Garden of Eden

This place is my go-​to for an on the go lunch. Good produce, clean store, great neighborhood find.

This is my go-​to in this neighborhood, primarily because it has fresh fruit and vegetables and a 10% student discount. Though to be honest, most of the grocery stores /​delis around here are kind of scary, so this just stands out slightly.

If you didn’t see the news — out of 900 supermarkets/​delis in all of NYC, 18 places had 20 or more health code violations. This was one of them:
. Beware.

There are several things I like about this store.
1. 10% student discount. I shopped many times before I knew it. What a shame!
2. Half price food bar after 8pm. Their salad bar is great. Good selections of salad, pasta and some cold deli. Eggplants, roasted potato, crab meat, pasta with tuna… Also most of them taste good.
3. Good price on some goods. This place has expensive non-​perishable goods, but I found some fruits are cheaper than westside, like gala apple and watermelon.
Overall a good grocery, with less customers and a pleasant environment.

You can find here decent buffalo mozzarella. make sure to verify the date reported on the box (best before)!
Overpriced 11.99 $, but worth it.

This place has some of the worst staff I’ve ever come across. Not only that, but there food is much more expensive than competition nearby.
I would steer very clear of shopping here unless you want to encounter rude employees, a very small salad bar, and limited hot bar items!

Small, specialty items.
No brand names which is fine, just as long as you know what you are looking for. Pricey, but convenient.
The workers are not that friendly, the deli guy didn’t change his gloves between sandwiches or touching handles, phones etc.
Has interesting items, juices, cookies etc you might not find other places. They don’t sell beer.
I usually only come here for coffee or last minute items. I prefer Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s or Fairway.

Prices are generally cheaper than Westside Market, although it’s smaller so there’s less options. That said, who can argue with a half rotisserie chicken for 3 bucks?

I lived on the same block as this market for about 2 years and it was never stellar. Sometimes it smelled funky, fruits and veggies were never really fresh, and the prices were pretty high. The cashiers were always slow and usually seemed more interested in the conversation they were having with each other, even when there were big lines. Even with the convenience of living on the same block as this store, we almost never went there, other than in a pinch.

The store looks good, but I purchased food from the deli last night, specifically a «Brazilian chicken salad.» As I was eating leftovers today, I bit into a large hunk of chicken and realized that the center was completely RAW. Not just pink: raw, as in not cooked at all. Wondering now how much of what I ate last night was raw without me noticing. Ridiculous that I can’t rely on a gourmet supermarket deli not to give me food poisoning.

I LOVE this Garden of Eden. Their breakfast special (small coffee and chocolate croissant for $ 2) is the best deal in NYC.

Pros
Good selection of fresh fruit and produce
Decent selection of items in most categories
Close to subway station
Cons
Very cramped and obstructive lanes

I was their this last week and i loved the lay of the store, display was awesome and clean, staff was very friendly. Every morning i would go in and get my early morning breakfast! 11÷1−7÷2013 Thanks big time!

This. place. is. great!
Garden of Eden has the convenience of a corner store, but the gourmet products that place it up there with any upscale market. It’s easy to get in and out if you need to, although there are enough goodies to make you spend some time perusing the aisles.
The produce is great, not sure if they have an extensive organic selection, but I’ve always found whatever I needed. Soups and salads offerings are always good and the salad bar is 50% off after 8. They have also have cheese, salsa and guacamole samples in the store. YUM!
Prices are extremely reasonable for the quality of the products and the quality of experience you are getting.

