Gawker
The Assimilated Negro is the issuing authority for your own personal Ghetto Pass, helping you safely navigate among the people and places of browner territories.
NY ain't the same, it's OT playa
you can go and cop coke from the corner bodega ...
- 50 Cent, "Corner Bodega"
On the surface you might think the Corner Bodega (Co-Bo) is just another wiki-able oasis of convenience. A sort of de facto ghetto 7-11. But, like the big rock in the forest, a look underneath reveals a self-sufficient ecosystem of subterranean life. Home of the 2 for $1 special, the Corner Bodega is the ghetto chamber of food and commerce for marginalized gentri-folk and ne'er-do-wells alike. Typically open through the wee hours, and stocked with all the bare essentials — food, alcohol, horny-goat weed — Corner Bodegas are not only a full service resource, but a genuine lifesaver.
Planning Your Trip - Looking for a genuine Corner Bodega? Well, they need to do more than sell candy-bars and speak English as a second language. Those "mini-marts" downtown with flowers and fruits are not Corner Bodegas. And hipsters and all around too-cool-for-schoolers should note: Corner Bodega proprietors will not get your ironic references to Clerks and the Kwik-E Mart. All that said, finding one is simple: Go directly to the ghetto, walk one or two blocks in any direction, look for an awning with tantalizing square-boxed promises of beer, sodas, coffee, sandwiches, and/or fresh meat and BAM! There you are.
Are We There Yet?? - There are two categories of Corner Bodega: The old-school classic editions, and the modern Neo-CoBo. Vintage Corner Bodegas are a full sensory experience; while your eyes feast on the colorful awnings and scan the lucky dollars taped to the walls, your ears engage with the sweet sound of salsa/meringue, or perhaps baseball on the radio. The air is thick, and the atmosphere is friendly and community-oriented. Even if lacking customers, all corner bodegas come standard with an old Spanish dude who sits around like a period-piece prop. Be sure to say hi. The modern Neo-CoBo eschews the tradition and ambience for technology and an aesthetic of minimalist sterility. They're cleaner, and provide more options, but the experience is a bit more generic. Generally speaking, vintage Co-Bos are run by "papi," and modern editions are run by "habibi."
Learning the Inventory - Every Corner Bodega has four primary sections:
Behind the Counter - Here you'll find your usual array of dentist-financing candy and candy bars. Sugary staples like Swedish Fish, Now&Laters, and Blow-pops are abundant. Menthol cigarettes, ribbed condoms (mmm ribs), cough-cold medicine, and assorted flavors of blunts are also among the more popular items.
In the Aisles - Corner Bodegas are renowned for their delicious and economically prudent array of snacks. You'll find these in the aisles, along with standard supermarket fare. Watch out for random mind-boggling markups; Corner Bodegas are notorious for arbitrarily charging $8.79 for a small can of tomato paste.
Up High - On the walls you'll find paper products, garbage bags, and cleaning stuff. When the wallet's not packing enough heat to cop luxury brands like Bounty, Hefty, and Mr. Clean, the Co-Bo always has a $1 line of generically-effective paper products and cleaning supplies.
Keep It Cold - Need alcohol on a budget? The Co-Bo has you covered. Their refrigerators are well fortified with affordable Fortys, deuce-deuces, Tallboys, and much much more. In the freezer, H agen-Daz is the official ice cream of Corner Bodegas everywhere.
General Tips
The Night Window - At a certain hour, most Corner Bodegas will close the front door and direct all customers to the nighttime "walk-through" window. You will need to have a good idea of store inventory and product placement, as papi/habibi will have to fetch items for you. No one likes to fetch, or stand in line, so everyone is significantly more ornery; as such this is no time for cheeky chicanery or getting-to-know-you chumminess. Place your money in the revolving door, take your bag of goods, and hope it contains what you asked for.
Looseys!!! - Corner Bodegas are the birthplace of the greatest product invention known to man: the loose cigarette. For social smokers and permanent would-be quitters, looseys are a godsend. Unfortunately, like the African lion, the Co-Bo's that still sell looseys are fast becoming extinct.
Habibi Say - Use the shady ATM only if you are currently considering a change of identity.
Where Everybody Knows Your Name - Become a regular at your local Corner Bodega and you get perks. For example, it will be the only store where you get to say, "I'm short right now papi, but I'll pay you later, you know I'm good for it" without getting back-hand slapped to the beat of the last Three 6 Mafia album.
Fun Facts
• Did you know the national animal for corner bodegas is the cat? Kittens are occasionally spotted, but usually you will have a veteran cat who has seen them all come and go and will therefore pay you no mind as you try to get around his lounging in the aisle.
