Market in Southampton Village for the past several months.

In January of this year, the McLaren family, which owns the building and the property on North Sea Road, across from the post office, informed Dan and his father, Dennis Schmidt, that they were putting the property on the market. By July 4 weekend, there was a “For Sale by Owner” sign out front.

Every day there were questions, practically nonstop, from customer after customer, who wanted to know what was going on, if Schmidt’s was going to leave and when — and, most importantly, why?

The frustration for both father and son came not only from having to field the same question over and over — and knowing their employees at the cash register were forced to do the same — but more from the fact that they didn’t have any answers.

And now they’re facing a situation that, for them, is nearly a worst-case scenario.

After 43 years in business in Southampton Village, Schmidt’s Market will close its doors on October 21. The current lease expired on October 1, and Dennis Schmidt said the owners of the building told them they had until December 1 to move out. They will need the time between October 21 and then to pack up and remove all the food and equipment from the building.

Multiple calls made to the number listed on the for sale sign were not returned.

Dennis Schmidt said the reason they’re leaving is simple: The asking price of $8 million is too much for them to afford to buy it themselves.

While Dennis, at age 69, is ready to retire, it’s a different story for his son, Dan. Dan is only 43 and has three children, ages 18, 15 and 12. He has been working alongside his father in the business for decades, with the plan to fully take over and continue running the business when his dad retires.

A number of factors have been making things tough for the Schmidt family over the last several years, but the situation with the property owner has been at the top of the list, they say.

The lease that expired at the start of this month was an 18-month agreement that came with a 20 percent price increase, meaning the family has been paying more than $30,000 per month in rent. It’s been years of steadily increasing rent prices, they say.

Complicating matters is that the “retail pie has been shrinking” in recent years, according to Dennis. The arrival of Citarella in the village several years ago cut his business “in half,” he said, and he added that the advent of online shopping also halved the number of house accounts the business used to have. The proliferation of farmers markets and food trucks in the area have been another factor.

“We haven’t turned a profit in 10 years,” he said. “We make our salary, but that’s it.”

Dennis and Dan have been on the lookout for another location to reopen the business, but nothing is set in stone yet, they said, adding that locations from Westhampton Beach to East Hampton are on the table, although Dan said he doesn’t want to sit in traffic driving back and forth to work from his home in Hampton Bays.

Dan’s siblings also work at the market: his younger brother, Zach, is a chef there, and his older brother, Dennis, works there part time and also is a real estate agent.

The uncertainty of where they will end up and how long it will take before they’re back in business again is unsettling, Dan said, and it is clear it has taken a toll on him emotionally. The pressure of knowing that he needs to support his own family is one aspect of it, and he’s also worried about the longtime employees who will soon no longer have a job.

It’s the kind of stress that has made him sick, literally — he mentioned throwing up in the mornings before work, and waking up in the middle of night thinking about where they will go, and what will happen to his loyal employees.

“Half the people here are the same age as me,” he said. “We all got into it together at the same time. I still can’t even believe that it’s happening. Starting over at 43 is not what I wanted to do. I didn’t anticipate this.”

Dennis opened his business 43 years ago, seizing on an opportunity — the fact that there was no produce business in the area at that time. For the first 10 years, he operated out of the building that now houses Stop & Shop, and then, in 1990, he signed a five-year lease with an additional five-year option for the building they’re currently in.

Right at the same time he was starting a family, he started a business — and it became a booming one. He remembers wholesaling produce to several restaurants, with more and more calling and asking him for fresh produce every day. He would regularly drive back and forth to Hunts Point in the Bronx, pulling all-nighters to source fruits and vegetables. He’d arrive home at 5 a.m., sleep for a few hours, and head into work before doing it all over again.

Dennis said he had a good relationship with the original landlord, but after he died and his five children assumed control, it deteriorated.

“The thing we don’t understand is why they won’t communicate with us,” Dennis said, adding that other friends and longtime customers have shared with him that when they call the number listed on the “for sale” sign, no one answers or returns calls.

Dan said he tried three years ago to reach a new long-term agreement with two of the siblings who own the property and building, but it went nowhere. He pointed out that he and his father worked hard to fix up the building after there was a fire there in 2016, and that they put $175,000 of their own money into the restoration effort, in addition to the insurance money.

During the time the market was closed to make the necessary repairs after the fire, Dan said he continued to pay all of his employees. Now he’s worried about what the future will hold for them after October 21. He said he’s always tried to do right by both his longtime employees, and the customers who live and work in the village who have been coming to Schmidt’s for two generations.

“I didn’t raise prices because I’m the local guy,” he said. “I wanted to be the guy that people could come to and get the right price.”

He said the parking lot in the morning — filled with the cars of local contractors, teachers, Village Police officers — tells the story. “They come here because this is where you can get a $6 egg sandwich,” he said, saying his longtime employees are friendly and familiar faces as well. “They’ll come here because of who I am and what these beautiful people did here.”

Whether or not those longtime customers will be able to get their morning coffee, fresh produce, and other products from Schmidt’s in a new location soon remains to be seen.

“It’s very scary, and it’s emotional,” Dan said, pausing to compose himself. “I wish we had more time to find a new location. After 35 years, we’ve been thrown out, with no explanation, not even a peep.”