Avenue A by the numbers

While walking north on Avenue A starting at Houston, I counted the number of storefronts. I decided to break the storefronts down into five categories:

1) Restaurants/pizza places/coffee shops (including places that serve alcohol, but where food is usually thought of first)

2) Bars

3) Mom-and-pop shops (questionable usage of that term, for sure, but I'm couting these as dry cleaners, bodegas, liquor stores, tattoo shops, laundromats, psychic readers, etc.)

4) Empty storefronts

5) Regular old businesses (Key Food, Citibank, the more higher-end speciality shops)

And here's what I counted (numbers could be off by one or two...I got distracted a few times...but they're pretty accurate):

Mom-and-pop shops: 39
Bars: 31
Restaurants/pizza shops/coffee shops: 28
Empty storefronts: 18
Businesses: 16

Now, you can quibble with these categories and numbers. For instance, would you consider Sidewalk a bar or restaurant? Or both? I put it in the restaurant category. Ditto for Yerba Buena on Seventh and A. And many of the restaurants also serve at least beer or wine. I'm not sure about a few places, like Ost Cafe on 12th and A.

So, there are plenty of places to get a drink on Avenue A... and there would have at least been one more addition if El Camion had been approved Monday at the CB3/LA meeting.

And for some reason I took photos of 16 places that serve beer or wine above 10th Street on Avenue A ... several of which I like. (I wanted to be clear that this wasn't some sort of condemnation of bars.)

I included the empty space that El Camion wanted at 12th and A... plus the fish market/restaurant that will be opening some time next to Hi-Fi.














Anyway, if my shoddy math skills are working... Of the 132 storefronts on Avenue A:

30% are mom-and-pop shops
23% are bars
21% are restaurants/cafes/pizza shops
14% are empty
12% are businesses

Previously on EV Grieve:
There are 21 empty storefronts along Avenue A