• Did you know "dutches" are the most popular brand of cigar in Corner Bodegas (despite the lack of victory celebrations in the ghetto)? To impress the locals, ask for a "strawberry dutch" to go with your $3 ham-and-cheese, Lil Debbie cake, and bag of Utz chips.
• Did you know Co-Bo patrons are advised to ignore expiration dates and discern the age of their product via the layer of dust on it? The thinner the better.
Ghetto Terror Alert - Pink. Attractive women in general are always under a moderate level of stress, as the same people catcalling you on the street often congregate in the corner bodega. It's like HQ for cat-callers. You might refer to it as a cat-call center.
Slang Check - The only key slang in a Corner Bodega is for some of the products. Terror Alert aside, looseys refer to single cigarettes, not women, regardless of their sexual proclivities. "Dutches" are Dutchmaster cigars, they go well with marijuana.
Earlier: The Ghetto Chinese Spot
Comments
My favoritist Gawker column. And I only had to look up one word this time. Bravah, TAN.
Why you telling the world our business? Can't we keep nothing to ourselves, yo?
No, I'm actually serious.
No newspapers over 50 cents (get your Times elsewhere), Chunky Soup for $4 a can, smell of cat piss... not to be confused with the deli/liquor store hybrid.
Another useful hint: if you're looking a bodega where you can score some "non-standard goods", check the soda refrigerators. If they are (1) totally bereft of dairy products and (2) warmer than the nearest train station in July, chances are they're holding more than Swedish Fish behind the counter.
Fortunately or not, the chances of the proprietors selling their special wares to your average gabacho Gawker reader is relatively low. Even if you dust off that semester's worth of continental Spanish you picked up in your freshman year.
LMAO!!
Big up to my corner bodega at 137th and Broadway (of the habibi, not papi, variety)!!
One plus about Philadelphia is we have many of the same urban classics, bodega, but they haven't been overrun by shitbird hipsters looking to get their check in the box.
Yknow, my Co-Bo sells looseys, but I've always been a little... paranoid.
Still, I like the place. Sure, it's not exactly Whole Foods, but if I need to get a pint of Rocky Road at 2AM, or need a quick six-er for the basketball game, that's the place I'm padding to in my slippers and draws.
I'm sympathetic to The Real JR. Even though I'm white as rice myself, I can still recognize the culture-vulturism here. One nice thing about Philadelphia is we have many of the same urban jewels, such as the corner bodega (which, btw, we call "the store"), but they haven't been overrun by hipsters looking to get their check in the box. Sure, go there to buy your cigs. Just don't congratulate yourself for it.
Philadelphians, don't even talk to me. Y'all have Wawa...I miss that place. Also, don't forget the NYC Korean-variety deli with its attendant ginseng delights.
Oh, wow. I havent bought a loosey since high school.
Bless your Negro heart.
um, except that habibi means sweetheart, something you definitely don't want to call a stranger or anyone older than yourself.
I'm a fan of my bodega at 11th street and Avenue C
wow -- many apologies for the edit-revealing double post.
Finally, I get to read about my neighborhood up in here. ae38 maybe I'll see you there. It is a slammin' Neo Co-Bo.
TAN: nice going! it's a fine line between social commentary, satire, and informational prose, and you walk it, dude.
This reminds me of the scene in Crooklyn--which itself is very nostalgic--where RuPaul is dancing all up in the bodega with her huge-ass afro wig and booty shorts.
Mine is a tru blu back in the day CoBo. Nuff respect to Three Sisters in Crown Heights!! I don't even live in NY anymore but they still know me when I go back to visit. (wipes tear). They have THE BEST turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo (no salt and vinegar) heros. *sigh* See you next Wednesday Papi!
Sounds similar to the British 'off-licence' which is on every damn road in London, usually run by Pakistanis/Indians or old Jamaican dudes like you see on Eastenders. If you're lucky, you'll chance upon a Polish one, always a barrel of laughs, when you walk out with a huge jar of pickled onions or some random vegetable.
This 'looseys' idea sounds amazing. Except once you pop, you can't stop, so you may as well buy a whole pack, if like me, you have no willpower.
Rogadelic, I must respectfully disagree. Philadelphia's bodega selection is pathetically weak / nonexistent, especially over here on 16th and Parrish in "Francisville" (worst neighborhood name. evar.) The few that do exist (a) smell ok, (b) keep weird hours (read: not open 24 hours) and (c) don't even sell beer. I'm a New York transplant, a recent arrival in Philadelphia, and one of the only things that makes me more homesick than the thought of a decent public transportation system (fuck you, SEPTA) is that occasional whiff of cat piss I catch in the Philly steets. One nostril-poisoning inhale is all I need and I'm right back in Greenpoint, wandering the aisles at three in the morning, picking up a six pack, a vanilla Dutchie and a turkey sandwich. I miss home.
TAN, will you marry me?
