[Via EVG reader Robert]
There are three trucks lined up along St. Mark's Place. The reader says there isn't much, if any, merchandise left on the shelves.
No official confirmation from any 7-Eleven reps. (Updated: Workers on the scene confirmed this afternoon that the store has closed.) Perhaps that closed sign yesterday was more permanent that originally expected. Or maybe they are just renovating the place. Or there are some other issues that would cause workers to temporarily empty the store of every machine and food product.
This location opened in April 2012.
Wow. Finally some good news. Residents are voting with their wallets by not going in. Thankfully I rarely see a soul inside the Broadway & E12th location, just an occasional tourist. This one, and the rest, cannot shutter up too soon!
ReplyDeleteSo much for the neighborhood being "under served" Margaret Chabris.
ReplyDeleteSo long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.
ReplyDeleteSmiley face Smiley face Smiley Face
ReplyDeleteKen, it's 'auf nimmerwiedersehen"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dict.cc/german-english/Auf+Nimmerwiedersehen.html
this is how business works, no need for protest, no need for rallys, if the community doesnt like a business, no matter how big the chain, it will close down if it isnt successful
ReplyDeleteIt's not even food. BUH bye!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the hot dogs in the spinner-thing have been reassigned to another store?
ReplyDeleteI'm not celebrating until I see what replaces it :\
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when retailers don't bother to understand the market. I predict the 7-11 on Avenue A will follow soon, it is dead as a doornail.
ReplyDeleteIn other neighborhood deathwatch news, I passed Nicoletta last night and it was dead, what a cold, generic space it has become since Centosette closed down. Meanwhile a block down Veselka was packed and jumping, the food was great, with a nice warm homey feeling...
Hopefully the one on Bowery closes too. The employees there are pure garbage.
ReplyDeleteThe next comment will probably be "what a great performance space the 7 11 would make". I notice no sympathy for the workers. I hope they put in another bank.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually terrible news.
ReplyDeleteThe only "good" angle to it is that a local business MIGHT be able to take that space, but I would bet that does not happen. The 7-11 owners (remember that they're all franchises) probably signed a costly lease and set the market price for the space sky-high. This in turn will make neighboring landlords think they should have the same profits for themselves too. They've essentially scorched the earth on their way out.
The other problem is that this means nothing for the uncoordinated rollout of these spaces in the neighborhood. Again, they're all individually owned/franchised. If anything, this means that no one at the parent company cares about the clumsy expansion of outlets into the city, clearing out small businesses first and then leaving spaces vacant in its wake. This is far more of a concern than just them coming in and doing business here. It shows a fundamental hostility toward urban neighborhoods, and it should be the primary attack vector for protesters going forward (this complaint is much more legit than just saying you don't want a corporate chain in Manhattan)
Sayonara sugah !
ReplyDelete"food product" - Exactly.
ReplyDeleteMr. Van, with all due respect please can the "franchise owned and operated" baloney. Some, in fact many 7-Elevens are corporate owned, like the one on Avenue A for instance.
ReplyDeleteSo, stop.
Thanks!
The neighborhood has spoken with their money. No thanks! I can't think of another chain that offers such poor quality products.
ReplyDeleteBrian Van.
ReplyDeleteIf the rent the landlord got for the space from the 7-11 franchisee is sky-high, there's a possibility that it could remain vacant for awhile. The longer it remains vacant the more difficult it will be for the landlord to keep insisting on higher-than-market rent (assuming s/he's rational). Math applies, there will come a breakeven point when staying vacant and holding out for more $$ will result in making less $$ on the remainder of the lease than succumbing to the market and accepting market rate.
Some people really need to get a life
ReplyDeleteAh ya see, just like I said several posts ago. 'Don't like it? Don't support it and if enough people like you don't support it, it'll go out of business.
ReplyDeleteNow everyone can go back to being overcharged by the bodegas and Korean delis who I doubt will lower their prices now that 7 Eleven is gone.
D
If this is true, very happy to see 7-11 added to the list of bland chains that have failed on my block, which includes the Gap, Subway, Qizno's and Supercuts. I suspect Gray's Papaya won't last.