Garden of Eden is a really great market. I have lived across the street for 4 years and although it has some flaws, I think it is one of the best markets in the neighborhood. Here’s why:
Pros:
–They offer discounts — 10% to students, seniors, and residents of their building.
–They are less expensive than West Side Market! It’s true — I did a one-​to-​one test of 6 identical items on the same day in West Side and G of E and G of E won on all 6. G of E, however, carries some higher end brands so they can get pricey, but for say Friendship Cottage Cheese or champagne mangoes they prove to be generally less.
–They carry «gourmet» items, so you get the feeling that items had to pass a quality test in order to be in G of E. No cheez-​its or cooler ranch doritos (although they do usually have frosted flakes), but think more imported dried pasta, ostrich eggs, haricot verts, etc. If you’re looking for a «suburban» market head to D’Agostinos.
–They carry the freshest fish north of Citarella in my opinion, although the selection is not very expansive. The fish guy (sorry, don’t know his name) is very knowledgeable and willing to share his expertise.
–The line is usually short and the store usually not as crowded as West Side.
–The coffee and bakery are very good, and they will slice your bread (unlike Silver Moon).
Cons:
–The prepared foods are not very good, and this includes the salad bar.
–The stock is inconsistent. They move things around all the time and don’t carry the same brands on a regular basis. You have to be willing to go with the flow and try something new.
–They don’t sell beer.
I use G of E as my everyday market and really rarely have to fill in with items from other stores.

This is easily the best grocery store in Morningside Heights, and may even be as great as Fairway. The staff are friendly and extremely helpful, and the value is great. As a Columbia student, I get a 10% discount every day, and the salad bar and sushi are 50% off later in the day! Probably one of the neighborhood’s best kept secrets. I highly recommend shopping here.
Oh, and P. S., the cheese samples that they always have out for you to try are awesome. Especially since I often seem to grocery shop while hungry…

They are a gourmet store but seem to be lacking in some very obvious staples. It’s good to come here for specific things, but it seems inconvenient for every day shopping. I was looking to restock on breakfast fixins and they didn’t have packaged ham and cheese. I instead got cheese and ham sliced fresh, which is usually good, but it was sliced way too thin, and due to its freshly sliced nature the slices aren’t separated by pieces of paper. Not only that, they only had Tropicana OJ and Simply Orange (which isn’t simply orange, to me…)
Seems counterintuitive to pursue a packaged product in favor of a fresh product, but in this case it makes a lot of sense for my situation, IMHO.
The produce didn’t look that amazing either. It seems that maybe you want to come here for their deli, oils, sauces, etc. It is not a great general purpose grocery store and maybe they should refocus their offerings.

This place makes me a little impatient. It’s got the tiniest aisles but the yummiest looking food. I don’t do my main, weekly grocery shopping here because of the prices. However, it’s a nice place to get a treat.
Gotta also mention that not everyone who works here is nice. I got snapped out by a cashier who «was closed» but standing in the cashier spot, checking out her nails. Okay…
But still, overall, another one of those gourmet grocery stores on UWS!

GoE is still awesome. But they also have a 10% discount for Columbia students *and* the salad bar goes 50% off after 7:30. Thank you for feeding the children.
Note: The salad bar selection is pretty hit or miss depending on what they serve throughout the day. Sometimes the leaves look wilted or someone will have picked out the nuts from certain salads, but at $ 3.50/lb its hard to mess up completely. I would avoid it if you have a nut allergy since people swap serving utensils. And I’ve always felt like throwing up after eating the mozarella. Maybe not so fresh after sitting out all day…

Overpriced on a regular basis, but they’ve got some good deals after 7:30(ish) on weekdays. And their stuff is always fresh, which is far more than can be said at pretty much all the other supermarkets around the neighborhood. They also have some of the most random obscure things that you will not find in any of the other supermarkets.
Margot G. and I were at the gym earlier this evening and decided to stop by Garden of Eden for salad stuff. I had a huge craving for Twizzlers earlier on the bus, so I grabbed those at DR before heading into Garden of Eden. I spotted the sushi bar about 10 feet from the entrance after walking in, and what’s this? $ 2 off any sushi pack after 7 pm? Yes please! For $ 4.95 I received a fresh pack of 8 California rolls. A gigantic Caesar’s salad and package of grapes later, and we were sitting at $ 16. Like I said, some things are a good deal and some things are not.
So, sushi and Twizzlers in hand (post-​gym dinner of champions?), we headed home and I must say the sushi was some of the best that I’ve had in the area. Far superior to Suma Sushi in the same neighborhood. It was fresh and did not taste like it had been sitting in the cooler all day. I’m a fan. Now whenever I have a post-​gym craving for sushi, I know where to go! I’ll just remember to keep my purchases limited in here since it racks up quickly!