It's been more than two weeks since the Seven Mile Market reopened in a new, much larger, store on Reisterstown Road in Pikesville.

The flower and gift shop is in full working order, and so are the Me Latte café and the Pikesville Pharmacy inside.

The grocery shelves are well-stocked, and customers and staff alike are singing praises about the new location, a 55,000-square-foot store which many news organizations have considered possibly the largest kosher store in the world.

"Customers really like the store. It's beautiful," said Donnel Straughter, who works in the vegetables and fruits department.

Helene Singer of Baltimore, a regular customer at the store, even at its former location on Seven Mile Lane, said the new location is obviously very nice. "It's bigger, has more products and offers more," she said while Shenicka Long, clerk, scanned her items.

Long, a Kingsville resident, has worked for the market since the beginning of October. She said now she has more space behind the register. "And it's much lighter in here. It used to be dim," she said of the former location.

The new store is more than double the size of the old location. Opened in 1988, until Nov. 16, it was located nearby on Seven Mile Lane. Now it is located in the former Safeway Grocery Store at 201 Reisterstown Road.

While all food inside is kosher, vegetarian and vegan shoppers will also feel at home here.

Among the wide aisles is a refrigerated one containing a variety of meat alternative products, such as tofu, including Tofurky Italian Sausage, Lightlife Smart Cutlets, and Smart Dogs Veggie Protein Links.

And on the shelf below is a selection of mayonnaise options, including Follow Your Heart's Grapeseed Oil Vegenaise.

Of course there is Jewish fare. For example, Green's Home Style Chocolate Babka sells for $7.49 for a 24-ounce loaf; and LarOmme Chocolate Babka sells for $5.99 for a 16-ounce loaf.

There are extensive fish and meat and poultry departments, a "Me-Latte" café, Flowers and Gifts shop, Pikesville Pharmacy, a bakery, dairy, deli and prepared foods, natural foods and a salad bar.

Tsibi Willner, salesman, worked the fish counter earlier this week. He told a customer how the size of a fish, particularly salmon, affects its taste. "It's subjective, like the difference in taste between a big chicken and a small chicken," he said. "It's just a matter of preference."

The customer standing on the red carpet in front of the fish case had many options from which to choose, from salmon steaks to fillets.

Ozzie Willner of Monsey, N.Y., who is Willner's father, was shopping in the store. "I am tremendously impressed," he said of his son's new workplace. "I never thought it would be this elegant, with such a wide variety of fish. Everything is neat and well-priced."

Warren Morganstein of Baltimore had ventured to the store for the second time since the store reopened, and needed help finding the kippers. "It's very nice. It has all the kosher things we need," he said, after David Weisshaar, Mashgiach, assisted him. Weisshaar's role is to manage some of the kosher items in the store, keeping with some of the laws regarding kashrut, the Jewish set of dietary laws.

While the store seems to be in good working order, there are still details that need to be completed.

Earlier this week, café worker Chaim Kalish of Cheswolde, who is also a student at the Community College of Baltimore City, was assembling 20 café chairs, while Salomon Bemaras of Pikesville, president and owner of Me Latte, served up hot drinks at the café to a steady stream of customers. The Kosher Café, supervised by Star K Kosher, offers breakfast, lunch and catering.

The Pikesville location of Me Latte is not the first. There are cafes at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1550 Orleans St., Baltimore, and at the Jewish Community Center, 3506 Gwynnbrook Ave., Owings Mills. For more information on the cafés, visit www.melatte.com.

Seven Mile market opens at 7:30 a.m. Sunday through Friday, and closes at 7 p.m. on Monday; 9 p.m. Tuesday; 10 p.m. Wednesday; 11 p.m. Thursday; and approximately two hours before sunset on Friday. The store is closed on Sabbath, Saturday.

For more information call Seven Mile Market at 410-653-2000, or visit www.sevenmilemarket.com where, interestingly, the store offers a printable, online shopping list tailored to the store's offerings.