I'm moving to NYC soon and I have no Idea about the whole gracery shopping thing.
What grocery stores are in NYC?
and locations (i.e. midtown)

You might get lucky and be in the Fresh Direct route. Check them out at freshdirect.com Otherwise there's plenty of places to shop but it's a drag to schlep bags of grocceries.

We have to feed 8 million people somehow, Rachel!

There's a grocery store literally every 4 or 5 blocks in residential neighborhoods. That means you won't find many near Grand Central Station or Ground Zero, but there are plenty where people live, from TriBeCa to Murray Hill to Riverdale.

We have many, many local supermarket chains. C-Town and Associated are considered pretty low quality; Key Food, D'Agostino's and Gristedes are in the middle; and Food Emporium is the fanciest of the mainstream chains. Your neighborhood will undoubtably have two or three of these.

Then we have the specialty supermarkets: two huge Whole Foods stores (in Chelsea and Columbus Circle), two huge Fairway stores (like Whole Foods but better, on the Upper West Side), Zabar's (also on the Upper West Side) and others.

Let's not count out the smaller specialty-food stores. I like my food cheap and high quality, so I get my vegetables at Elliniki Agora, a vegetable stand, my staples at Trade Fair, my olives at Greek House, a Greek ethnic market, and my pasta at Pasta Mat, a local pasta factory. All are within about six blocks of my house in Astoria.

Filling in the gaps are the 'bodegas,' small food stores on practically every corner. Their prices are very high, but they're usually open 24 hours and are the place to pop in for a quart of milk when you don't want to wait on line at the supermarket.

There's also a greenmarket in each borough; the largest is in Union Square in Manhattan.

There's one rule to remember, though: groceries are MUCH more expensive in Manhattan than they are in the other boroughs. Several of my friends come out here to Astoria to buy veggies, because they cost half what they do in Murray Hill - and we're only seven subway stops away!

A lot depends on how much of a "foodie" you are. I find it totally worth the effort to schlep around town for food -- to the Union Square greenmarket (in high season) early Saturday mornings for the freshest seafood and organic produce. Whole Foods is wonderful but expensive. I shop for meats there because they are grain-fed and the best quality. Zabar's for all deli, appetizing, bread, coffee, cheese. And Fairway for the lowest prices. I've got two Food Emporiums in my neighborhood, which I jokingly call Food Deplorium. I only buy toilet paper and cat litter there.

And I can't neglect freshdirect.com. They really are wonderful. If you aren't the type of person to galivant around town, you will easily become addicted to freshdirect. Plus, they give you your first $50 free on fresh food. How can you refuse that?