The benefits of a living in a big city are pretty obvious: access to museums, fine dining, eclectic entertainment, public transportation, diverse and ever-changing neighbors. But here’s an oft-overlooked perk: the presence of a convenience store.
It can be tricky to define a convenience store, though typically you’ll know one when you see one. Generally, we’re defining a convenience store as a small store stocking a wide variety of essential items including food and snacks (certainly premade, sometimes made on-site), toiletries, probably some basic household supplies and tools, soft drinks, coffee, magazines and newspapers, and candy. The hours will be dependably long. Depending on local laws, some will sell alcohol. (Basically if it’s at all possible to sell alcohol, a convenience store will sell alcohol.) Some will sell lottery tickets. Some will sell gas, but to avoid being designated a gas station with a to-go kiosk, a convenience store must also sell all of the above items. A gas station that also sells soda and coffee is not a convenience store.
Every city has something like this, the anchor tenant in many city-dweller’s mental maps of their neighborhood. But in many places, you’d be laughed out of the building for calling it a “convenience store”. It’s a bodega. It’s a packie. It’s a party store. What you call the store on the corner says a lot about where you live.