Tropical Fantasy soda, anyone?
don't bite Ego Trip's Race-O-Rama VH1 special too hard now, TAN...
CoBos tend to have products from the home country too - a few years ago I went to my local Bodega and almost wept when I saw they had plaintain chips (a favorite of my youth.) Now I can find them almost everywhere.
Caps -- welcome. I agree, there's definitely not much over your way. But North, West, and South Philadelphia -- ie, multi-culti Philly, where the vast majority of the population resides -- are replete with bodegas and other mom & pop enterprises. I live at 17th and Spring Garden, near you, but work mostly in North Philly, so I've thankfully gotten to peep a side of the city far far off the hipster/penn/yuppie beat. But I totes agree with you on one point: FUCK SEPTA.
I refuse to call my bodega a Co-Bo. TaN sounds like he could one of those rare species: a black hipster.
Rogadelic is right. Outside of Center City, University City, or Mount Airy, there are no Wawas, unfortunately. Yet, not many Philadelphians would refer to it as a bodega, as much as a corner store. This probably has more to do with the lower Latino population, relative to NYC.
The corner store, in Philly, is far less significant, in the community, than the "taproom."
Some photographer should put together a coffee table book of bodega cats (the four-legged kind). They do give the places some personality.
ChupaCaBrooklyn: I know you're not suggesting the opposite idea at all, but New York has a slammin' mix of Black folks. Heads up Gawkers, we're not all just stereotypical hip-hop heads and honeys.... I myself am a downtown fashion junkie my damn self.
And TAN, I was with you on the Chinese food spot, but I have NEVER heard anyone call the Bodega a Co-Bo... it's the "corner sto..."
But you are right on some points: all bodegas have some old-assed man hanging out inside ALL DAY, and many are definitely drug fronts.
Nobody is Spanish at the Corner Bodega. We could be Puerto Rican, Dominican,or some other Latino variety, but the Spanish are in Spain Bro.
You can't live in the ghetto and not know this. It like referring to Haitians as the French.
you forget to mention the thin layer of dust the sits upon all of the inventory that these bodegas never move.
the layers are particularly dusty on the products that line the store windows - usually boxes of detergent or REALLY expired Nila Wafers.
You can also find individually priced bottles of beer at bodegas as well as a fine assortment of do rags and imported pantyhose from the dominican republic.
During the summer, be sure to pick up "quarter waters" (grenade-shaped bottles of sugar water that require poking your two front teeth through a metal seal on top).
Lastly, every quality bodega has an entire fucking AISLE dedicated to Goya.
love you, TAN.
Tropical Fantasy and quarter-waters are good calls.
I am not a black hipster, though I am still "questing."
My apologies to those who feel exploited. The bodegas are starting to stock Mike's Hard lemonades and other telling items of gentrinventory , so methinks it was just a matter of time. Better TAN than Anderson Cooper.
Not sure if it qualifies, exactly, but Homestyle Deli on 63rd and First is awesome. They always have the Yankees game on, they make disgustingly huge and delicious hot subs, and if you buy more than ten 40s at once they give you a bulk discount. Also, TAN, I think "CoBo" is genius.
Two words: Coco Rico.
Having grown up in El Barrio, back when it was working-class and broke-ass families, I never saw Haagen Dazs ice cream anywhere north of 86th on the east side. Maybe that Gristede's that opened on the south side of 96th/3rd had it... but who shopped there? And what bozo came up with co-bo? Not all bodegas are on corners, and even the black kids mom used to watch after school could say bo-DAY-guh! Sorry, TAN, but it seems you're a little behind the gentricurve on this one.
Damn, how can you write about "Co-Bo's" (ugh, it's either "The Bodega" or "Corner Store" for me) and not mention Beef Patties??? (what happened to the Cocoa Bread btw?) True, I can't mess with that questionable meat inside the pastry until after a night of drinking and I find myself a couple of $$ short for a run at Crown Chicken (do a story on that place!)
For the person questioning the logic behind looseys, it's like this: Cigs cost a good $6.50-$7.00 pack at the bodega (in NY metro area)and at 3am, the avg. Joe/Jo-ane is just trying to cop a Newport. Thank God I don't smoke...
Also, don't forget to mention how flirting with papi or habib can come in handy ;)
Here on the edge of Prospie/Crown heights (Alright, Crown Heights) we have quite the assortment of Bodegas. I've got one bodega for the best coffee (always 50c medium 1 dollar large), one for the best beer/malt liquor, one for the best selection of junk food.
Also, the Corner Bodega rounds everything at least to the quarter. No tax, and no 99 cent crap either.
Also, Bodegas can be home to rediculously good deals on craft beer. For example, the "candy store" on Franklin Avenue here sells $1.25 singles of Stone's IPA. Needless to say, I've bought him out many times.
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