You must log in or # to comment.
Hey man, sometimes they have cats
So after reading through all the valuable comments here it seems like a bodega is a way to say you live in New York while trying to not seem like you’re bragging about it but you actually try to brag about it
One of the main things I miss from the UK is the cornershops - generally run by an Asian family and you can find almost anything a human could possibly want to buy in there with “multipack, not for individual sale” writ on the side.
Australia used to have milk bars, which were basically the same thing, but they’ve all been closed down or gentrified into delis and brunch cafes.
I’m originally from South Jersey. I grew up in a small city where everywhere was a family owned, Corner Store. Or just the “Store”. We didn’t call it anything different. I don’t know where “Bodega” came from.
bodegon deez nuts
They’re a psyop set up by Big Feline.
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.
Swap Indian for Thai and you just described the food options in my Redneck SoCal city.
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!
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
It’s not just a corner store, it’s a corner store with a cat
My understanding is that at least one type of bodega is known for taking a relatively short list of ingredients and making a wide variety of food out of them.
We’ve got a couple of places like that down here in Hampton Roads - the Sun and Moon deli, for example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nALYSXamP-ksJG9N1C2qjB59ytRqYb56/view (menu)
I love that mix of stuff of which some of it seemingly is random, but it really does re-use a lot of the same stuff.
The lamb over rice is just fantastic. Everything we’ve had has been. Not on that menu, but they have a Jamaican meat patty and it’s clear it’s made homemade in-house. It’s so tasty.
I know both of these placs down here in Newport News are separate, but both run by folks from Yemen. Well, I don’t know what’s up there, but I 100% approve of Yemini-run bodegas down here. They’re delightful! :)
If that’s the definition, every taqueria is also a bodega.
We had one of these by Granville island here in Van BC. Homeade soups, sandwiches, burgers, meat pies, pastries. You name it, she had it and it was cheap and pretty darn good. Raising rent prices chased them out and nothing has been able to replace it…
Ah, that sucks. Because that place sounds like it was frickin’ awesome.
How bazaar
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.
A bodega is a gas station without the gas
So a corner store?
Or even a bodega
I experienced that first hand. Colleagues going to their cars to drive 200m down the road to park again and then walk 100m back on themselves to a deli.
It’s baffling how something as simple as a corner shop that can be walked to is a novelty yet here in Europe, it’s the norm everywhere.
I think back in the day there was a dispute about whether there should be corner stores everywhere. Some disagreed, were put on boats, and sent across the ocean.
You’re right, but that’s equivalent to saying that most places don’t have corner stores. It being walkable is a prerequisite.
Now try asking the Québécois about dépanneurs
That’s just a convenience store, in French.
That would require me to go to quebec and defile my tongue with french.
Don’t worry, it’s not really French
Nothing special about them. It’s just a different name for a regular convenience store.
Huh, I guess you’re right actually. I’m in Québec often and I always thought a dépanneur was specifically a convenience store that sold alcohol but it seems like it does refer to any convenience store
Growing up in Ontario in the 80s and 90s, the fact that you could buy beer and wine at a dépanneur was revolutionary. Can’t get that at Mac’s Milk!
Haha I grew up on the border of Ontario and Québec (ON side) and we’d make trips over to the small town dep on the Quebec side to buy alcohol when we were 18.
Also re: Mac’s Milk, I’m still mad its not called that anymore
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. )
And their Bodega cat.
The most important part of the Bodega!!!
Yep. It’s simple and human. That’s it. That’s the magic.
Ok but conbis are actually pretty great. That or I just like beer and onigiri with a short walk
I love a good conbi crawl getting shit faced through Japan.
Will I wake up in a completely different city? Maybe, because Japan is insanely safe and public transport is perhaps too convenient
I eat conbini sandos all the time, chasing the high of a decent sandwich but only feeling their echoes as a couple of thin slices of ham whisper across my tongue.
I should just stick to rice balls
My fren really got into those sandwiches a while back. I don’t get it. They are crazy expensive compared with the onigiris and other things and don’t look that convincing to me. Maybe worth a try some day
They’re shit. People here have no idea why tourists are obsessed with the 7/11 egg sandos.
