C-Stores Are Oases in a Food Desert

Atlantic City’s neighborhood convenience stores can be a port in a storm during bad weather and good.

July 10, 2014

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – When Hurricane Sandy hit, there were few places that police, fire and other emergency workers could stop for a bite — but one of them was the A&B Market in Atlantic City’s Lower Chelsea neighborhood.

"If there's a bad storm or something, I never close," owner Ricky Patel told the Press of Atlantic City. "Why? Because that's the day people depend on me. Any other day, I depend on the neighborhood. But in bad weather? The neighborhood depends on me."

The little, locally owned convenience stores and bodegas in Atlantic City and Ventnor are the hub of their neighborhoods, places where residents — many of whom don't have cars — can easily walk to pick up what they need and want in an area officially designated a so-called "food desert" for its lack of large, nearby grocery stores.

But owners have to deal with competition from not only each other but from big chains as well, not to mention the overall decline in Atlantic City's economy over the past seven years.

On top of that, there are the long hours and few days off. "People think it's easy money to make," Patel said. "But it's not. People don't understand what you have to put into being a convenience store owner. You work seven days a week, at least 15 to 16 hours a day. You can't celebrate any holiday or anything. A couple days ago, my little daughter had a birthday and wanted me to take her out, but I couldn't take her out. I've got to be here. It's easy for me to just close the door and stay home, but it does affect the neighborhood, and it does affect me, too."

For different stores, what they sell often appeals to the specific tastes of the local neighborhood. At Atlantic City’s Ali's Grocery Store, owner Mohammad Dawood ‘s specialty is halal foods and foods catering to the Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani communities — and as the largest such store, almost a supermarket, "We don't have any competition with anybody," he confidently told the Press.

Similarly, at the Nashville Food Market, just across the border in Ventnor, New Jersey, owner Maria Yaqoob said the store specializes in produce favored by Hispanic customers, such as black sweet corn, beans and rice, plus different kinds of bakery products.

Convenience stores that sell produce are especially helpful in what the U.S. Department of Agriculture classifies as "food deserts," areas that lack a number of places to buy fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthful whole foods.

"We're asking everybody in the neighborhood if they need anything they'd want us to buy," Yaqoob said. "We just try to make the prices very reasonable."

Convenience — or lack of it—is also what helps define a "food desert," an area where at least 20 percent of families are at or below the federal poverty line and where a third of the families are a mile away from any large grocery store in an urban area. Unfortunately, competition with larger, cheaper stores is taking its toll on the convenience stores. And losing a customer, even one, is the worst thing you can do with so much competition.

"It's a problem right now," Patel said. "Atlantic City is opening more stores than ever before — and the public has less than it had before. Store owners try to compete with each other and try to sell things under cost. They lose money, and it makes it worse for everyone." Then, he smiled and shrugged. "But hey," he said. "I chose it."

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