ReplyDeleteD,
ReplyDeleteor they can go to a regular supermarket, like Key Foods, and buy toilette paper even cheeper than at your prized 7/11.
In any case, this 7/11 wasn't closed down because of crusading Sid Vicious wannabe window-smashers, as you rantingly claimed in an earlier post.
> Now everyone can go back to being overcharged by the bodegas and Korean delis who I doubt will lower their prices now that 7 Eleven is gone.
ReplyDeleteSuch a myth that places like KMark and 7-11 are always cheaper! 7-11 charged $2 for a bottle of coke, while the wonderful 24-hour local St. Marks Market down the block charges I think $1.39.
but hey, you can leave your apt keys with the delis! and they say "hi" and know how to make your morning coffee! all very priceless commodities...
ReplyDeleteactually i don't give a shit either way but the pile on and personal insults to "D" was not needed.
now i can't wait for the new starbucks! or will we get another biscuit place?
The number of people who claim to leave their keys with bodega workers is astounding! With all these keys, where do keep their merchandise?
ReplyDeleteNow there are no functioning businesses in that whole building. Used to be to be 4 or 5, so I wonder what's up with that? Crazy landlord?
ReplyDeleteShawn G. Eat your boloney sandwich. 7-11 doesn't wish to corporately own any location. It only is run by corporate until a franchisee signs on. If you look on the 7-11 website you can see that Avenue A is on the available franchise sites. Try to edu-macate yo self before frothing at the mouth with your anti-corporate lectures.
ReplyDelete7-11 was a poor choice as even in the burbs most people regard 7-11 as a trashy store.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would of course rather see a Mom and Pop business, should a more "upscale" chain convenient store come in I think it would make money.
Now that all those businesses on that corner are going and gone:
ReplyDeleteBRING BACK ST. MARK'S MOVIES!
http://evgrieve.com/2013/11/looking-again-at-st-marks-and-2nd-ave.html
- East Villager
walked by ~4pm... it's nearly empty inside.
ReplyDeletegood riddance. please dont forget to remove the signs on your way out.
Between the $30k rent and minimal foot traffic, I bet there's a line of franchisees lined up for the Avenue A location! They have their work cut out for them turning a profit selling fluorescent food-like products in a neighborhood with so many affordable places to grab a quick bite.
ReplyDeleteannonymous at 2:33
ReplyDeleteI've never left my keys at a bodega, but what I have seen bodegas do is serve the community in an emergency. In the blackout days after Hurricane Sandy, the bodegas opened and led people thru with flashlights to get food and water. They even gave away their perishables before they went to waste. The chains like 7-11 remained closed, likely because someone in the corporate office was afraid of a lawsuit if someone tripped.
Ironic that the one with most potential traffic closed. Bodes well for quick exit from Ave A! Also refutes some suggestion that 7-11 isn't so concerned about individual store profits.
ReplyDelete"Now everyone can go back to being overcharged by the bodegas and Korean delis who I doubt will lower their prices now that 7 Eleven is gone."
ReplyDeleteYou win First Prize for posting the dumbest statement ever. Congratulations.
annonymous at 2:33
ReplyDelete7-11 didn't give away any food after sandy because their hot "food" never deteriorates.
Is it ever possible for you all to have a realistic and non-shrill discussion? 7-11 is just a franchise cover for some poor folks who tried to open a business. It is no different than people who bought a food cart from the "man." They are trying to make a living, despite their hideous signs.
ReplyDeleteAnd, no, empty store fronts won't lead to cheaper rents any time soon. Even in prime NYU-ville there are multiple stores (i.e.,the hardware store and Fern Cliff on Third Ave) that have been empty for ages.
In my best non-shrill voice so you're faint heart won't flutter... after Sandy most of the chain stores and franchises remained closed. 7-Eleven, Subway, Starbucks - companies with financial resources that could have provided things like generators so we could charge our phones. Who remained opened? Bodegas and other local businesses like Percy's Tavern who brought out a generator and power strips allowing a few hundred people to charge their phones. They didn't bail on us, they helped.
