Supermarket Baron John Catsimatidis comes across in person as a very accessible and regular New York City kind of guy as he holds court in the boardroom of his Manhattan office guy. Born on the Greek island of Nisyros in 1948, he came to the United States with his parents when he was six months old, and grew up in West Harlem to working-class parents. Catsimatidis graduated from Brooklyn Tech and while in college at NYU, worked for the uncle of a friend in a small supermarket on 137th Street. While still in college, he invested in half ownership in the store, and the rest is history.
Today, Catsimatidis is a billionaire businessman and radio talk show host, who is the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of Gristedes Foods, the largest grocery chain in Manhattan, and the Red Apple Group, a real estate and aviation company with about $700 million to $800 million in holdings in New York, Florida, and theU.S. Virgin Islands.
Catsimatidis also has a lifelong interest in politics and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for New York City Mayor in the 2013 election.
The following interview was snagged with the help of lifelong Bay Ridge resident, and an old friend, Bob Capano, who works for Catsimatidis, and used to work for several local elected officials including former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Capano, a likable and capable person, is considering a run for Vinnie Gentile’s term-limited City Council seat next year, and will assuredly get Catsimatidis backing if he does throw his hat in the ring.
But on this day it was just Catsimatidis, me and my smartphone tape player.
KCP: So who are you backing in the Presidential elections?
Catsimatidis: I’m friends with Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Family for 30 years. Bill Clinton is a very close friend of mine. They knew my kids since they were two years old. Both my son and daughter went to Africa with Bill Clinton for eight, nine days. I can’t be against the Clintons.
As far as the Republicans, I originally went with Jeb Bush. I found him to be a very decent guy, but not a fighter. Kasich is a common sense middle-of-the-road guy. He won 86 out of 88 counties in the Governor’s election in Ohio so Democrats like him and Republicans like him. I gave Rubio a fundraiser for his senate campaign. He’s very smart, very fast on his feet. With Cruz when I met him, I originally had an open mind, but when he criticized New Yorkers it upset me. Donald Trump, I’ve known him for 30 years. We sit together on the board of the Police Athletic League. I’ve never done business with him, but I take the position if it comes down to Cruz and Trump, I would rather support Trump because he would always make sure New York will be take care of.
Moving to City politics, what do you think of the Job de Blasio is doing?
I’ve known de Blasio even before we both ran for mayor last time (2013). When he was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager and left, I gave him his first fundraiser when he was running for City Council. And I never criticized him when he was running for mayor. De Blasio is a lot smarter than people think he is. He picked a good police commissioner and a good fire commissioner and even though his sanitation commissioner was new, when he had the biggest snowstorm in the city’s life she didn’t do so bad at cleaning up the streets.
What about you? Do you plan on running for anything again?
I’ll probably run one more time for something. I’m not counting out anything. I’m not saying what is I’m running for. Some people say I should run against (U.S. Senator) Gillibrand in 2018. I’m a registered Republican. A republican liberal as Rudy Giuliani was. I believe we should be financially sound, we got to keep our people safe, but we also have to help the kids at home.
Part of being a leader, whether in the city or state is to have visions. That’s why I admired John Kennedy. He had visions and he would visualize. He visualized us going to the moon and then we did it.
I visualize being able to attach a monorail to the Verrazano Bridge, and the attach that to the subway system. It could be done. A lot of people say it’s impossible. But monorails is the way to go. It’s a lot more doable than building subways. You can build a monorail for $2 or $2 million for what it costs to build a subway at $20 or $30 million.
So do you see anybody running against de Blasio?
We’ll have to wait and see if anyone runs against him, but to run you need three things. You need name recognition. You need money and you need to be loved. You have to go into neighborhoods and give people a big hug. I love people and enjoy people versus not going out amongst them.
