EAST COAST
The New York bodega fights for its life
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.
The 7 a.m. sun gleams off the windows of this
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 $1500.
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
"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; the number of bodegas in New York has decreased by nearly 1000 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.
In the last decade, many Latino longtime shop owners have left to open bodegas in places like
Pimentel, a Dominican immigrant, is trying to hang on.
"It's hard. I think it's going to be worse for New York," Pimentel says, adding, "People are looking for special prices. Sometimes bodegas can't give special prices."
His shop, Lexington Avenue Food & Deli Corp., sits at a crossroads where condo developments and pricey outdoor cafes end and low-income housing projects and check-cashing businesses begin.
The bodega is slightly bigger than a dine-in taco stand. It fits three aisles of goods stocked according to no apparent sorting system: guava jelly, coconut milk, Wonder Bread, Goya beans, mango juice, Juicy Juice, cactus plants, blackened bananas, pork rinds.
On the shelves near the front and side windows, light peeks between rows of "Nice 'n Fluffy" and Suavitel fabric softeners and VO5 Sun-Kissed Raspberry shampoo.
Toilet paper, masking tape, plastic toy dolls, paintbrushes and barbecue lighters fill wall space, reaching high as the ceiling.
Pimentel's counter stands next to the entrance. To the right of it is the deli, where the scent of fried eggs, ham and flaky dough makes morning stomachs rumble.
Pimentel, 50, is a quiet man with thick eyebrows black as his hair. He's stationed behind clear plastic shelves filled with peppermints and chewing gum. The space is so narrow that when two people are behind the counter, they must shimmy by each other.
Behind him, a shelf is crammed with Advil PM, flashlights, cigars, Fixodent, Midol, a moldy package of coffee cake, canned octopus in garlic, Vienna sausages, toy guns, a Puerto Rican flag, $2 calling cards that read "Conversacion."
Pimentel serves customers through an opening wide as a window. His bodega does not have bulletproof glass -- he believes his camaraderie with the community is enough to keep him safe from armed robbers, though not necessarily from shoplifters.
Pimentel owes $1,400 to the power company and $1,300 in rent for the Bronx apartment he shares with his wife.
They have other debts, too. He has saved money to pay some of these bills, but it's not enough to cover the bodega rent, too.
To pay on time, he'll need to earn $3,300 today.
If he keeps falling behind, Pimentel says, the debt could mount until it swallows him. "I will have to close. I have no option. I lose all the money that I have."
'Good morning. Today is Christmas, Christmas for all of us," jokes a scraggly bearded man with a raspy voice. His name is Willie. "We get paid today."
For the last several years, Willie, 49, has hung around Pimentel's bodega, arriving promptly when it opens and staying through the afternoon. Wearing a
No one knows Willie's last name, and he refuses to tell.
Willie is right about today: Welfare and payday checks are distributed. For the last week, customers have stretched dollars from their Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (food stamps), or paid in nickels and pennies, or asked for store credit. Today they will come with cash, checks, smiles. Pimentel thinks sales might be good today.
"How much is a small coffee?" asks a woman buying her son an empanada.
"Sixty cents," says Pimentel.
"Wow, enough for everybody," she says. "I want another ham and cheese."
The empanadas have become a hit. Three months ago, Pimentel and his wife, Lorenza, 50, decided to sell them to try to make up for the slumping sales and rising costs. Most nights, after Pimentel gets off work, he helps his wife fill more than 100 empanadas with chicken, beef or cheese. They sell for $1 to $1.50 each. By midday, Lorenza will arrive with more trays.
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