You must log in or # to comment.
NYC here.
If someone asked the average New Yorker what a bodega was, the most probable answer is “What are you, stupid?”
Not me, because I would be mugging you.
Wow! NYC!
MA TAKE A PICTURE I’M GETTING MUGGED BY THE CITY ITSELF :D
I talked to a new yorker once but it was actually a man sized rat.
After I uncovered their ruse they scuttled away but not before grabbing a nearby busker and whisked them away to behind a dumpster.
The real magic is I can walk to several open bodegas almost any time of day or night.
Just like a corner store!
It depends where you live. Most places in the US you can’t (safely) walk to anywhere, and many places aren’t open 24/7.
new yorkers think having an american, chinese, indian, italian, and mexican restaurant to choose from makes them unique. im not even kidding i saw a new yorker tweet that those choices can only be found in new york city
Lol, the old “American food is the best because we have every kind of cuisine”. Oh sweety, that’s just every city now.
Lol, maybe if it was 1980.
I’m in a small town in southern North Carolina. I’ve got all that plus 2 Peruvian, and 2 Thai, within a 5 minute drive.
Plus you guys get Cook Out!
Never got the hype. It’s like a backyard burger at best.
It’s cheap which is nice but… That’s about it. IMHO.
Fair and I don’t disagree. Hush puppies are pretty good and when you’re road-tripping, it’s a nice option to have. My wife went to Wake Forest and introduced me to Cook Out. I’d seen the billboards over the years and never paid it much attention. When I was in grad-school in Northern Virginia, I would drive down to South Florida regularly and Cook Out was great for that run. Better than most fast food on the way (unless I was willing to actually stop for a bit, then I’d hit up Waffle House)
Can definitely respect waffle house. All star special ftw
They also think they have the best of all of the above, they do not. I was there last month the pizza was ass I’ve had better from just about every other state I’ve been to, and they have fuck all for good soul food. Ask a New Yorker for some grits, biscuits and gravy, fried spaghetti, porkchop sandwiches, or collards and watch their fucking head spin. Then ask about barbecue, and when they answer, ask what style that barbecue is and the head twists right off because half of them don’t know Memphis style from Western NC style if they even knew there were different styles at all.
Then they move anywhere and get pissed off that other places aren’t the exact same as NYC, go the fuck back then idiot!
That’s not true. A bodega is a corner store with a plexiglass container for staff because they’re in a shithole.
A small shop? What’s an incredible concept. Who would have thunk it?
America truly is the land of innovation.
Now try asking the Québécois about dépanneurs
That would require me to go to quebec and defile my tongue with french.
Keep your bodegas. Ain’t none of you guys can beat our local gas station/post office//DMV/liquor store/UPS pickup point. We don’t even need a special name for it. It’s just The Store. Sure it’s not within walking distance. But then not even the neighbors are either.
You can fill up your car, get your mail, buy new tabs for that car/boat/UTV/truck or get a fishing/hunting license, buy a 12 pack of beer, send a fax to your parole officer, and buy a gallon of milk with a frozen pizza to either cook there or take it home. It also has 2 tables and 5 chairs to relax at, (no purchase necessary). I know people who do all of that in one visit.
That sounds like a Party Store combined with a really nice gas station.
It’s all about the relationship you cultivate with the owners and operators of the bodega.
Soooo, same as any corner store?
Depends on the locale, but I believe so.
Where I grew up the market had been cornered, so to speak, by a small city level chain. 26 stores for a proper city and it’s ~6 suburbs.
You got the good food, and some extras like fresh donuts and ice cream from their bakery and creamery, but the staff were almost exclusively university kids with weird schedules you would never see more than a few times.
It was weird for a minute when I lived near a corner store where the owner also was just at the register and talked to people. (To be fair, he was also a university student, he just wanted to let the family manage the family business while he became a pathologist of all things. )
These comments are so weird. I only found out what a bodega was recently, so I’ve added it to my brain as “corner shop”. I didn’t even know they were peculiar to a specific area until this post.
So they’re corner shops. Everything people comment about them being different still comes under the umbrella of “corner shop”. It’s weird to see people yapping about how they’re different and then giving reasons that… still mean corner shop.
Diaclamer: never been to new york or any store that called itself a bodega.
I think its similar to “all bodegas are corner shops but not all corner shops are bodegas”. They have unique features that group them closer to eachother than to most other corner stores. But they are still a corner store.
All poodles are dogs but some people just prefer poodles.
Then explain what makes them different from corner shops. Because so far, every characteristic is just a characteristic of a corner shop.
It is like claiming there are a species of poodle that are different from poodles.
The big things are the deli counter and vibe of the place. Things aren’t necessarily super over priced like chain convenient stores. They also often also tailor to more specific customers. There is one near me that has shelves of Indian products while another just a block away carries Polish products.
Ah, I see. America has invented “shops”.
Americans have so little culture for themselves they have to make even something as common and ubiquitous as a corner shop, all about them.
All this yapping and not a single one of you geniuses figured out the real difference of a bodega. You can get loosies. Single cigarettes and buy beer in single cans/past legal hours.
So what you’re missing is that the defining features of a bodega aren’t offered to foreigners like you because you aren’t part of the culture.
I can do that in my local corner shop.
You ain’t special.
