Exclusive | Inside the Zabar familys little-known $30M NYC real estate empire

New Yorkers know Zabar’s for its smoked salmon, bagels and signature orange-and-white shopping bags — but the family behind the beloved Upper West Side grocery store has another business hiding in plain sight: Manhattan real estate.Beyond its famous Broadway storefront, the Zabar family has ties to at least six residential buildings containing a combined 80 apartments, along with a stake in a commercial property that once generated nearly $5 million in annual rent.The little-known property holdings span several corporate entities and stretch beyond the family’s longtime home turf on the Upper West Side.And the man who helped build that portfolio was Stanley Zabar, the grocery chain’s longtime co-owner and financial mastermind, who died Monday at age 94.While his older brother Saul, who died last year at 97, became the public face of the family business, Stanley handled its financial and legal affairs — helping transform a modest smoked-fish counter founded by their parents in 1934 into a New York institution.As the grocery business flourished, Stanley parlayed its growing sales into a series of real estate deals that expanded the original storefront to more than half a city block, according to his family’s obituary.But the family’s property interests extended well beyond the grocery aisles.City housing registration records connect Stanley to six Manhattan residential buildings through four corporate entities, according to an analysis of Department of Housing Preservation and Development data.Three of those buildings — 2270, 2272 and 2274 Broadway — are associated with 2285 Realty Associates LLC and contain a combined 38 apartments.The properties sit just blocks from the family’s flagship grocery store at 2245 Broadway.Another building at 2276 Broadway, linked to Orock Realty & Construction Corp., contains 16 apartments.The family’s reported residential footprint also extends to 2708 Broadway, which contains 16 apartments, and 1319 First Av...