Jackson Heights is full of harmonious division, The presence of ethnic differences is immediately visible if one walks down a street there. One community is of Hispanics, another of South Asians, and a third of white Americans, and a short walk down an avenue will reveal all those communities within a few minutes. Many people here, are from different parts of the world, bringing together countless different tastes, needs, and cultural worldviews. Yet, despite their differences, all of these communities function together beautifully, with as much in common as they have separate.

Such is apparent in two businesses, Shahee Bazaar and Krispy Krunchy Chicken. These businesses come from very different worlds, yet they both provide for the neighborhood of Jackson Heights. Shahee Bazaar is a supermarket, designed to meet the needs of Jackson Heights residents and able to do so remarkably successfully. Krispy Krunchy Chicken is a restaurant with multitudes of options, designed to meet the needs of a diverse neighborhood and, again, able to do so remarkably successfully. Both of these businesses provide valuable resources to the community, and are able to produce varying results to varied clientele. At the surface it is clear what these businesses wanted to accomplish, however after digging deeper into the origins of the business, we realized they accomplished feats much more meaningful.

Why Jackson Heights?

Walking down 37th Avenue, it is clear that this is the heart of Jackson Heights. Every couple steps you take, you come across a different set of cultures and the people reflect the area around them. I’ve spent all 19 years of my life living in this flourishing neighborhood, but the extent that I was familiar with was the two blocks connecting my apartment to the train station. I always believed that in order for me to take in what New York City really had to offer, I had to venture off to areas that were completely unfamiliar to me. What I failed to realize is that even though Jackson Heights had become a part of me, it still remained obscure. This was my opportunity to not simply use these bright streets to help me get from point A to point B; this was my chance to finally fill in those holes.

~ Rafi Khandaker

The Mission

When I finally got to sit down with the owner of the Bazaar, he seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for the store as he had those many years I would see him walking those isles. He told me that when he first purchased the store, it was barely full and his first mission was to fill its isles. He spent weeks ordering from online markets and visiting wholesale stores trying to get everything that he could get his hands on. He wanted to compete with the big supermarkets just two blocks down by providing everything a customer may need.

After the first six months, he felt content with what his store offered. He began to see a steady rise of customers coming in from the nearby mosque after prayer times and residents who needed a quick grocery run in the middle of the night. He knew everyone’s name and “took pride in every repeated visit from his regulars”.

Newfound Purpose

He then began to smile when he discussed his two sons working at the store. Being in their mid-teens, they had never held a job before and they eagerly volunteered to help around the store. They would constantly come up with new ideas of improving the store and would constantly “compete with whose ideas were better”. He saw them grow up in that store as they took more and more responsibility; talking to regulars, ordering supplies, and keeping the store running. He “saw his two little boys grow up into young men and taking the same pride in their work as he did in his own”.

He explained how after the first two years, he was no longer in it for the profit. He was able to sustain the store, but not make much from it. The reason he held on to the store for so long is because it was no longer his store; it “belonged to his sons”. I then asked him why he decided to sell the store off just a few years later. That is when he lost the little bit of excitement that he had.

With his sons being one year apart, in the next couple of years they would both be in college. The eldest son was accepted into the University of Texas while the other decided to study in Paris. The last two years that the store belonged to him, he was alone. He had a young daughter who had just turned the same age that the sons had, but she took no interest in the store. He knew it wasn’t going to be the same and every day that he dragged himself to open the store, he was reminded that his sons were no longer with him. He loved every memory he made in that store with his sons, but with them gone, he knew it would never be the same.

Changing Times

The owner’s mentality in trying to serve the community was one that was held by many close-by businesses. Evident in the Social Explorer diagrams below, the South Central Asian population has been tremendously increasing for the last two decades. With this part of Jackson Heights being predominantly of that ethnicity, many businesses wanted to take full advantage of this client pool.

Shahee as well as many supermarkets erected around this influx of South Central Asians. Shahee, however, was not fortunate to buy a storefront on the main avenue in Jackson Heights, the heart of Jackson Heights’ commercial empire. Residing only one block away from it, they were set in a more residential area with less than a fraction of the foot market that other supermarkets were receiving. This explains why Shahee Bazaar was not making the money that the owner was anticipating, however the money was not important to him anymore. He took pride in what he had accomplished and regrets nothing about his decisions.

