The New York bodega fights for its life
COLUMN ONE
Julio Pimentel is trying not to let his neighborhood shop become one of the many that have been forced to close -- victims of high prices, both for rent and the food they sell.
NEW YORK — The 7 a.m. sun gleams off the windows of this East Harlem bodega, as its owner, Julio Pimentel, unlocks the door and steps behind the counter that separates him from customers. He switches on a fan and tunes the radio to a Spanish station, and merengue awakens the humid morning.
It is Friday, Aug. 1. Rent is due, and Pimentel does not know if he can pay.
He spends $3,300 a month to lease the bodega. When he took over the small grocery eight years ago, monthly rent cost $1,500.
Pimentel surveys the shelves. He's running low on popular items: grape-flavored Kool-Aid mix, Goya honey, Starbursts, Cheez Doodles, applesauce, sunflower seeds.
Food prices have gone up, and his customers don't spend as they used to. Pimentel pays more for goods but won't raise his prices. He knows his clientele can't afford to pay more. They are mostly poor residents from the housing projects, shelters and run-down apartments in the neighborhood. Recently, a woman scoffed at the 99-cent price for a bar of soap, walking out in a huff without buying. Nearly everyone is struggling more than usual.
Across the city, a food crisis is unfolding in low-income neighborhoods, as one-third of New York's supermarkets have closed over the last five years, according to a recent city report. Most New Yorkers don't own cars; having a nearby store is important when grocery shopping means traveling by foot, cab or subway. Well-to-do residents who don't live near a supermarket can pay extra to order groceries online and have them delivered; poor residents must turn to the closest bodegas. "The sales have been down for the last nine months," said Jose Fernandez, president of the Bodega Assn. of the United States, which claims membership of 7,800 of New York's 11,400 bodegas. A weakening economy and rising rents and food prices have forced many to close, he said, as the number of bodegas in New York has decreased by nearly 1,000 from two years ago, according to his organization's most recent tally.
For decades, bodegas -- the crowded corner stores started by Puerto Rican and Dominican entrepreneurs in the 1960s and 1970s -- have textured the backdrop of New York. The Spanish word comes from bodeguita, a general store in Latin America, and has come to refer to such New York shops owned by people of all ethnic backgrounds.
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