14 NOVEMBER 4, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Bodega, store owners fear grocery delivery apps
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN AND GABRIELE
HOLTERMANN
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
This is the third story in amNewYork
Metro’s fi ve-part series examining
the proliferation of grocery delivery
services across the city — and the impact
they’re having on residents and brickand
mortar business owners alike.
Quick-commerce grocery delivery
services like JOKR, Gorillas, and Fridge
No More have fl ooded New York City’s
market this year, promising quick
delivery and relatively low prices for
everything from a full week of groceries
to a forgotten dinner ingredient or
evening ice cream purchase.
Where traditional grocery stores
shell out for big pieces of the city’s
pricey real estate to stock thousands
of items and keep the store orderly
and well-staff ed, the apps operate out
of “dark stores,” small warehouses carrying
about 2,000 items.
The companies say spending less
money on rent and dealing with food
waste allows them to keep their prices
low, about on-par with local grocery
stores for most items, and delivery is
free or low-cost, unlike more established
apps like InstaCart or Fresh
Direct.
Grocery stores aren’t the only businesses
with something to worry about.
For many of the city’s nine million residents,
the local corner store is the go-to
for a quick purchase. Stocked with the
essentials, more than 10,000 bodegas
serve their customers faithfully at all
hours. In some parts of the city, bodegas
are more than a quick stop — they’re
the only food store nearby.
While it’s all still new, some grocery
store and bodega owners, still recovering
from months of lockdowns, are
concerned about the disruption.
‘THE AMERICAN WAY IS
DONE’
“Any bodegas that were in the busy
commercial neighborhoods, they didn’t
do too well,” said Youseff Mubarez,
director of public relations at the
Brooklyn-based Yemeni American
Merchants Association. “Rents were
high, not a lot of foot traffi c. But the
stores in food deserts, obviously they
did their best to stay open and get as
much product as they can, but they
stayed in business because they were
selling what most people in the neighborhood
need every day.”
Muhammad Esa, who has been in the
retail business for decades, learned the
trade from his father and uncles. He has
owned Farm Shop Deli on 5th Avenue
and 4th Street in Park Slope for twenty
years, and said the apps aren’t the fi rst
threat to business.
Muhammad Esa owner of Farm Shop Deli in Park Slope. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
Long before the grocery delivery
apps, the business changed when
wholesale operators like Costco and
BJ’s became open to the public.
“So we are just surviving on necessities
that people just need and come
and grab,” Esa said. “We’re not really,
like, maybe 30 years ago, when we used
to be just like a supermarket, we buy
wholesale, we buy just like a supermarket.
Then things started to change when
the wholesale became available to the
public.”
Small businesses don’t stand a
chance against corporations like Costco
or Whole Foods, he feels, because corporations
have too much infl uence over
politicians, which has chipped away on
regulations that protected small business
owners in the past.
“The American Way is done,” Esa said.
“It’s just a thing of the past.”
Jose Bello, a Washington Heights native
and founder of My Bodega Online,
was encouraged by the city’s decision
to cap marketing and delivery fees
apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash
can charge restaurants — but feels it’s
unlikely regulations are in the works
for new apps.
“This half a billion dollar industry
was created in the last 18 months,” he
said. “By the time that people realize
the eff ect that they may or may not have
—maybe either they burst as a bubble, or
they take over everything — it’s too late,
they are here.”
Mubarez said more hardship is
coming for bodega owners and their
employees as emergency grants run
dry and the unemployment payments
that were allowing customers to spend
their money stop.
“Right now, all the businesses are like,
‘I’m making 25, 30 percent less than
I was making last month, it’s getting
tougher to stay open, and stuff like that,”
Mubarez said. “It’s just the worst timing
for lower-income communities, they’re
getting less money, and then, you know,
the more affl uent people like landlords
are saying, ‘Oh, it’s time to raise rent
again, everything is back to normal.’
It’s just widening the gap.”
THE POTENTIAL TO ADAPT
Bello launched My Bodega Online,
a delivery platform for bodegas, last
year. Many were already delivering
informally, he said, when customers
would call up wanting something and
they’d send out an employee who wasn’t
busy on a bike or e-bike.
The app makes ordering and delivering
easier and more effi cient for
bodegas and their customers, and
makes the process a little more offi cial
for customers who might not be used to
calling up to place an order.
Adapting to the new reality and
keeping up with technology is critical
if bodegas want to stay competitive,
Bello said.
“They are so big,” he said of the new
delivery services. “Bodegas are not
seeing what is coming. Because they’re
going to, if not destroy, they’re going to
modify the bodegas. Bodegas, if they
don’t disappear, they will be kind of
the daily sandwich kind of thing, you
go to buy lottos, that kind of thing, but
the grocery part will not be as strong
there.”
Ten years ago, Bello said, taxi
services — not just yellow cabs, but
private companies who riders would
call when they needed a ride — were an
integral part of the fabric of New York
City, a longtime and iconic part of its
streets. But the advent of cheaper ridehailing
apps like Uber and Lyft turned
that upside down.
“They had capital, they were the
famous people in our parades, they
were on every corner of the city,” he
said. “And they disappeared. There
are a few here and there, they’ve even
tried putting out an app, but they kind
of disappeared in the infl uence, in the
numbers, and we all use Uber or Lyft .”
“That is coming, it’s upon us.”
Members of the New York Taxi
Workers Alliance have been gathering
outside City Hall every day since
September, protesting what they call
a lackluster plan proposed by the city
in March to relieve crushing debt accrued
when medallion prices soared
and made worse when ride-hailing
apps changed the fabric of the business.
Many of those drivers have been on a
hunger strike since Oct. 20.
NEEDS NOT MET BY
SOFTWARE
While they’ve expanded quickly,
Bello noted that most of the apps are
sticking to the same areas within the
city – Manhattan, though most don’t
broach the island’s northernmost
neighborhoods, parts of Queens like
Astoria and Long Island City, and
Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg
and Downtown Brooklyn.
“I understand, it’s low-hanging fruit,
you want to go where there’s higher
THE RACE TO DELIVER
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