Long Island City – Shopping

Long Island City has plenty of stores for modern-day necessities, including Best Buy, H Mart, Target, and Trader Joe’s. The neighborhood has numerous shops for niceties, too. These range from Mid-Century Modern furnishings at the Somerset House to foods and housewares from the Czech Republic and Slovakia at the aptly named Slovak-Czech Varieties. Below, a few more favorites.

 

Book Culture

As befits a thriving, eclectic, family-friendly neighborhood, Book Culture is a thriving, eclectic, family-friendly independent bookstore. In addition to best-sellers, its shelves are laden with plenty of under-the-radar titles and books for little ones. The well-read staff are more than happy to make suggestions if you’re in a reading rut, and they also curate timely and creative themed tables (a recent favorite: books “featuring our favorite misanthropes and monsters”).

 

Extra Butter

Following the success of its Lower East Side store, Extra Butter brought its urban (and urbane) curation of men’s and women’s apparel, footwear, and accessories to Long Island City. Designs from the likes of Adidas, Canada Goose, Comme des Garçons, and Moschino share space with wares from smaller woman- and BIPOC-owned brands such as Honor the Gift, Patta, and Supervsn. Extra Butter also produces its own line of casual apparel as well as collabs with the likes of Puma.

 

Matted LIC

Matted sells picture frames and offers custom framing—and much more. Original works by local artists, handcrafted jewelry, fun home decor, and one-of-a-kind gifts, from jigsaw puzzles of the New York subway map to wooden action figures, are among the delights inside.

 

Murray’s Cheese

The legendary Greenwich Village cheesemonger has a shop in Long Island City, too. You can tour its LIC cheese caves to learn what goes into crafting its proprietary cheeses and indulge in cheese boards, salads, sandwiches, and a variety of macaroni-and-cheese dishes at its Cheese Bar. And of course you can shop from a rotating selection of several dozen cheeses,  along with charcuterie, pastas, breads, and more to create your own cheese board.