Title: Grandpop’s Mom and Pop
A Store That Once Was
interview:
Owners biography
Ralph’s → grandpa named it after himself to take ownership of it
Chambers street store — 1968 rented the store
Building – two different stores and broke wall to make it one.
1980 bought the building
5 story building – main floor basement and the sub basement
Offices in the second floor
Commercial businesses on the higher floor and later tenants
After he bought building he was able to buy tenets out and used top floors for storage
1990 – he bought the leases of the 4 adjacent stores and expanded his store eventually bought those stores. Retail stores – candy store electronic
Adress – 95 and 97 chambers
Biography;
- He lived almost his whole life in brooklyn and then new jersey – commuted everyday from new jersey.
- Had 20 stores at one time all in the united states
- Born in new york manhattan his parents born in syria
- He worked for people including his brother who owned retail stores gained experienced and then opened his own
- His strategy would be to look for busy areas he would count the number of people in the area
- He would stand on the street with a clicker and would click as each person would walk by
- Had stores in other country and would travel to stores — would come in everyday — he would do the buying and merchandising he would supervise the staff and do payrolls and would work the cashregesters
- Customers knew him by face
- He felt like he was serving the community and supporting his family
Business:
- Opened on chambers street for over 40 years
- Sold the property → timing was right
- Still had other stores active
- Buffalo rochester pittsburgh pennsylvania
- Approximately 50 employers just on chambers street – including family members
- Esther mordie and eddie
- Buyer merchandiser – grandpa taught first hand organized the staff manager
- Description sold many of his stores to right aid and rite aid kept almost all of his procedures and products – discount store
“Great variety and very competitive prices” – customers were able to get continuity from us able to get what they needed
- A lot of the customers were state and federal workers and a good majority of them were minorities a lot of them were african american
- Older people 40’s and up
- n=on the block of city hall → brought tremendous amount of people in the area
- Had yogurt shop in the store, photo processing, coffee shop, pharmasies – uunder ralphs brand ( wasn’t franchise)
- At one time we were the largest one store for selling cigarettes in manhattan → quantity sold the most cigarettes
- Moral issue stopped selling cigarettes
- Over those 40 years the offices in the area changed to apartments so the area wasn’t as busy
- Instead of having 20 people in an office you had two people in an apartment
Good thing about doing business on this block → busy block that was centrally located – easy to get to through all means of transportation
Bad – there was a lot of crime in the area → business was slower on weekends bc the office workers were off
Chambers street most successful of all the stores
How did he keep business going?
Became very hard to receive merchandise because of the congestion in theh streets – we couldnt get trucks to park near the store – they zonned the parking → only parking for polixe vehcles had trouble getting our shipments
Became harder to do business as a small retailer because a lot of the major companies would only sell truck loads and would only sell to the big retailers
Became hard to compete with duane reade walgreens cvs and walgreens – they were all around us there were two duane reade within blocks of us and a right aid that opened a block away
Grandpa was always happy to compete → he owned the property that would keep his cost down and if he had to pay a little more for the merchandise he would still sell it at cheep and make a living
Margin and cost would be smaller bc of rent
Very good relationship with landlord – always paid his rent on time and eventually the landlords sold the buildings to him
Very americanized – served in the military during word war two
Did Not participate in merchants associations –”> liked to do things on his own
- Business did not participate in any community orginization but very helpful to people who would want to poen stores they would ask his advce on where to open strores
- Poeple who opened duan reeds worked for him
- Governement agencies –
Looking back: retail is a dying business it is being taken over by the internet
“Retail will one day be a thing of the past – or be very specialized”
Retails is one of hardest – cant imagine it still being open today and doing just as well for the many reasons that chambers is no longer a popular locatio as it was and people are buying less things in stores
If there was still a lot of offices.
At on time his store was
“Raphls owns chamber street” – wasnt literally true but most people felt that way
After we had closed we learned that his store front was on the cover and he was very proud about that
Always bussines hardest working man i had ever known
As son of the owner i felt great pride in what we accomplish but it was time consuming and i felt releievd when we closed it.
It kept me open to all possibilities in regards to always changinging
Carry one thing tody carry a different tinh tomrrow
Change as things around you change
Can’t become complacent or you will get left behind.
quotes:
“He would stand on the street with a clicker and would click as each person would walk by” – strategy for opening his business
“Instead of having 20 people in an office we had two people in an apartment,” – why business slowed down
“Being on Chamber street was great, it was a busy block that was centrally located and was easy to get to through all means of transportation. However there was a lot of crime in that area and business was slower on weekends because the office workers were off.” – addresses the area