When You Walk In

Krispy Krunchy Chicken straddles the low-end and high-end financial worlds. When Krispy Krunchy Chicken is viewed from the outside, it appears to have responded to the gentrification of the area. Its storefront resembles those of the wealthy businesses around it. Walking inside, however, one sees a much less gentrified environment. The business is small, with only enough space for people to place their orders and sit to eat. There is no glamor to the inside, only functionality. The duality here is symbolic of how Krispy Krunchy Chicken fits into the neighborhood.

The Mission

The place is reasonably high-end for a place that sells pizza and fried chicken, though not insanely so. According to the manager we interviewed, this was the point. When the place was founded, there was a nearby business that also sold fried chicken, but it was not doing well, and the owner of Krispy Krunchy Chicken had to figure out what they could do differently. At the time, Jackson Heights was beginning to gentrify, and the competing fried chicken restaurant had not responded to that. The design of the other business was intended to appeal only to those of lower socioeconomic status, and that clearly was not the way forward for a successful restaurant in a diverse area. Looking at the outside of Krispy Krunchy Chicken, it appears that the outside was intended as a method of attracting clientele, and it appears to have succeeded.

The business has been around, successfully, for several years, despite all the turmoil around it. There has been a variety of ethnic restaurants, largely Hispanic, around it, along with a small pharmacy and more recently, a Dental Oral surgery place. There is a large business across the street that has, over the last ten years, gone from having a solid wall to having a pharmacy in it, but has otherwise stayed the same. Krispy Krunchy Chicken (which used to be called Yummy’s Chicken and Pizza) has been around for roughly five years, longer than some of the businesses around it have existed.

Being Successful

If the manager is to be believed, this success is largely attributable to its business model. When we asked about the food, we were told “We have a variety of items, not only fried chicken, even though Krispy is known for its delicious chicken. We also have many types of burgers and sandwiches. We also have pizza for people that are waiting for their orders because it’s only a dollar a slice. We also have different sides that go along with your big entrees.” The manager then went on to explain that this huge variety of dishes was intended to appeal to a variety of clientele. Some, often the South Asians or Hispanics in the area, came in to buy dinner for their family. Others, generally shoppers who lived in other areas, take breaks from shopping at the chain stores to eat. The restaurant’s ownership and management saw after they expanded their menu and targeted both the community that lived in the area and the frequent shoppers, that they quickly made a name for themselves.

Krispy Krunchy Chicken provides a good example of the diversity of the neighborhood, with its variety of options intended for a variety of clientele. The presence of said variety and the fact that Krispy Krunchy Chicken provides so well for the community is evidence that Jackson Heights, full of diversity, is nonetheless a harmonious community.

 Changing Times

If one views Jackson Heights, there is very clearly disparity between the different areas. There is a section of Hispanics to the west, then a section of Asians, then a section of whites, as one can see in the demographic maps of the area presented below. When I walked down 37th avenue, it was quite obvious that there were changes very quickly–as in, a few blocks apart. Demographic changes are one thing, but there are also economic changes. The western end of the neighborhood is significantly wealthier than the western end, though that wasn’t always the case.

The western end has been gentrifying over the last few years. Rich white people have been moving into the area, and in many cases, moving businesses into the area. Upon viewing the area, one can see many chain businesses, particularly restaurants and clothing stores. It has been necessary for businesses in the area to respond to the gentrification if they mean to survive. Doing so has made the businesses discussed here successful, as they have been able to provide, not only for the less wealthy communities that already existed, but for the gentrifying area as well.

It is clear we encountered two businesses with unique clientele and purpose. Simply by just looking at their awnings, you can tell what kind of atmosphere they are giving and what purpose they hold. You can also tell of the history of the businesses around them. Shahee does not dedicate a lot to revamping its look because its purpose is clear and those who come in, will come in regardless of what they look like. Krispy on the other hand, must use its look to draw in new customers who are passing by and get them to fall in love with their food. Taking a look at the traffic around the business also provides a glimpse into the amount of people that walk in.

Even though it is clear that these two businesses have very different approaches to serving their customers, the largest emphasis we wanted to put was on their pride of their product. Shahee took pride in the store because it brought him closer to his sons and provided him with irreplaceable memories. Krispy knew of the failed businesses similar to theirs that existed previously, yet still believed that they would not fall to the same fate. Regardless of anything else, that is what these businesses want to be remembered for.

References

All Diagrams Provided By Social Explorer

All Photos Are Property of the Authors