Claudia Market doesn’t have a sign above its door announcing its name; it’s the sort of place that just gets straight to the point. “OPEN," read the neon letters facing Humboldt Avenue.
That means a lot these days.
Inside, there’s even more to its appeal. Angel Baez, the former owner who everyone calls “Papi,” watches over the fluorescent-lit kingdom with a twinkle in his eye, making change, scratching lottery tickets, lining up votive candles, dispensing surgical masks. “Young man, have a good day!” he saluted an elderly customer. “OK, primo!” he told another, as he restocked the cigarette dispenser behind a newly installed plexiglass shield at the store’s front. “You’re in trouble today,” he teased a third. “You didn’t buy the candy for your daughter!”
With restaurants and other arenas of public life closed across the state, and large grocery stores overrun and understocked, bodegas — those scrappy convenience stores often based in working-class neighborhoods — are getting the credit they deserve. Some are still miraculously well stocked with flour and toilet paper, but even beyond that, they offer a feeling of neighborly communion in an isolated time.
“It’s refuge,” said Jerry Coats, 65, who visits Claudia Market at least three times a week to pick up essentials for himself and his neighbors. “Say your boat has sprung a few leaks and there’s no one to assist you. That’s what this store represents: assistance.”
Sales at convenience stores, including ones attached to gas stations, are down by about 30 percent across New England because people are staying home, said Jonathan Shaer, executive director of the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association, a trade group. But even with sales down, bodegas in city neighborhoods are standing out to the people around them.
“They always have what you need,” Shaer said. “They stay open in the face of added risk.”
On a recent Thursday morning, customers streamed into Claudia Market, greeting each other in a mixture of Spanish and English, some wearing masks, some not. Purchases, many of them under $15 and paid for in cash, included two sticks of beef jerky, two cans of pineapple juice, a package of tobacco leaves, 10 face masks, a bottle of water, a 2-Liter Canada Dry, plastic-wrapped sandwich rolls, a bag of Wise onion ring chips, three scratch-off lottery tickets, and a jar of Ragu, “Old World Style.” Customers chatted with Papi and the new owner, Kaisher Chowdhury, 31, who bought the store 5 years ago, as the men rang up their purchases.
Chowdhury said some of his customers don’t own cars, which makes it difficult to go to bigger grocery stores that are farther away, and bulk purchases are also expensive. But even for those who have the option, grocery stores, with their long outdoor lines and sometimes bare shelves, can seem unappealing right now. Many of Chowdhury’s customers prefer to make small, frequent purchases. When a customer paid with a clutch of nickels and dimes, the owner counted it out carefully, with respect.
There’s also the sense that with everything out of whack, your neighbors at Claudia will look out for you.
"Where are your gloves?” Papi chastised a customer as he made her change.
“I have hand sanitizer in the car,” she told him.
Papi dipped behind the counter, plucked two blue latex gloves from his personal supply, and handed them over.
“Only today, OK?” he said with a grin. “Next time I’ll charge you $10!”
Claudia Market, and bodegas like it across the state, aren’t just convenient. They’re comforting, places to hear the neighborhood news and see its regular faces.
“It’s not just a neighborhood store because we are located in the neighborhood,” said Chowdhury, an immigrant from Bangladesh who is studying for his master’s degree in finance while keeping the store impressively stocked during widespread shortages, sometimes traveling around the state to find elusive goods. He wore an Airpod in one ear and a Bruins baseball cap on his head. “I also live here and these are my real neighbors and friends.”
“Even growing up, that’s how you mostly meet people in the neighborhood,” said Derrick Brown, 29, who had stopped in to buy a Red Bull and a packet of gummies, a scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth. “What’s up?” he said to a neighbor heading out.
Now that it’s one of the only gathering places around, a trip to the bodega can provide a glimmer of life as it used to be. Ruby Pena, who is 10, and her mother, Jazmin Ochoa, tend to visit every day. These days, Pena, who can’t see her friends and has to do all her homework online, especially looks forward to the outing.
After picking out Haribo sour spaghetti and peanut M & Ms, she went to hug Papi, as she usually does, but her mother shooed her away.
“Hey, coronavirus!” Ochoa said, half teasing, as Papi and her daughter both laughed. “Me and him, we’re like family,” she said.
Sure, she could buy groceries at Stop & Shop or another market, but, as she put it, “I’d rather leave my money here.”
Papi opened his store in the late 1990s, naming it after his daughter, and though Chowdhury now runs it, Papi still works seven days a week, only taking short breaks to drink Red Bull or have a sip of hazelnut-flavored coffee. (“I didn’t know you sat down ever!” a customer exclaimed recently.)
Hostess cakes and Krispy Kreme donuts are particularly popular, Chowdhury said, as are ramen and bottled waters. Lottery tickets still sell at a steady pace. One man comes in every few days to buy a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream.
“OK, my friend. God bless you,” a customer told Chowdhury as he rang up his order on Thursday morning. “Wait — you don’t have $10 in quarters do you?”
Chowdhury said, “I do.”