After 35 Years in Bushwick, Fat Albert is Alive and Expanding, and No Starbucks Will Change That

Katarina Hybenova

@kamelka

The news that the Seattle coffee giant Starbucks plans to open a location on Bushwick and Bed-Stuy border took the neighborhood by emotional storm.

For a good while it seemed that everybody was talking only about Starbucks and what it means to have it open on Broadway. People have been also speculating about the future of Fat Albert, a beloved dollar store that has been serving its community for 35 years, from a former bank building at 774 Broadway.

Several publications have even written that Fat Albert is closing, but rest assured, it is not true, and Fat Albert keeps its door open. 

We caught up with Fat Albert representatives to clear up any confusion and questions you might have, and are happy to announce that Fat Albert is happy to sell you anything from toothpaste to ironing board, all the while keeping their famously low prices. Furthermore, they are expanding and soon will offer a vast array of affordable furniture.

The store remains located in the same building, on 774 Broadway, only its entrance has moved a couple of steps further. The space has shrunk to about half of its previous size but the company hasn’t eliminated any products; they only brought them closer together, even though some of the regular shoppers were not exactly thrilled about this change.

“Before it was better,” told us Belkyn Rosario who lives in the area and Fat Albert is her frequent shopping destination.

“People used to love to endlessly walk among the isles,” told us a Fat Albert rep. “Now it’s smaller, but the same.”

Even if currently smaller, Fat Albert believes that the expansion they have in works will bring smiles back on the faces of their regulars. Once they complete the construction of an elevator, they will open a furniture section in the basement of the building. The elevator will allow even their less mobile customers to shop at Fat Albert without unnecessary boundaries. The furniture will encompass everything you might have ever wanted but couldn’t afford, in the truest Fat Albert fashion. 

If you walk by 774 Broadway these days, you’ll observe that there is a lot going on. With the Fat Albert’s expansion, the new (and gorgeous) BKLYN Commons office and co-working space around the corner, and new tenants such as Starbucks coming in, the owners of the building couldn’t be busier. But rest assured, people behind Fat Albert own their building and are not going anywhere anytime soon.

All photos by Katarina Hybenova for Bushwick Daily.