what is the regional term for your local mom 'n' pop corner store (that may or may not be a front for illegal activities)?

Corner shop, even if it's not on a street corner

Stop n rob

provi-soir

Convenience store.

minimart

Corner store, even if it's not on a street corner. Maybe convenience store. Despite my proximity to jergins, I haved never called or heard anyone else call one a "minimart".

I got confused by "bodega" the first time I heard it on tv, like "what the hell is a bodega?"

Bodega or corner store.

In NZ it's the Dairy.

do AUers call it a 'conveenie'?

gas station (even if its not a gas station)

Oh that's funny! I had to explain "bodega" to someone the other day...can't remember who.

We really don't have anything like that here unless you're willing to include "bait shop".

We were calling a really crappy corner store a bodega in Des Moines, Iowa so obviously the terminology is out there

It has recently turned into a "chicago beef" sandwich shop that's open weird hours, instead of a bodega that was only open really weird hours

pibble

"next door" no matter where it is
or minimart

gas station (even if its not a gas station)

-- and what, S

Are you talking about the Liquor Store?

jody maybe those "californians" are like most californians these days and actually transplants from arizona or utah or the midwest or something.

i've used bodega since i was a little kid.

although in san diego we also say "tiendita", meaning little tienda

this will probably only make sense to san diegans or people who've spent time there (like you and ned) but anytime we want to go get mexican we say we're "going to berto's"

Are you talking about the Liquor Store?

My girlfriend was complaining the other day that the store across the street never has various foodstuffs when she stops in (mostly produce like oranges or garlic cloves), but to me, it's first and foremost a liquor store that just happens to have a couple aisles of soup and Rice-A-Roni and cleaning detergent and plastic cups and breakfast cereal. Whatever they've got beyond liquor is all gravy to me.

In WA, liquor stores are only allowed to sell alcohol. It was weird to me when I went to Cali and there's hard liquor in every store.

any time i walk into a gas station that doesnt sell beer i feel lonely & unloved

Milk bar or corner shop.

Or if youre in a tiny little town, maybe its a general store.

wa-wa

Milk bar or corner shop.

-- Trayce, Sunday, June 1, 2008 12:08 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this a joek or its like clockwork orange on the real

Oh weird, doesn't tienda technically mean "jar" or "basin"? I seem to remember that it's also the name for random watering holes in the desert that are carved/eroded out of solid rock and collect rainwater. So basically the corner sto is a watering hole!

where's the montreal folk? nobody's said "dep" yet!

the first time i heard wa-wa i was soooooo confused.

i never heard the term bodega til i moved to brooklyn. when i live in chicago it was "corner store" and when i was a student in manhattan it was "the deli"

jody maybe those "californians" are like most californians these days and actually transplants from arizona or utah or the midwest or something.

i've used bodega since i was a little kid.

although in san diego we also say "tiendita", meaning little tienda

-- moonship journey to baja, Sunday, June 1, 2008 3:22 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

i lived in san diego for 18 years, and i don't remember anyone ever using bodega or tiendita (maybe tiendita, actually, but not sure)(not calling you a liar. just saying). I've always called them liquor stores. I got some weird reactions when I moved to washington and used "liquor store" because those kinds of stores don't and can't sell liquor here. you can only buy hard liquor at state-run liquor-only stores here.

this will probably only make sense to san diegans or people who've spent time there (like you and ned) but anytime we want to go get mexican we say we're "going to berto's"

this makes sense.

deli

hmmmm ... maybe it's because i hang out w/ sketchy people / spanish speakers?

poss. related: bay area hispanics who call any restaurant a "grullense"

this might be restricted to the south bay, since i never ever heard the term in berkeley

the deli or bodega is what i call it in brooklyn (everyone otm) but growing up it was just "the mobil" because the gas station was the only thing open 24 hours within 20 minutes (though later we did get a 7-11)

there were corner stores, but the all closed at 6 pm.

growing up there was a German deli down the street from me, run by some old German guy who was one of those German immigrants in Ridgewood, Queens. His name was Helmut. He would always talk about how people ignored the "German holocaust" in WWII. Maybe I'll pay him a visit.

Deli, regardless if it actually serves up cold cuts, but they almost all do.

Naw for sersious ethan, we call them milk bars!

In WA, liquor stores are only allowed to sell alcohol. It was weird to me when I went to Cali and there's hard liquor in every store.

When I moved to WA it freaked me out to not be able to buy booze until 2am at any of a dozen places like in my small town in Michigan.

