Operating A Black-Owned Deli, In Buffalo, Is Challenging In Today's 'Cultural Climate.'

Betty Jean Grant

Betty Jean Grant

Let us flash back to July 5, 1980, and there is a new deli opened for business on East Ferry Street near Moselle St., on the Eastside of Buffalo. Inside the store named Grant's Variety Shoppe, is a lady named Betty Jean Grant, and her three minor daughters, managing three jobs within the store: running the main cash register and manning the sales of lottery tickets and 'Scratch Off's, from a smaller cash register. The third job consisted of greeting the new customers and making sure all of the items they had in their hands were laid on the counter to be paid for before they left the store. 

This was the early 1980s and life was good for the 100 or so deli stores, owned by African Americans on the Eastside of Buffalo. The two local steel plants, Republic Steel in South Buffalo and Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, N.Y., were still providing jobs and a good living to the families of the Eastside community— the sons, brothers and fathers, who worked there.  

That all changed around 1984, when both steel plants hired—in addition to their Buffalo's Eastside employees— a large number of Arab Americans, who were largely residents of the City of Lackawanna. The plants suddenly closed, leaving the both the Arab and Black communities in a state of shock. With very little opportunity to find gainful employment in their hometown, more than a few of from the Arab community ventured to the Eastside of Buffalo, with a proposal from their mouths and money in their hands. Not too different from the 'We pay cash for your house' enticement method nailed to neighborhood utility poles today, akin to the 1980s' push to acquire or buy stores owned and operated by African Americans. Both solicitation methods were both aggressive and successful.  I would say, that within a span of four years, over 90% of stores previously owned by African American merchants were now owned by persons from a culture that operated the stores but did not have their wives and children live or play among the people of the community, whose businesses they now owned. 

The new deli or corner store owners also did not do any of their shopping needs among the remaining Black businesses still left in the hands of African Americans who had managed those stores for multiple generations. So, instead of, let's say a dollar being circulated 8 times in the Black community by Blacks store owners patronizing other Black businesses, that same dollar, in the circa1984 Black Community, would circulate only once in the hand of an Arab store owner; a Korean wig storeowner, a Vietnamese nails salon or a Chinese restaurant! Let me be perfectly clear, it was not a 'Buffalo thing' where the residents of the Eastside of Buffalo were treated any differently than black businesses in urban neighborhoods all across this country. This movement to divest the land, businesses and housing from black people was nationwide, and was a creation where the motive or motives are yet to be known.

When my husband and I opened our store in 1980, there were several food distribution centers—Black store owners could shop or have supplies delivered. Sadly, nearly all of them are closed. The stores not owned by African Americans, get most of their merchandise from fellow Arab American distributors from New Jersey and Michigan. Some of those out-of-town distributors have been known to not service black owned stores. I know of no local or out of state, African American distributor still in business who can accommodate the needs of black store owners in Buffalo. There are many demands from residents of the Eastside for a meat market, fish market, bakery, fresh fruits and vegetable and even a few clothing and shoe stores I believe the community would be better served if the prospective owner of a future business would take their time and evaluate the needs of the community before they jump into what may be called a specific business over-saturation.

We, on the city's Eastside, can learn a lot from the Bangladeshi community on how they pool their resources to buy property and to develop. What I see as a sound business movement and strategy, to ensure that their dollar probably circulates over 8-10 times, and will remain in the hands of the Bengali community.