Tashkent Supermarket Expands to West Village Showcasing Central Asian Cuisine
In 2025, Tashkent Supermarket opened a new location in Manhattan's West Village, marking the latest expansion of the chain, which already has five stores across New York City and a wholesale sausage and slaughterhouse facility in New Jersey. Founded in 2012 by Odiljon Tursunov and his family in Coney Island after Hurricane Sandy, the supermarket specializes in Central Asian foods such as manty, plov, samsas, chak-chak, and kompot. It blends American products with goods sourced from the former Soviet Union, including Georgian cheeses, Ukrainian bread, and Uzbek nuts and raisins.
The West Village store features a hot food bar offering dishes like plov and samsas, which grew popular partly through social media influencers starting in March 2025. The supermarket primarily targets Central Asian immigrant communities in the US—such as Uzbeki Bukharian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz populations—as well as new shoppers curious about these cuisines. Around 1.2 million people from former Soviet republics live in the United States as of 2019.
Prices for hot food items have risen by at least one dollar this year due to Manhattan's real estate costs and impacts from congestion pricing affecting delivery trucks. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani gave a positive review of Tashkent’s manty, emphasizing the dish's broad appeal. Company officials note that Central Asia has been underrepresented in the United States, and Tashkent aims to showcase Uzbek culture and hospitality through its diverse products and branding.
