The local deli, the hardware store and everything they took with them

There used to be a left and a right.

Left out of the radio station parking lot in Ewing was Deli Delight. Right was Village Hardware. I did not think much about it at the time — it was just the geography of the workday. But both of those places are gone now, and I find myself thinking about them more than I expected to.

Deli Delight fed us for years. Not just me — the whole station. Every week in our department head meeting, the station would buy breakfast from Deli Delight. The rule was unspoken but universally understood: whoever was not chewing gave their department report. The rest of us ate. Bacon, sausage or pork roll egg and cheese — you knew your order before you walked in the door. My lunch was almost always the Italian hoagie with sharp provolone. Sometimes the tuna salad, which was exceptional in the way that only a local deli's tuna salad can be exceptional — made fresh, not scooped from a five gallon container.

I got to know the people behind that counter. Not as close friends — but the way you know people who feed you five days a week for years. They knew your order. They asked about your week. It was a transaction that felt like something more than a transaction.

Then one day it was gone. And I went right and left out of that lot for a long time before I stopped noticing the absence.

SEE ALSO: Before 1973, Mays Landing had no real pizza — and then a cousin arrived

What Mays Landing taught me about this

I grew up in Mays Landing and the entire economy of that town was built on exactly this model. Independent businesses, every one of them. Two hardware stores. An appliance store on Main Street. Joe the Barber. A Chevy dealer right in town. Restaurants and pubs that had been in the same families for generations. Romak Hardware, which I still think about when I need something obscure and specific and know that no big box store employee is going to know the answer.

Every single one of those businesses was woven into the community in a way that goes beyond commerce. They sponsored the Mays Landing Athletic Association — the summer baseball league, the fall football program. They bought ads in the annual sports banquet program book. Their names were in the Cub Scout and Boy Scout meeting materials. When a team needed uniforms or a league needed equipment, you did not write a grant application. You walked down Main Street and asked.

The local gas station and mechanic operated the same way. The parking lot on a Saturday morning was often filled with kids running a car wash for their school or their team or their troop. The owner did not just tolerate it. He welcomed it. Because that was the relationship — the business was part of the neighborhood, and the neighborhood was part of the business.

What replaced it

I want to be fair here. Wawa is genuinely excellent at what it does. Home Depot has everything. CVS is convenient. These are not bad businesses. They employ people. They serve a purpose.

But they do not sponsor your kid's Little League team. They do not know your order. They do not let the scouts set up in the parking lot on a Saturday. The person behind the counter is not going to remember next week that you prefer sharp provolone. That is not a criticism — it is simply not what a national chain is designed to do.

What we lost when the local deli, the local hardware store and the local mechanic disappeared was not just a product or a service. It was a specific kind of relationship between a business and its community. A relationship where the owner had a stake in the neighborhood beyond the quarterly earnings report. Where the success of the Little League and the success of the hardware store were connected in ways that were never written down anywhere but everybody understood.

The ones that are left

They are still out there. Harder to find, but there. The local deli that still makes the tuna salad fresh. The hardware store where somebody actually knows what you need. The mechanic who has seen your car so many times he knows its quirks better than you do.

When you find one — go back. Bring someone with you. Buy the Italian hoagie with sharp provolone. Put their name in the program book.

They are still doing the work that holds a community together. The least we can do is notice.