For me these are usually a "convenience store", though "party store" got used a lot too. There's an Eminem line that always made me laugh about "bringing pop bottles back to the party store" because it sums up a lot of Michigan-isms in a couple of words.

quickie mart

Oh, I forgot. The corner store in the neighborhood I grew up in was the "little deli" but that was specific to just that store.

deli in new york - convince store in boston

distant seconds: bodega - spa

corner store ive heard in various places

Could someone explain what a "package store" is, and what region that term's particular to? Is it those weird stores where it's a liquor store connected to a bar through a little door, or is that something else?

its just a liquor store in massachusetts - a "packie" in the local parlance

my understanding is it was at one point illegal to advertise booze on yr signage so package became the accepted euphemism

My town isn't big enough to have corner stores. So it's generally just "the store," referring to the local family-run supermarket usually, or a nearby gas station for cigarettes.

This confused me in Dublin, when people would say "I'm running to the shop, need anything?" WHICH shop? What do they sell at the shop you are going to? There were just too many options!

"Jacksons"

kruidenierswinkel

We only had two choices: The White Duck was a market for the summer people, they had a little bit of everything and sold some half-decent wine, and were also an ice cream parlor. It was on the way home from the beach and had a sign that said, "No shirt, no shoes, no problem." It used to only be open in the summer, though.

The rest of the year you'd have to drive 10-15 mins to the Wesco for milk or beer or anything else.

Noodle OTFM. I worked at the 24-hr on Princes Ave as a student. Was a life-enhancing experience.

You know what New Jersey's problem is? Self-service gas stations mean that no one gets out of the car, which means that gas stations are less likely to be stores, which means that if you're on Route 17 and realize you need milk/ice/cigarettes/chips, you have to pull over and find a grocery despite the fact that there's a service station every 150 feet.

Last Saturday I was in the Princes Ave Jackos buying booze at 6 in the morning cos I was going to a mate's house that afternoon to watch the play-off final, and being somewhat out of it I prefaced my purchase with "I'm not an alkie or anything mate, but can I buy booze now?"

"the offie"

I don't know the term, but we used to have a TOTAL drug front downstairs from my apartment! My apt is above a storefront on the corner that has been a few things since I've lived here. Currently it's some DFL thing to do with T1m Wa||s, but before that it was this knockoff clothing store that sold bootleg dvds, fake Nikes, (imposter) designer handbags, elephant sized raver pants with dragons on the leg, that sorta crap. It was called Le Posto, which I'm told means "The Spot" in Italian. And just to let everyone not familiar with the language in on it the storefront sign had a big black dot (a "spot", you might say) at the top which contained the letters T, H, and E, making the sign appear to read..."The Le Posto".
The guy running it was the usual, middle class, dirt-stached whigger from your middle school days, only this was 2006 and he was all grown up and still wearing Karl Kani clothes and still trying to perfect his Snoop Dogg impersonation.
We know for a fact they sold pot and other drugs. We're pretty certain they were making meth and the cops showed up somewhat on the regular. Once my roommate looked out the window after hearing a really loud fight downstairs to see a man hustling down the street with a 2x4. Another time we heard shouting and looked out our front door, which was open, to see one of his honky speed freak cronies getting tazed. The best, though, (in my opinion) was the morning I came home from work and someone had spray painted <--CRACK. on the neighboring building in seven foot tall capital letters.
I remember they listened to the same rap song (or half of it sometimes) every single day. Could never quite identify it. We could hear it every time they watched a movie, which was never anything but Walk The Line. I found it a little surprising that I never heard them watching the Godfather or Scarface or anything, the guy had pictures of Al Capone and other bootleg era gangsters all over the inside of his car--which, I should note, changed every other month to a different cop car auctioned off by the city. He eventually settled on this total soccer mom SUV for but there were constantly all these different sketchy vehicles blocking in our cars for days at a time.

Before there could be any serious arrests he got a gal pregnant in Minneapolis and had to move up there. Fun while it lasted, though.

whoa, that got longer than i thought

what is the deal with all the 'off licence' stores in london?
where did the 'off licence' shit come from?

Licensed to sell alcohol for consumption off the premises, as opposed to pubs which are licensed to sell alcohol for consumption on the premises.

aaah! i wondered about that.

Apparently when my dad was a kid his grandma used to send him down to the corner offie with a jug to pick up a pint of stout, and there was always the dude that ran the shop and a couple of buddies having a crafty drink which was strictly verboten according to the law.

