![badaga enthicity badaga enthicity](https://badaga.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/repfal-pla32badagas.jpg)
The stores are usually small and often (but not always) on a corner. This includes red and yellow awnings ("cold cuts and cold beer"), a variety of window ads, and a small sign advertising the presence of an ATM in back. (Courtesy Private Jake Dobkin Collection)īut critically, when a New Yorker hears the word "bodega" he also pictures a specific style of store design. Jake Dobkin contemplates the meaning of words. When prohibition was repealed, these stores also began stocking beer some also sold fresh and prepared food like sandwiches, produce, milk, flowers, and eggs.Īs the Spanish-speaking population of New York continued to expand, the word bodega began to be used outside Hispanic communities, where it was used interchangeably with other terms, including ones that referred to a store by what it sold ("candy store," "newsstand," "optimo," etc.) Allow me to explain!īodega is the Spanish word for "warehouse." When Spanish-speaking people began arriving in New York in large numbers during the first half of the 20th Century, they brought this word with them to describe small stores selling a variety of items including packaged food, beverages, cigarettes, newspapers, and candy. The words we New Yorkers use to describe our metropolis are freighted with subtle meaning and reflect our city's long and ethnically diverse history. Some natives might tell you that these are all expressions for what other Americans call "convenience stores," but this is wrong. What is the difference between a bodega, a deli, and a corner grocer? Are they all different terms for the same thing? I understand that, depending on who's doing the buying, stores in different neighborhoods are going to sell different items, but my impression is that it goes beyond stock-in-trade. This week's question comes from a reader who's trying to understand NYC's grocery nomenclature. He is now fielding questions-ask him anything by sending an email here, but be advised that Dobkin is "not sure you guys will be able to handle my realness." We can keep you anonymous if you prefer just let us know what neighborhood you live in. One of these lifers works among us at Gothamist-publisher Jake Dobkin grew up in Park Slope and still resides there. except, of course, those battle-hardened residents who've lived here their whole lives and Know It All. Are you relatively new to this bustling metropolis? Don't be shy about it, everyone was new to New York once upon a time.