Origins of the New York Bodega

On New York’s Most Beloved Neighborhood Institutions

Whether you’re stocking up on toilet paper, craving a chopped cheese at 2AM or simply yearning for some human interaction, New York residents know they can count on their local bodegas for the most dire or mediocre of needs. I, for one, can’t think of any other place where you can waltz in wearing five-day-old home attire, request a bacon-egg-and-cheese and receive nods of confirmation from a guy behind the register as you ramble about your day. (Shoutout to the bodega workers who double as resident therapists). 

Often used as the backdrop to a robbery scene or a banal exchange between neighbors, bodegas are quintessentially New York institutions (and cultural icons in their own right) that bear resemblance to a grocery store, carrying everything from food to daily household items. With over 13,000 scattered across the city, these shops are often more than just convenience stores—they’re cultural hubs ingrained into their respective neighborhoods that provide residents with a place to hone a sense of routine and community. But as with most ‘New York things’, the store concept was initially brought into the city thanks to its booming immigrant population.

The term “bodega,” meaning “storeroom” or “wine cellar” in Spanish, has roots branching back to the 1940s and 50s. Following WWII, a stream of Puerto Rican immigrants relocated to New York in the hundreds of thousands, bringing with them parts of home as they began building their new communities. Bodegas—which were mom-and-pop convenience stores usually catered to lower income Puerto Ricans—was one such example. 

As more of these shops appeared within the Latinx neighborhoods of New York, the store concept was quickly adopted by other immigrant communities and eventually became fully incorporated into the city’s cultural fold. Nowadays, you can easily find yourself strolling into a Dominican-owned, Arab-owned or Chinese-owned bodega whether you’re in Midtown, Flushing or Bed-Stuy. 

While it would be difficult to imagine the city without them, bodegas have recently faced a series of challenges reflective of the plight of many small businesses in New York, where spikes in commercial rent and encroaching commercial retail spaces are just a few of the many factors that continue to put increasing pressure on the city’s most vulnerable institutions. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 brought its own set of hurdles; while bodegas initially played a key role in ensuring residents could easily access essentials during the early days of lockdown, they later saw a significant spike in crime, where store shootings were up 63%, and burglaries up 222% during the first eight months of the pandemic.

As the city continues to recover and rebuild, the future of New York’s bodegas remain uncertain. Until then, these irreplaceable corner shops serve as a daily reminder of the massive influence the immigrant community has had on building the foundation of New York’s culture today.