ReplyDeleteIn some places, empty commercial space is rented to artists at a fraction of market/asking rent. Originally to keep out squatters, and yes part of master plan for gentricication, but space gets used on intermin terms by artists, or cultural businesses that need it.
ReplyDeleteIt confirms the idea of community. If landlords are going to be rewarded in tax breaks for letting spaces sit there empty, they should give back in some way. the LMCC tried to inititate something like this years ago, and have currently a similiar exchange with office spaces, but which will however be coming to an end soon.
Wish they would close the one on Grand Street. It just opened this past Spring. The 7-11 on East 28th Street price gouged during Hurricane Sandy last year. I say boycott all these useless trash stores.
ReplyDelete. 7-11 is a formula that dominos real estate change. It helps the investors flip propreties. The chain pays high, the other buisnesses are charged a price that forces them out. Other pricey buisnesses that can only last long enough to jack up the apearance of value to the street come in. This jacks up the residential rents. Then the storefronts crash and burn. Thier are now more for rent signs in apartment windows then i have ever seen here. That and signs for shop jobs. Which means in a great recession that those buidings house fantasies. The rents too high and the shops pay too low for someone to pull the two together and make a life. That is because the market does not ask what is sustainable, what the 'market will bare' means really what abuse of a Monopoly of a finite market can be pull off. How far can one price gouge and not be regulated. The railroads had a lock down on supply and were regulated because of this kind of stuff. Monopoly. Finite markets. price fixing and gouging. 7-11 is just the excuse to get to that figure. To get to the higher pricing for all, and to expell and social engineer a culture with it.. The price of 7-11 justifes the outrageous gouges to come. It almost had to be a generic chain to not look like local corruption. A high paying local buisness in a space would not command the sense of a new law in real estate formulas. If it were just a mom n pops paying way too much they would be seen as fools and the owners as gougers. 7-11 allows the whole game to change. Thats why they suck.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 10:14 PM
ReplyDeleteShrill? Well thanks for your attempt to mansplain in your deep, reassuring baritone about how the world really works to us ladies and high-pitched hippies.
Except that a person who franchises a 7-11 is a lot different than a person who buys a food cart, isn't s/he?
A recent NJ class action suit brought by 7-11 franchise owners claims that they have to assume the same financial risks as the guy who buys the food cart (or any other small business), but the 7-11 corporation manages their stores so tightly that they’re more like employees.
Then there's the matter of 7-11's plan to open 100 stores in the next 5 years in Manhattan. The 7-11 business plan is to convert independently owned bodegas into 7-11s or put them out of business.
Re your last paragraph. Hong Kong has had years of rising commercial rents too. This year, for a lot of reasons (including over saturation by big retailers and that the high rents drove out independent stores), there are empty storefronts in prime locations all over Hong Kong. As a result rents have leveled off and some landlords are even cutting rents from 10-15%.
Pro 7-11, pro- Santacon, pro-bars, pro-chains, pro-bros, pro-sorority sistahs, pro-douches. Why did you ever move to NYC when you could've just stayed in Jersey, BV?
ReplyDeleteMy question is, how much of the artificially inflated rent that they can't collect now in the empty storefronts can they claim as a loss?
ReplyDeleteSome guy lost his income and savings. Because of protesters. Why not just let customers decide for themselves? That location was vacant for a year before 7-eleven
ReplyDeleteI am sure Starbucks will move in to please everyone.
Protesters didn't close this business. Lack of interest in the product did. People don't move to nyc to buy crap food stuff from holes like 7 11.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteProtesters didn't close this business. Lack of interest in the product did."
Public awareness does work. Anyone with a conscience will at least take note and perhaps think twice about patronizing a 7-11.
this one was a dim one..small with not much merchandise.
ReplyDeleteThe owner of this franchise has two other locations. If this location wasn't profitable, he's most likely focusing on the locations that are. The take away? 7-Elevens and their TGIFriday cohorts are not places people spend money at.
ReplyDelete