So why not turn to other state names when it comes to naming your deli/grocery/bodega? Kentucky isn’t all that far from New York. Or perhaps the owners of this Avenue D establishment were trying to make a point about how much distance lies between their store and the center of Manhattan.
Calling your shop the Alaska Food Market at least implies that the beer and soda will always be ice-cold. It’s in Chelsea on lower Ninth Avenue.
Delicatessen signs are all over the city, some more distinctive that others. This mosiac storefront in Greenpoint has a medieval kind of touch:
I don’t know how long this vertical sign has been affixed to this Jane Street building, but the store below it hasn’t been a deli for years.
A Harlem neighborhood deli sign that has seen better days. Why Golden Gate?
There are more of these circa-9/11 delis and pizza places than I ever thought. Perhaps the owners truly got caught up in the sentiment of the time, or maybe they just wanted to make sure no one accused them of being Muslim terrorists.
The God Bless Deli is on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint.
It’s a funny little place to pick up groceries, cat food, and flowers on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea. And fresh too!
Woolworth’s stores used to be all over the city, carrying all kinds of five-and-dime oddities and tchochkas other discount stores wouldn’t bother with because they defied categorizing.
It now appears that some bodegas are filling that miscellaneous stuff gap and advertising their stock of uncategorizable “things.”
As well as “odds & ends” as this Chelsea bodega sign in the upper 20s indicates.
So begins a new ongoing feature on Ephemeral New York, Bizarre Deli Names. I was actually looking for the Dodi and Diana Deli, the best bodega name ever, but I guess it folded.
Seriously, I like the owner’s optimism. Tenth Avenue in the 50s.
