When Mom and Pop Own a Mom-and-Pop

[xchrom]

http://hive.slate.com/hive/10-rules-starting-small-business/article/when-mom-and-pop-own-a-mom-and-pop


A family portrait from the day my parents took over as owners. My mom, dad, brother (bottom left), and me.

There we were, my brother and our parents and I, laying waste to an Everest-sized pile of carefully wrapped presents one Christmas morning in the early 1980s, when the phone rang. We paused and looked at each other. It was about 8 a.m., too early for a grandparent or uncle calling to ask who was supposed to be where, when, and with what side dish. My dad ran to answer it.

“OK … OK… Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” Even then, at age 10 or so, I could sense that my father’s polite tone masked annoyance. “You know, I’m having Christmas with my kids right now. But I can meet you at the store at 10.”

So it goes when your family owns a mom-and-pop grocery store in a small town and your home number is in the phone book. I don’t remember what I got for Christmas that year, but I do remember my dad getting dressed and, on one of the four days of the year that the business was closed, going to the store and finding a replacement for a customer who was unhappy with his Christmas turkey. (My mom cooked that turkey a few days later. It was fine.)

Going into business for yourself might seem like a career decision, but know in advance that it will become a way of life. If you’re lucky, it will afford your family a bit more than a living wage—my brother and I always had what we needed and then some, and my parents saved enough to send each of us to a public university for four years—but it will also erase the divide between work life and home life.

For my parents, the opportunity to take over a popular and well-respected local grocery store was too enticing to turn down. Their early years together had been lean: When I was a baby, my father worked at least five days a week at a produce market in a neighboring town. That paycheck covered our house payment, car payment, and utilities. On one of his days off, he worked at his father’s menswear store. That paid for our groceries.

[raccoon]

1. It would sure be easier for people to open a mom-and-pop if we had a national health plan like

Canada and other civilized first world countries.

Thanks for your post.

You and your brother were cute kids.

[rug]

2. Now that was a good read.

[xchrom]

3. i thought it was.

growing up -- we were neighbors w/ folk who owned small groceries in our 'hood.

i went to school w/ the kids -- played at their houses, etc.

it's very sad to me that - for so many, many americans - that's closed off as an avenue for them.

[rug]

4. There was a small grocery downstairs in the walkup I grew up in in Manhattan.

It was owned then by an elderly couple from Germany, Mr. and Mrs. Weber. They kept the tab with the pencil, sold me the cigarettes my father sent me for, and carried the bags up three flights for the old ladies.. They sold it to two brothers, Mike and Steve, who ran it until they tore the buidings down. When we were teenagers we broke into the cellar through an ancient cracked wooden door and took a case of beer. We drank it up on the roof. Sure enough, Steve popped out the door onto the roof, saw us drinking beer and reamed us out. He made us clean the store but never called the cops. Solid, authentic read. Thanks.