Have you find your favorite shop disappeared and replaced with the new shop or condominium? Do you find the local food shop harder and can’t help heading to the convenience store to pick up the frozen dish for your dinner? Today we will talk about the local business from the picture of their storefronts.
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| Caputo’s Bake Shop Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (2009). Photograph: SupplJames and Karla Murrayied |
According to “Closing down: the couple chronicling New York's disappearing storefronts
”, the photographers James and Karla Murray keep on a project in order to catalogue New York’s most compelling storefronts which reflect the atmosphere of small business survival in the specific time. There might be some tragedy that is the disappearance of retail store as a result of the real estate development or discontinuation of the next generation because of the hardship running the business; in contrast, the trends can also be beneficial to the old business from the nostalgic or vintage trend popularity which lead the new charming to the newer or younger customers.
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| the newer chicken rice shop named "Mongkol Wattana" |
Last month, My favorite chicken rice shop named “Mongkol Wattana” had been took over by the relatives and moved to the new place but not far away, because the owner aged around 60 y.o. wanted to retire and their children didn't want to took over their business. I’ve already tasted the new one, and the taste don’t seem to gone wrong; even though, I still miss the older shop’s taste of chicken soup. In short, I satisfy with the new one because of more amount at the same price with few noticeable change of taste. It can be replaced but we will miss the old one.
At the same time, there also have many new business here too. The latest business is co-working space which quite surprise me too see such a trendy business in very old atmosphere like here, while we always see them in the hip area like Thong-lor or Sukhumvit. That might lead to draw newer pedestrian and more traffic to this very area.
The location of my vicinity is quite different from the time when I was young. I think this phenomenon is common around urban area in Bangkok. More modern trade, less local shop. Let me give you an obvious example, Sam-yan market. There were many shop houses and traditional market, most of the owner is Chinese Thai people. Some of them like Sam-yan steak shop community move to the newer Sam-yan market that is not far, but some shop like Joke Sam-yan (congee shop) move to Bang-Na, the south border area of Bangkok. Now the same popular market place turn to emptiness because of the estate development project of the landlord let the land abandoned under transition process not intervened from the law like developed country that prohibit and fine the owner of the abandoned land. Thai laws always convey the justice for the rich rather than the small persons.
The modern trade is also expanding more and make the small business became harder to survive. Many Chow-huay shop houses (groceries) turn to franchised convenient stores, so the giant corporate became bigger and bigger and the Jack is weaker and weaker. Anyway, business is like this. The winner takes all. But someday 7-11 storefronts picture may become history too, if they cannot adjust to the new customer’s behavior or cannot afford the rent to operate them. I’m quite excited about the newer retail shop in Bangkok and can’t wait to see.
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Reference
Moroz, S. (2015, November 19). Closing down: the couple chronicling New York's disappearing storefronts. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/19/closing-down-chronicling-new-york-disappearing-stores
Definitely a blog post to incite nostalgia with an early Sunday afternoon coffee. I immediately thought of a few examples of changes to the shops I used to love. A recent one was a shop call La Boulange, which used to make the best French style breads and other baked goods on Convent Road. I was very sad when it passed some years ago.
ReplyDeleteAnd years ago, there was a wonderful noodle shop on the corner of Silom Soi 2. I'm sure the owner made the tastiest noodles I've ever enjoyed from the bowls of meats and other goodies lying open on his work space. There is still a noodle shop there, enclosed and air conditioned, but it's just not the same.
Finally, on my trips back to Australia, I like to walk around the streets I've known for decades seeing what old places are still there and which have gone. Some are still there, but radically different. There is one cafe in Lismore that has been a treat for me for more than 50 years now - and although it's been redesigned and the menu updated, the Mecca Cafe still has some of the atmosphere I loved when my parents took there on our big days out in the city. (Lismore is actually a large country town, but to me, growing up on a farm, it was huge.)
I just did a quick Google and found a 2007 article in the local newspaper which reports that the Mecca has been around since 1928 - it was already old before I ever set foot in it. I guess it did always seem to have been there forever. My parents certainly had long memories of visiting it, and likely were among some the early customers from almost 90 years ago. When I'm back next April, I must take my mum for a snack there and ask her how old she was on her first visit.
Ahh.. I see the french bread store on Convent Rd. but I've never tried it before. So sad..
DeleteAnd I don't know about your favorite noodle shop at Soi 2. I think I must have seen them, since my school is not far from there, but I really have no idea.
I originally sat down with an early afternoon coffee to make a start on the body of the essay that has to support my thesis about setting Steinbeck presents us with in his opening chapter. But Union had posted a few interesting comments that deserved replies, and then there was this latest blog post. And now my coffee is finished.
ReplyDeleteBut I should probably still make a start on the body of my essay. How can I prove, from the details in the first chapter of Of Mice and Men that "set towards the end of the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States, Steinbeck’s opening chapter contrasts the revitalizing and beautiful world of nature with the demanding and unforgiving world of man," as the current version of my provisional thesis statement promises to do.
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ReplyDeleteI always go jogging in JJ park at late afternoon on weekends. I think everybody knows JJ green, the night street market close to JJ market. At the beginning, JJ green was different than it is now. Most goods that were showed and sold were antique goods such as auto-parts of old cars, old books and old pictures that made this market unique. But now it has changed completely, you can see only trendy cloths, shoes and hats that can be found in other markets. I used to have dinner there. Foods were not so bad but more importantly I liked the atmosphere which was very antique.
ReplyDeleteI've heard some news about the trader there. I think the economical deflation cause some trouble to them quite a lot, so some are disappeared from the market. What a pity!
DeleteRecently, I usually see 7-11 shops open next so close to each other, just 1-2 blocks away. They obviously replace the former local businesses. And the 7-11 coming may not because of just they want to but the customs need them, too. So I think it also results from the change in consumers preference that leave the traditional shop to close and turn to modern convenient stores, instead.
ReplyDeleteActually there are a lot of weak point in modern trade too, which also known among the retail survivor and keep on telling in the public post reply like in Pantip webboard. The key success is small packaging, credit sale and customer relationship. The business need a lot of adaptation to survive like Darwin's theory of evolution.
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