Market 360 brings affordable, locally sourced products to New Haven's downtown

The City of New Haven celebrated the grand opening of Market 360 in the city’s downtown on Wednesday. 

Market 360, located at 777 Chapel St., is owned by Connecticut grocers Chris and Kim Choe.

The 20,000-square-foot supermarket will offer a variety of products, sourced from 20 local farms, as well as different international foods.

“This store is here for you and when we have one another, the community becomes stronger,” owner Chris Choe said.

The Choes said they are looking forward to servicing the community and believe healthy, affordable food should be available to everyone and close to their homes.

“They can see international food, and American high-end food too, and also they can see the produce is very fresh,” Kim Choe said.

Market 360 is part of the city’s growing footprint of supermarkets.

Currently, there are four supermarkets in New Haven, including one in Fair Haven, The Hill, and the Amity and Dwight neighborhoods. 

“Its very important that we have as many grocery stores as possible in New Haven, both for families, many of our residents don’t have cars,” New Haven’s Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre said.

Eyzaguirre added Market 360 will serve as a huge anchor for the downtown area.

“We know it's a very tough business for the owners independent or otherwise, it's a very low margin business so they have to work very hard to sell a lot of products to make it, to be successful.” 

Resident Rae Kim, who lives in Wooster Square, said he enjoyed his visit to the new market and checking out all they have to offer.

“The price is actually decent compared to other markets, and the variety is also amazing, there’s a lot of food and different varieties of snacks and noodles and everything,” Kim said.

He said prior to Market 360 opening, he and his family would drive out of the city to go grocery shopping.

“Now we can just walk by -- which is very convenient -- and also we used to order a lot of food online, but now we can just walk by because if you order online, you have to buy a lot of stuff as well so I think this is much better,” Kim said.

Market 360 offers home delivery options and will soon be available on Instacart, UberEats and GrubHub.