Winner

This tiny, one-​room store isn’t for browsing. It’s pretty much only good if you know exactly what you want and you can’t find it anywhere else. In my case, I wanted reasonably-​priced Oolong loose-​leaf tea and that’s what I got. The owner was very friendly and helpful. He sold me some Jasmine too, but wasn’t pushy about it.
That’s my one success story when I got to go into the store. The first time I went, I walked away confused. The second time, I rang and no one answered. The third time, a woman answered, but she just shook her head at me. I guess the forth time is the charm. I should knock off more than a point, but they had exactly what I needed.
This can’t be this man’s main source of income. They seem to be open when he feels like it. I would not be shocked to find out he lives upstairs. Honestly, if there wasn’t a sign out front, I would think it was not-​properly zoned. But I got my tea, so I’m happy.

I rang the bell… maybe, two times and waited a half minute; and, as the sun beat down and I turned to look nervously away just once, an odd figure, with a steady and purposeful gait, approached. He looked at me for a few intense seconds and unlatched the dead bolt. It was such a relief (like going trick-​or-​treating for the first time ever and seeing a homeowner open the door).

I don’t know if the use of the doorbell is for the purpose of «screening» customers (with the dynamics of hailing a cab applying) or of simply alerting the owner to come downstairs from his upstairs perch (or, perhaps, both). In any case, he let me in.
Upon my entering, the owner, a graying Chinese man, looking about 60 years old, didn’t utter a word (no «hello» or «how are you?» in Chinese or English). Rather, he shadowed me as I made my way beyond the vestibule into the actual store (what would have been the living room of this former residential dwelling).
There, as my eyes adjusted to the dark, barely lit space before me, I nearly tripped on a box on the floor. In fact, cardboard boxes of varying sizes were strewn everywhere (some at odd angles, some stacked on top of each other, some opened to reveal dry goods of one sort or another).
Indeed, as I looked up, dried and packaged goods were stacked on shelves all around me: things like Chinese black mushrooms, white fungus, lotus roots, salted black beans, preserved sour cabbage, and loose leaf green tea. I was amazed at just how packed those shelves were and at how utterly small and cramped the interior space really was.

Aside from the very front of the store, where the owner had erected a small checkout counter and where the ceiling seemed to rise with the sunlight coming through the window, the store was literally of claustrophobic dimensions. Simply reaching out with my hands to reach something stretched the limits of available movement.
Yet, there was still a back room through a narrow passage (that was literally the width of one person). There, canned and bottled goods outnumbered the dried and packaged ones: bottles of soy sauce, oyster sauce, black vinegar, rice wine, and cans of water chestnuts and bamboo shoots (all of which were arranged haphazardly without much obvious concern for presentation). Steel woks were jammed into much of the remaining shelf space (with only their handles jutting out to mark their presence). While I half expected to see freezers and frozen goods, there were none.
I milled around for a few minutes… during which time the owner actually stepped away to attend to other concerns (only to return without warning). At one point, he abruptly asked how I had found out about his store and why I was there. I explained that I had passed by on multiple occasions, had wanted to stop in, and was glad I had managed to do so finally.

Upon questioning him, he told me that he has been in business for about ten years now and that he has a steady group of regulars in the city who frequent his store. Hearing that, I couldn’t fathom how this obscure shop (selling what it does) has managed to stay open for so long.
Yet, as I thought about it, there must be a group of people (perhaps, a mix of Chinese senior citizens, students, or those without cars) who can’t easily venture out to the big Asian supermarkets in the suburbs and who, through necessity (and finding the shops in Chinatown to be insufficient), sustain this store with their continued patronage. As such, the owner must have carved out a niche for himself serving these folks.
Whether belonging to one of these aforementioned groups or if simply wanting to visit for the first time, it’s best to come between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. That appears to be the store’s business hours.

Ultimately, Winner Co. strikes me as the grocery store equivalent of the Chinese takeout place that carries out its transactions behind bulletproof glass. The reasons for landing at either one might very well be analogous and with both offering similar levels of satisfaction.