"the store," "the corner store"

with certain variations... in Austin I used to hit the Good Luck Food Mart a lot, oh-so-cleverly dubbed the Good Fuck Lewd Mart, which then was shortened in conversation to a dozen other things you wouldn't say in from of children.

does it have a yellow awning? if yes, bodega. if no, deli.

yes it is called a dep (depanneur) here
yes it is mostly where to buy beer and chips, tho sometimes they have many many other things some of which are surprising, but i guess this is the same all over

sometimes i call it the corner dep b/c i grew up on the w coast calling it the corner store

i like the people who run my corner dep here. and the ones who run the ones i always go to in the other neighbourhood i seem to live half my life in. this one time we were buying pre-jamz beer and saw that there were indiana jones m&ms and i can't remember whether they said 'crispy' or 'crunchy' but i skeptically said one of those words and then 'indiana j0nes m&ms eh...' and then we said a few words abt wehther they needed to use different kinds of m&ms to promote a movie and how m&ms were involved in indiana jones in the first place etc. then the guy behind the counter said 'yeah, m&ms should be chocolate or peanut, that's how it goes, chocolate, peanut. who needs other flavours. stick to what works.' he was pretty disgusted with the whole false m&ms thing.

which reminds me of that time i accidentally bought cherry-flavoured diet dr pepper. gross+wtf why does that exist

In Sheffield you occasionally hear them called "the pakis'" after their owners, which is charming nomenclature.

jody maybe those "californians" are like most californians these days and actually transplants from arizona or utah or the midwest or something.

nope, they were natives

I often call korean grocers "bodegas" and/or non-korean stores "korean grocers."

there's a morrison's five minutes walk away from my house, and i'll still pay a 50% mark-up at the corner shop over the road 'cuz i'm laaaazy.

London: The Shop if it doesn't sell booze and The Offie if it does. If I have to shop at The Shop I only buy things with a manufacturer's price on (except for milk).

New York: deli or bodega, depending on neighbourhood.

Minnesota: The Store, The Corner, SA, 7-11, Holiday - basically the name of the store or your proximity defines what you call it.

In Sheffield you occasionally hear them called "the pakis'" after their owners, which is charming nomenclature

i was going to say: depressingly, that's still reasonably common usage in glasgow.

for us, it's either ali's (that being the store's name; actually, it's ali bros, but there's only one mr ali and he fucking rules; he is also, perhaps less amusingly than we think, occasionally known as ali G), or omar's, that being what the other store was originally called. i don't think the dude i thought was omar actually was omar, mind you.

after he fucked off, the "omar" bit of "omar's store" was painted out, leaving "'s store". it is now run by the most miserable old dude in the known universe, who takes a perverse delight in telling me when my newspaper of choice has sold out.

mr ali, meanwhile, will either give me grief about not buying enough ("£1.24! if you spend that every day this week, my retirement will be imminent!") or occasionally engage me in frank geopolitical discussion (he has photographs of george w bush and osama bin laden pinned up by the cigarettes, with abuse scrawled on them; i can't remember what it says. i'll pop up tomorrow and have a proper look).

there's actually another store between these two (all this shop japery takes place in the space of about 100 yards), which sells the odd pint of milk and promises to unlock your mobile phone. i'm not such a fan. oh, and there's "young's dairy" round the corner, which looks like it fell through a hole in time from 1942, leaving all its stock behind.

Hmm yeah actually come to think of it, I guess I called the ones in Manhattan "the deli" or "korean deli" because they were run by koreans and had nicer stuff.. then in Brooklyn where its beer, cigs, ghetto juice, and cans of goya kidney beans, they were "bodegas" - but sometimes i would call it the "yemenis". but maybe it was just to distinguish with my roommate between the ones across the street because the yemenis had miller high life and ben & jerrys, and the puerto ricans didnt.

My favorite is the aforementioned Michigan "party store".

Minnesota, it was just the Tom Thumb.

bizarre that they're called "packis" and "pakis" in totally different areas with totally different derivations.

In Sheffield you occasionally hear them called "the pakis'" after their owners, which is charming nomenclature.

-- caek, Sunday, June 1, 2008 3:37 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Iggy Pop to thread.

His recent work is much more Melville-sympatico. Anyone with a passing interest in cops and robbers movies needs to see Breaking News and Triad Election.

wrong subject, wrong thread, wrong forum

But other than that, great post!

(loling at o.r.^)

we call package stores AND corner shops "pibbles"

Bodega as convenience store is a Spanish Carribean (DR/PR/Cuba) reference. LA's latino population is mostly Mexican or Central American so you may get more mileage out of "tienda" when you're not in NYC/Miami.

