Zabar’s, New York’s iconic grocery and appetizing shop, sells everything from smoked fish, gourmet cheese and rugelach to pots, pans and high-end baking supplies.
And now, the 91-year-old Upper West Side grocery — a staple among New York City Jews — is joining the sneaker game to celebrate the U.S. Open, the tennis tournament that officially begins on Sunday in Queens.
The new kicks won’t be available in the iconic grocery’s sneaker aisle. (As far as this reporter is aware, Zabar’s doesn’t have a sneaker aisle.)
Rather, the shoe is a collaboration with Upper West Side sneaker boutique West NYC (the sister store of nearby, 85-year-old, Jewish family-owned comfort shoes shop Tip Top Shoes) and sportswear manufacturer Adidas.
A new, white-and-orange version of Adidas’ 1970 Rod Laver shoe — named for the Australian tennis great — corresponds with Zabar’s employee uniforms, which, like its branding, features a lot of orange and white. The aim, according to a press release from West NYC, is to transform “the classic sneakers into an unofficial part of the store’s uniform.”
The Rod Laver shoe is periodically in and out of the Adidas catalog. It is currently available on the Adidas website in one colorway (white and green) and only in a few men’s sizes. The shoe had long been in demand by sneakerheads; its return in 2014 was celebrated by the New York Times.
The “exclusive” West NYC x adidas Rod Laver, which retails for $100, will only be available in-store at West NYC (147 West 72nd St.) on Saturday, Aug. 23rd, beginning at 10 a.m. and online at 12 p.m.
Zabar’s has been on a bit of a hot streak in the collaborative branding space — in April, Zabar’s collaborated with Nordstrom for the department store’s “For Everything New York” campaign. In 2022, luxury leather goods retailer Coach created a collection with Zabar’s that included a $495 Zabar’s branded sweater.
As it happens, this isn’t Zabar’s first shoe collab. In 2021, skateboarding apparel brand Vans — with the help of filmmaker and social media influencer Nicolas Keller, who’s better known as New York Nico — teamed up with the appetizing spot to create a limited-edition slip-on. “Our design was inspired by some of our most beloved products, bagels, smoked salmon, cheese, rugelach, and the iconic black and white cookie,” the owners of Zabar’s wrote on the Vans website, as Patch reported at the time.
By contrast, the design of the West NYC x adidas Rod Laver is far more subtle.
Founded in 2007, West NYC sells limited-edition sneakers and streetwear, and they also have their own line of clothing. The brand recently partnered with Jewish painter Akiva Listman to feature his New York-inspired art on some of their T-shirts. West NYC also collaborated with meme account Old Jewish Men to create a “New York Knishes” T-shirt in the style of the New York Knicks logo.
Adidas has been involved in some Jewish-related controversies in recent years, the most prominent being its collaboration with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. West and the Adidas collaborated on Yeezy, a popular line of clothing and shoes, which reportedly brought in some $2 billion a year. The partnership came to an ugly head in 2022 when the company broke ties with the rapper after he made multiple antisemitic comments.
Since the scandal with West erupted, Adidas has now sold off the last of its Yeezy stock, donating the profits to multiple organizations dedicated to fighting discrimination and antisemitism, including the Anti-Defamation League; the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Israel, which promotes peace-building through sports for Jewish and Arab children in Israel; and the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, backed by Robert Kraft.
Last summer, Adidas hired Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid as one of several spokespeople for a reissue of the SL 72 sneaker from the Munich 1972 Olympics, where 11 members of the Israeli team were killed in a Palestinian terror attack.
Adidas issued a public apology — as well as an apology to Hadid and the other spokesmodels — maintaining that any connection between the campaign and the massacre was unintentional.
Hadid also issued an apology on her Instagram, saying she does “not believe in hate in any form, including antisemitism.”
Adidas was founded in 1924 by brothers Adolf “Adi” and Rudolph Dassler, Nazi Party members whose products were sported by German athletes during the 1936 Olympic Games. Today, the company is based in Bavaria, Germany, and run by CEO Thomas Rabe.
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