WESTWOOD — One of downtown’s longest-running businesses is preparing to close its doors.
Westwood Feed Co., a fixture on Broadway since the 19th century, will close March 7, ending a 142-year run that traces back to the borough’s agricultural roots.
At 515 Broadway, the business dates to 1884, when—conveniently situated just off the railroad tracks—it served the turkey farms and small agricultural operations that once helped define the Pascack Valley. Inside the shop, original feed and grain bins offer a rare physical link to that era.
Pegboard walls bear the marks of countless changes, while hand-lettered signs advertise seed, suet, and pet supplies.
“It’s kind of a dinosaur,” owner Donald DaCosta said in a telephone interview earlier this week from his home in Florida, where he’s lived since around 2015. “People don’t have turkey farms anymore.”
DaCosta and his brother, Steve, purchased the business in 1976, continuing a long line of ownership that included Daniel Schlosberg and, before him, Mr. Mariner, who’d relocated the store to Broadway in the early 20th century. A new building was constructed in 1929, and the feed store has operated from that location ever since. Steve later let go of his interest, while Donald and his growing family invested and reinvested in the business over the decades.
Service above all
For much of its life, Westwood Feed Co. functioned as a service business as much as a retail store, shaped by DaCosta’s willingness to fix, adapt, and figure things out for customers.
In addition to feed and pet supplies, DaCosta said the business once handled fireplace inserts, lawn and garden equipment, lawnmower and small-engine repair, fertilizer and grass seed sold by the bag, and a rotating mix of practical services that reflected how people actually lived in town at the time.
Before big-box stores swallowed much of the lawn and garden market, Westwood Feed Co. sold heavy equipment, sharpened blades, mixed seed on site, and relied on hands-on knowledge earned through years of landscaping and outdoor work tied to the business in its earlier days.
DaCosta told us the writing was on the wall most clearly during the pandemic, when customers turned to online ordering as a way of life. He said the finances were such that the business wasn’t worth passing down—or giving away.
He also noted that his was one of the last downtown anchor businesses standing. He singled out Susan Weinrich’s Westwood Pets Unlimited, at 15 Westwood Ave. until late last year; and Steve Naginsky’s LN Grand 5 and 10 Cent Store, at 247 Westwood Ave., which closed in 2019 after a 60-year run and is now home to the Five Dimes Brewery.
Stories among the stacks
A visit on Feb. 21—the day members of DaCosta’s family, from Dumont, taped a handwritten “Closing March 7” sign to the door—made plain how much this place has meant to them. As they worked their way through the shop, breaking down displays and sorting decades of accumulated history, one warm story gave way to the next. Pizza boxes sat beside stacked seed bags: for a family used to rolling up its sleeves, it was an all-hands-on-deck day—only this time, slowed by nostalgia.
Family recalled DaCosta standing with customers for long stretches, listening to what animals were being fed, what wasn’t working, and what might need to change. He collaborated with local veterinarians, helped customers transition animals to new diets, and mixed custom seed blends to suit the wild birds people hoped to attract—resulting in a proprietary, and beloved, no-waste “Westwood Special” mix. (The family wants to continue selling the mix, and is exploring whether this could be made economically viable.)
Grandson Logan LeRose, 18, a Dumont High School football wide receiver looking soon to start college, is one of eight grandchildren who worked in the store over the years. (In his case, since he was 15.) He began to recall playing among the bins as a child, scooping seeds for the joy of it.
One of DaCosta’s daughters jumped in, finishing the anecdote from her own time as a kid: “And Dad would say, ‘Don’t mix up the seeds,’” she recalled, laughing.
Several generations worked in the store, stocking shelves, helping customers, and learning how a small business works. At various points over the years, family members lived in apartments connected to the building, including DaCosta’s mother, Dorothy, who remained a familiar presence around the store until her death in July 2024 at age 95.
The physical toll of the work accumulated. After decades of breathing grain dust and hay particles, DaCosta developed pulmonary fibrosis, a serious lung condition sometimes referred to as “farmer’s lung.”
“Nobody knew about that,” Bibi said. “People in the Midwest got it—but nobody knew he would.”
By Feb. 21, the floor that for decades had been crammed with wares—watched over first by the store cat Gato and later by Beanie—was beginning to open up. Farm relics and other Americana lined the walls—tools, framed photographs—that might have belonged in a museum. Customers drifted through, some longtime regulars, others drawn in by word of the closing. One bought a horseshoe. Another, shopping for seed for a parrot, left with a scythe. A young girl claimed an unexpected prize: a photograph of a fox.
(Beanie arrived by accident, discovered as a tiny kitten that tumbled from a bale of hay delivered from the family’s farm in Pennsylvania, not long after the death of the store’s previous cat, Gato. Beanie’s tenure was 2003–2022.)
DaCosta kept the beat, and a recording studio
Beneath the shop floor, DaCosta had operated a fully functioning recording studio known as Westwood Feedback, where local musicians rehearsed, recorded, and jammed, and he made recordings for local churches.
Among those who recorded there was Michael Emmanuel, of the punk band the Misfits, who began recording with DaCosta early in his career while living in the area. DaCosta also recorded the reggae band No Discipline and the Muller Brothers, family members said, along with numerous other local musicians.
DaCosta himself was a musician, inspired by guitarist Joe Satriani, and played for hours both in the studio and at home.
“He would write his own songs,” Bibi said. “We still have all of that.”
Saying goodbye
Customers who noticed the closing sign stopped in throughout the day. There were hugs and tears. With the weather report warning of an imminent blizzard, there likely won’t be much foot traffic for several days.
Nikki DeBiase of Westwood said she and her family learned of the closing only when her daughter, Emma, paused at the door and pointed it out. “I thought it meant they were closed for the day,” DeBiase said. “She said, ‘No—I think they’re closing.’”
Inside, the news settled in quickly. “We are devastated right now,” DeBiase said. This is our community. This is Westwood—and it’s very sad to find out that they won’t be here anymore.”
The closing was hard on the family, they said, in part because Westwood Feed Co. has been a thread in people’s lives for decades. They’ve watched generations come in for feed and advice—and they’ve also had to say goodbye, over the years, to longtime customers who passed away. “That was tough,” one daughter said. “My dad was close to a lot of his customers.”
Asked what he would like to say to customers who have passed through Westwood Feed Co. over the years, DaCosta, on the phone in Florida, paused. A practical man, he searched briefly for words to mark the moment.
“Thanks for everything,” he said. “Every dog has its day.”