In NY either deli or bodega. Here in Boston usually Store24 even though they're not Store24s anymore or convenience store.

any time i walk into a gas station that doesnt sell beer i feel lonely & unloved

^^^

in chicago most of them are just labelled "food and liquor"

but yeah folks call them 'corner store'

I live in a really confusing part of Los Feliz where there are no corners.

Where I grew up in the Chicago suburbs we'd call it by its name - Petranek's, Luebber's, "Sev" or White Hen.

its just a liquor store in massachusetts - a "packie" in the local parlance

it goes back to the times when local puritanical laws dictated that alcohol could not leave the store unless it was "packaged", i.e. in a brown bag. this law was still on the books as of 1994.

i remember getting a earful from a b.u. girl at a party when i said i was going to buy some smokes from the packie down the street. apparently she thought i was slurring a pakistani.

Also, this is totally my kind of thread.

Wow, look who started it!

news at 11 groceries

in chicago most of them are just labelled "food and liquor"

lupe fiasco to thread?

He's over there, at Paulzuh Boutiqua.

JBR have you ever been to Chicago?

i have, a few times, but never for as long/meaningful a visit as i would like

Chicago means "striped skunk" in Miami-Illinois Native American.

funny, the town I live in, Mankato, means "blue skunk". Was supposed to be "Mahkato", which means "blue earth" though is not so due to an unfortunately typo.

Well not a typo technically...

hama nama nama nib way whemmo, hama nama nama nib way-oh, hama nama nama nib way whemmo, corner store, corner sto-o-ore

'r somethin like that

i've just spent 10 minutes in mr ali's, trying to buy half a litre of milk, a paper and some black bin bags, but getting into a lengthy conversation with him about banks ("fucking banks!") and whether or not he should let a flat he owns to a 17-year-old who has no money (clue: no), punctuated with frequent references to my dimunutive stature ("you don't like borrowing money? that's why you're so short").

he's a dude, mr ali. i think.

Hahah I love my regular milkbar dude. I live 3 doors down from one run by a lovely chinese family with a little kid. They know me and I've gone there for years but I'm sad to say I am pretty sure he still doesnt know my name, and I only know from other overheard convos that his is apparently Danny, I think. He always says "hi, how are you, good" when you come in, and he knows what smokes I buy without me having to ask.

Its common round here for families to own/run a milkbar or corner shop and live out the back in a a tiny cramped house tacked to the back of the shop - is that common elsewhere?

Living above the shop is fairly common here, however I think renting out the flat above the shop is more common.

Its worth noting that in the suburbs here, corner shops are little standalone buildings without second floors, hence the out-the-back house deal. In fact you sometimes see houses on corners that have been converted from what was once a shop.

we have those in Perth too Trayce. We would call that kind of shop either 'the deli', 'the shop' or more rarely 'the corner shop' (even though lots of them are on corners). Liquor stores are 'bottlos'.

the deli near my first share house had fruit and veg in it... but if you asked for 'a punnet of fresh strawberries' that was code for a tab of acid

I wish there was a shop nearby that sold w33d :/

I wish there was a shop nearby that sold acid.

but if you asked for 'a punnet of fresh strawberries' that was code for a tab of acid

that must have had interesting outcomes for little old ladies who liked fresh strawberries.

It would explain a lot of what I saw in perth.

i wish the deli sold an effective heating device. My heater is FARKED and I'm frozen. Or maybe the deli could just sell summer. I would return winter and swap it for summer.

xpost - I think they were pretty selective about who could apply the code. So old ladies probably just got a real punnet of strawbs. Anyway! I got some great acid there a few times. aaaaah the early 90s, those were the days.

So old ladies probably just got a real punnet of strawbs.

aw. shame. i'm daydreaming about that one now ...

"ooh, what's this? is it that futuristic space food wot them astronuts eat? ooh, jesus, me colostomy bag's expanded to the size of the universe and revealed the secrets of perception. eeh. that were nice, son. see you tomorrow."

aaahhahahaha I hope that did happen! Classic

Pony Keg

The Stax or The Circle K (in the 90s)

hi I saw Half Baked too

I got confused by "bodega" the first time I heard it on tv, like "what the hell is a bodega?"

-- The Reverend, Saturday, May 31, 2008 2:47 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah me too. I had an image of an underground club where 30 somethings in flapper dresses and suits drank champagne.