New owner takes over Katonah food market

Waqas Arif

By JEFF MORRIS 

Long the subject of speculation and rumors, a new food market in Katonah finally became a reality this week.

Village Green Fine Foods and Market officially opened on Tuesday, replacing DeCicco Family Markets. The change will not be obvious to the casual observer for some weeks, as the DeCicco sign will remain on the outside of the store. According to owner Waqas Arif, a new sign was ordered and must gain approval before it can be mounted; he hopes to have it up in about a month.

The store was closed on Monday while a new checkout system was installed. But it was open for business on Tuesday, which Arif referred to as his “first day at work.”

Nine-month delay

The opening was the culmination of a whirlwind of activity that occurred after the sale finally went through. There were delays because of contract issues the previous owner had to resolve before the transfer could take place.

“I was supposed to take over in February of this year,” Arif said, “and then it was May, and then it was June and July. It just dragged on.” Once everything was finalized, it happened quickly. “We had three days to take over,” said Arif. “I mean, it’s funny that it took so long to actually happen, and then suddenly it had to be rushed in that time frame.”

The reason for the rush was that he couldn’t afford to stay closed for any length of time during the lead-up to the holidays — the busiest part of the year.

An advantage of the nine-month delay, Arif said, was that he had a chance to thoroughly research the area and find out what people wanted. 

“I’d go around and talk to people, ‘Hey, what do you think? What needs to improve in this business?’” he said. “And you know, over nine months, I learned a lot. I kind of have an idea of what people are looking for.”

No big changes

During the time since stories started to spread that the market was changing hands, a lot of rumors made the rounds. One of the most pervasive was that employees would be laid off. 

“I don’t know where that rumor came from, because from the beginning I told them I will keep everyone — anyone who wants to stay,” Arif said. “But if somebody wants to leave, I can’t stop them. They were offered a transfer to other DeCicco stores, if they wanted to remain with the company. And all of them refused to transfer. They all wanted to stay with me. I’m very glad that they wanted to stay — that’s wonderful. Now we have a great staff here. The store came with a great crew.”

The changes that will take place are more subtle. Inside, he said he will remove all the DeCicco signs.

“So we’ll just put up new signs, maybe new wallpaper on the walls,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot I can change in there. You know, every department is in its place. It’s not like I can move the kitchen somewhere else. It will just look more modern over time.” 

Arif said the main changes will be improvements in quality.

“A lot of people want better produce,” he said. “And I think the bakery can be improved. My plan was to hire a chef to create new menus for the week. They’re selling the same hot food every week; I want to change that. We’ll have a better menu of hot food to go.”

A long and winding road

In January, Arif moved with his wife and three children from Texas to Katonah, where they are currently renting a house. He is originally from California, while his wife’s family is from Brooklyn.

“We’re going to stay here for the long term,” he said. “This is a place I want to settle down in. I mean, I want to retire here. We love it here. I have kids in school, and my kids love it here.” 

He has one child in ninth grade and one in 10th grade at John Jay, and one in fourth grade at Katonah Elementary School.

The road to Katonah was a winding one. Arif started out in Chico, Calif., with a Honda, moved up to a food truck, and then a gas station.

“The problem with California was I could not afford to buy any commercial real estate,” he said. “The harder I worked, the more expensive it would get every year. That was the only reason I went to Texas.” 

He opened another gas station there, but that turned out to be a mistake. 

“A gas station is not the cleanest type of business, especially depending on the area,” he said. “I didn’t like the clientele that came into those gas stations, and I wanted to get out of that lifestyle. Gas stations here are nice. But not in California or Texas. You have rough clientele, with drugs and issues like that. I just did not want to be part of that. I decided if I can’t have my wife or my children work in a business it’s not worth having.” 

The only grocery in town

In Texas, his gas station was the only store in town, “so we would sell groceries, and that started the interest in grocery. Then I went into a grocery business, and I enjoyed that better.” 

But while he enjoyed the business, he couldn’t stand Texas.

“It was just a very boring state to live in,” he said. “It just didn’t suit my personality. We didn’t fit in. You know, we were typical Californians, and we just didn’t like it.”

That’s when he found that Christina DeCicco had listed the store in Katonah for sale — in 2025.

“I’ve been working on this since July of last year,” he said.

Katonah has proved to be everything he wanted. 

“I chose the most family-friendly area I could find, or I could afford, and the cleanest, safest business I could find,” Arif said.

Now he’ll be working in the market full time, while his family will work there part time. 

“We usually get pretty involved in the community,” he noted. “I have 22 years’ experience, and every time I’ve ever bought a business, I doubled or tripled the sales. Well, knock on wood, I haven’t failed yet. So, I think it will grow.”