A new but familiar store has joined the business community in Long Beach that still reels from Hurricane Sandy.
The Barn has replaced the Dairy Barn, a drive-through convenience store, at 375 W. Park Ave., having opened their sliding doors and driveways Feb. 21. Aegina Angeliades and her family purchased 25 Dairy Barn chain stores across Long Island the past 12 months, the latest in Freeport and Long Beach.
“Before the storm we had decided we wanted to buy a few of them, and we didn’t deviate from that plan,” Angeliades said. “We had always intended to buy Long Beach and to buy it now.”
The Barn aims to distinguish itself in number of ways. As Angeliades explains it, the Dairy Barn concept allows pajama-wearing people to get in their cars and drive through their stores, instead of them having to get dressed to walk into a supermarket. Otherwise, it’s generally a store where people can stop quickly on their way home from work for staple groceries such as milk and bread. The Barn aims to be this and more.
The Barn brings in a line of organic and soy milks, as well as organic eggs. The store will also serve freshly ground Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee each morning and has added a variety of on-the-go snacks and meals: croissants, muffins, oatmeal in a cup, and Chobani, a Greek flavored yogurt.
“We saw the opportunity to have a place to go to grab something while you’re out and about, with more on-the-go, spot needs as well,” Angeliades said. “We want to be that place to get a good cup of coffee in the morning without having to get out of the car.”
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While The Barn continues to stock Doritos, Entenmann’s, Häagen-Dazs and other popular items, it also offers healthier alternatives such as almonds, Special K protein bars and Pirate’s Booty, a gluten-free popcorn, as well as Skinny Cow ice cream, Honest Kids juices and Stacy’s chips.
“We wanted to expand on the on-the-go options, a healthier version of potato chips,” Angeliades said.
One of the Dairy Barn’s big-sale items are cigarettes, and the Barn, too, stocks smokes, but also sells electronic cigarettes. Angeliades is already anticipating that a law may someday be passed that would ban smoking with children under 14 in a car. “It’s for people with kids in the car, or if they just want to quit,” she said.
The biggest seller at the Park Avenue store, so far, is Oak Tree iced tea. “It goes like crazy in Long Beach, for some reason,” said Dina Marchetta, a district manager for The Barn.
The Barn in Long Beach is open every day of the year, 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. weekends. Angeliades expects, though, that during the srping and summer months the store will extend nighttime hours to midnight or later.
A Long Island City resident, Angeliades is more than familiar with Long Beach. She grew up in Manhasset and frequented the city’s beaches each summer. Now she finds her staff wants to frequent the beachtown store. “I’ve never had so many volunteers for covering shifts here,” she said.
Her priority, she noted, is to hire a friendly staff, and she’s rehired employees from the former Dairy Barn store.
“It’s a fun community,” Marchetta said about working in Long Beach. “It’s a laid back town.”
The Barn building escaped significant damage in the hurricane, and as part of joining the storm-battered community, Angeliades and her vendors plan to do more for their customers there, possibly by offering free coffee, Snapple or Coke over a weekend, or something on that scale.
“We’re going to definitely try to do something in that way,” she said.
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