Stanley Zabar, the co-owner and brains behind the iconic Upper West Side grocery store bearing his family’s name, has died. He was 94.
Zabar, a “quiet force behind our family business,” died Monday from cancer, a spokesperson for the namesake grocer confirmed to The Post.
“Stanley’s greatest devotion was to his family. A lifelong New Yorker, he and Judith raised their family on the Upper West Side, deeply embedded in the neighborhood that generations of Zabars have called home,” the family wrote on Instagram Wednesday.
“He will be remembered for the business he helped build, the countless opportunities he created for others and his unwavering dedication to his family and community.”
His death came just over a year after the passing of his older brother, Saul Zabar, whom he ran the family shop with for decades.
The store is now being run by both Saul and Stanley’s children — the next generation of Zabars.
“It’s a second home,” Stanley Zabar said of the shop in a previous podcast episode put out by the store.
“I think it’s our responsibility to keep Zabar’s going for the population that loves it now and to my family who wants to be involved in it.”
The brothers inherited the business from their parents and transformed it from a simple smoked-fish department of a Daitch supermarket into the sprawling grocery, cookware store and café that it’s known as today.
Saul Zabar served as president of the company for decades, the first three years alongside marketing maven Murray Klein. Zabar stepped in as vice president and chief financial officer in 1993 when Klein retired.
A third brother, Eli Zabar, opened his own namesake grocery on the Upper East Side.
While Saul Zabar was known as the face of their supermarket, Stanley Zabar, a lawyer, worked better behind the scenes.
He was responsible for the store’s mail order department and website, the prepared foods section and the vast cheese business.
But he was a stickler about the coleslaw, one of his favorite foods at the store.
“He really had a thing for it. And when we screwed up, I’d get a call,” Scott Goldshine, the store’s general manager, told The New York Times.
Zabar and his wife, Judith Zabar, were also philanthropists who “dedicated their time and resources to the arts, education and culinary training,” Zabar’s said, adding that they supported Hunter College, the New York Public Library, Symphony Space, NYU Langone Health and the Careers through Culinary Arts Program.
Above all else, “Stanley’s greatest devotion was to his family.”
Zabar is survived by his wife, whom he married in 1952; his daughter Sondra; son David, executive director at Zabar’s; eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His daughter Lori Zabar died in 2022.
