J & T Market & Deli

Cashier is rude and suspicious. He does not smile or greet you when you walk in. What a horrible market in such a nice neighborhood. I would recommend shopping in the nearby Fred Meyer or TJs instead.

This place is so sad. It’s dirty, it smells and I’m sure everything on the shelves has been there since the early 1980s. Respect yourself and walk to a Fred Meyer instead.

It’s the, «oh shoot, pull over, I need to pick up a cheap wine» or «snack» sorta shop.
Clean, cashier is a cool guy and for a little market, there seems to be a good selection of wine.
Usually find myself biking up Glisan, stopping in for beer… they have Black Butte Porter, it’s dark and lovely.
Parking on the street. One person can run in here for snack, the other to the Starbucks across the street, for their mocha what cha ma call it fix, everyone’s happy :)

In the last place I lived in San Francisco, there was a convenience store across the street. But there was nothing very convenient about the store other than its location and the fact that they sold cigarettes. All the merchandise was laid out on the floor or sat confusedly on shelves, and most of the goods labored under a newspaper-​thick layer of dust. There was no discernible order. You’d find tea in the same aisle as you would stacks of nudie mags. There were fridges to house some beer and soda, but I don’t think the motors ever ran properly, which made them warm, glass display cases for beverages. In a way, this was fitting for a market that inspired curious repulsion more than any other feeling.
The guy who worked the register had the deep-​rooted dark circles under his eyes of a person who never saw the light of day. He likely never slept because he never left the store, and the store was full of stale, incessant cigarette smoke to prove his devotion to his post. He was never flat-​out rude, but he conducted every transaction as if he was hastily smoothing over some kind of illicit dealing. Based on the disarray of the market, we could only guess what kind of illegal goodies had to be stored in the back. Cocaine? Ten-​feet-​long pythons? Underage Cambodian ballerinas? We never found out before we moved.
I’ve brought up this portrait of a shady bodega to illustrate how my current neighborhood convenient store, the J & T Market and Deli, is nothing like it. There’s not much to the J & T on its own — it’s literally that corner market where you occasionally stop for ciggies before hitting the bar or a six pack before meeting at your friend’s or potato chips before heading home to your couch of shame. You won’t find the ingredients for a wild mushroom risotto here. But the store looks reasonably clean, the beer is incredibly cold, and if the store proprietor keeps a nest of vipers in the backroom, it’s probably more of a hobby than an important side business. The guy I normally see on the job here was even so nice as to suggest other markets in the area when he didn’t carry the particular kind of cigarette brand I was hunting. Maybe you think it’s odd to cultivate decent rapports with your local vice peddlers, but I’ll see you in hell all the same.