This week, two
ex-Googlers announced their recent innovation, “BODEGA”, a vending machine,
or five-foot-wide pantry box, slated to become the next big convenience stop or
amenity in cities across the country. A convenience that is in fact already
being provided by already existing bodegas (as they are known here in NYC), or
corner stores. These stores, typically run by immigrants, are “frills-free
symbols of consumer access and gritty mini-embodiments of the city’s diversity
and 24/7 ethos”, and have become more than just a convenient neighborhood
retailer. They are ‘third
spaces’, extensions of many residents’ homes, and locations where ideas are
exchanged and relationships are built. Most importantly, bodegas represent the
livelihoods of thousands of immigrants in cities across the country.
Needless to say, “BODEGA”
was faced with a great amount of backlash the day it was announced. And we won’t
sit quietly either so here’s a quick summary of why “BODEGA” won’t be filling a
market gap here, or in most other cities, and will never match up as the
amenity that a real bodega is.
1.
Bodegas
are already convenient in most neighborhoods,
particularly ones that are not well- served by full-service grocery stores
I did a quick search of NAICS-code defined ‘Food and Beverage
stores’ (NAICS: 445) that only had 10 or fewer employees and had annual sales
of less than $1 million (Admittedly, these are just some of many characteristics
that are presumed to be typical of small family-owned bodegas in New York City
but it was the quickest way I could get an estimate of where bodegas or corner stores are already located in
a locality) to look at just how convenient they are location-wise.
 |
| Estimate location of corner stores and bodegas in North Brooklyn, NY (Source: LOA; ESRI Business Analyst Online) |
In North Brooklyn, just by eyeballing, there appears to be
at least 1 bodega or corner store every 0.2 mile (mostly! – note the bodega
deserts by the Gowanus canal and in Prospect Park). Given that most people are
only willing to walk 0.25 mile as part of a commute or to access amenities like
parks and public spaces, we can safely say that bodegas here are within the
realm of being convenient and of ‘walking
distance’.
Likewise in Lower Manhattan, bodegas and corner stores are
everywhere, safe for along the East River but remember, this part of Manhattan
is better-served by full-service grocery stores anyway.
 |
| Estimate location of corner stores and bodegas in Lower Manhattan and Williamsburg, NY (Source: LOA; ESRI Business Analyst Online) |
Operation hours-wise, bodegas are typically open between
16-18 hours per day (if not 24/7), making it accessible to almost everyone
returning home at all hours of the day. Furthermore, for some people in NYC,
where apartments are shoe-box sized, the lack of a full fridge means that the
bodega is also the convenient extended freezer. So you know where you’re going
to get that tub of ice cream in the middle of the night when you’re craving a
treat.
2. Bodegas are increasingly offering a wide range
of products
 |
| A wide selection of fresh fruit at a corner store in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn, NY |
From non-perishables to fresh produce and beers, the bodega
has it! Unlike “BODEGA” that can only carry non-perishable goods (because you know, it’s essentially a
vending machine), the bodegas we already have in our neighborhoods can
carry almost anything and everything and are therefore more useful to
households in the long run. I buy cheese, milk and eggs every other Saturday when
I’m finally itching to make an omelet for a leisurely breakfast and I doubt “BODEGA”
will ever be able to meet this need. Other residents in Brooklyn today are a
little more fortunate and have local bodegas that carry really high quality
fresh produce.
3. Many bodegas are already ‘smart’
Both bodegas that I frequent in my neighborhood have ‘feedback
boards’ that enable customers to write the names of products that they wish to
see in the store. It’s a simple solution that involves a small cork board,
Post-Its and Sharpies, yet owners are able to get more information than “BODEGA”
will ever get from its cameras. The cameras in “BODEGA” will apparently track
what items are being removed from the machine before sending this data back to main
offices to restock the item.
Another thing we need to remember – bodegas also have real
people manning the counters, the aisles, the sandwich counters. These people
constantly chat with customers to find out if there are any products their
customers wanted to see in store. “BODEGA” claims it will have motion sensors
to track what products are more popular, and for whom, but I think it’s much
easier when I can just express this same information to a person who owns/
manages the store in real-time, don’t you?
4.
Bodegas
are hyper locally-sensitive and have personalities
To add on to the earlier argument about the humanness
of bodegas, as neighborhoods rapidly change in cities, one block may be
extremely different than the next one which also means that bodegas are now stocking
almost entirely different products on a block-by-block basis. They are often
responding to socio- economic demographics at a block-level and “BODEGA” hasn’t
indicated the same capability.
As
Adam Chandler wrote in the NYTimes, each bodega is “oddly curated” and no
algorithm is clever enough to come up with these eccentricities (at least, not
yet). From the Polish specialty foods to Colombian snacks, each bodega has its
own specialty treats and delicacies.
5. Bodegas are third spaces
 |
| Franklin Deli Bodega in Greenpoint, Brooklyn NY. Photo: Shawn Hoke via Flickr |
A relationship with your bodega means you could get a
sandwich hook up at an odd hour of the day. More importantly, bodegas are your literal
neighbors. They are located below your apartment or next to your building or
across from you and are operated by the same people day in and day out. You can
chat about the English soccer game happening at the moment, or you can chat
about the fact that it’s been a little loud on the street this past weekend,
and they’re more than likely to share an opinion about the topic. In one
instance, I had a full-blown conversation with the guy at my bodega about how
much tastier Pepsi Light was compared to regular Pepsi and the kids in line
behind me were more than excited to chime in.
Whether these interactions and relationships are forced or
not, they are bound to occur in the small spaces of bodegas, making them vital
community spaces for residents in cities across the country.
6.
Bodegas are
natural surveillance systems for the neighborhood.
As mentioned earlier, bodegas are open 16-18 hours of the
day and in some cases open 24/7, which means bodega employees and customers
walking in and out thru late hours of the night serve as
‘eyes on the street’ and round-the-clock surveillance.
7.
Bodegas
are employment centers for immigrants
Finally, bodegas are a large employer of immigrants. A Fiscal
Policy Institute study published in 2011 found that more than 48% of NYC
businesses owners are foreign-born, and in particular, they dominate certain
lines of businesses such as dry cleaning, taxi services, and grocery stores (of
which bodegas and corner stores make up a reasonable share of this category).
In NYC, retail trade is the broad industry with the largest
number of immigrant small business owners. While a full 90 percent of the
city’s dry cleaning and taxi service owners are immigrants, a close 84 percent
of grocery store owners are also immigrants.
These immigrant business owners already face numerous
obstacles in running their businesses, most commonly lack of access to capital (which,
apparently “BODEGA” has not been short of) and inability to comply with city
business regulations. For now, it seems “BODEGA” will only serve to add problems
by becoming a new source of competition for our bodegas, if it does get rolled
out in cities like New York, where corner stores and bodegas are already popular.
Like everyone else we'll be paying
close attention to where “BODEGA” gets expanded to see if its co-founder,
Hunter Walk, keeps his word on “not disrupt[ing] or replace[ing] the urban
corner store… the bodega”.
