In the shadow of the Pattullo Bridge’s arches sits Mom and Son’s Grocery in a little—almost miniature—old, white house at Dufferin and Agnes streets. Often, especially when it’s nice out, there’ll be a couple of neighbours outside sitting on a wrought-iron bench having a smoke and chewing the fat.

Behind the counter is Morgan Jackson, a big man whose head is only a few inches from the ceiling. The previous owner, a Korean man, was so small he stood on a box behind the counter.

Six years ago Jackson’s mother Gail, while living just up the street, bought it. It was a little dingy and not many came to buy there. She recruited her son, who had some retail business experience, to help out.

“She thought she could jazz it up and turn it around,” he says.

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Used to be corner stores were the cornerstones of a neighbourhood’s economy. Mom relied on it for milk and bread. Kids coveted candy, paying a penny for three jawbreakers on their way home from school.

But then along came Super-Valu, Safeway, Save-On, Superstore and other supermarkets. When 7-Eleven and other convenience store chains started setting up shop, along with gas station stores, the corner stores days appeared doomed.

Some like the iconic Bluebird at Eighth Street and Fourth Avenue in New Westminster, which closed a couple of years ago, are all boarded up with the paint peeling and faded. But others persevere, some with more success than others.

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At Walker’s Food Market in Burnaby, a drying cleaning pick-up rack sits in a corner. In another is a photocopy machine. Near the entrance is a slushee machine. There’s a sign for U-Haul on the outside and another inside to show store owner/operator John Hung can book truck and trailer rentals for the company. A yellow and black Western Union banner also hangs from the ceiling of the brick store at Walker Avenue and Stanley Street signifying customers can send money orders around the world.

And, of course, it’s full of the usual fare like ice cream, pop, chips and Chef Boyardee.

Hung is creative in his ways to make a living with the brick corner store built in the 1960s that he bought five years ago. He’d come to Canada from Taiwan, where he was a banker, eight years ago. For three years he was unable to find a job because he couldn’t afford the training he needed to get certified in his profession.

So he bought the store near Morley elementary school. He knew it would be lots of hard work, but he also knew he didn’t need much experience to pull it off.

“Twelve-hour days, no holiday, no weekends. It’s very, very difficult to run this business,” says Hung as the odd customer comes in seeking a pop.

The profit on the products is slim, he says, about 10 or 20 cents on each item. Heat and daylight hours means business is good. Cold and dark, not so good.

“I cannot regret,” says Hung of his decision to buy the store. “It’s very difficult to find another job, but it is better than having nothing to do. It’s difficult to run, but it’s better than nothing.”

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Philip Mac bought Windsor Grocery on Imperial Street at Colbourne Avenue nine years ago.

“It’s a good location,” says the native of Peru through his son who interpreted for him.

People frequently hop out of their car, duck in and pick up cigarettes, flowers or a lottery ticket—an attractive enticement for the store—and then hop back in their car and carry on their merry way. One customer who used to live in the neighbourhood still drops around on the way home to Coquitlam.

“It’s better than going to Save-On, you get stuck there trying to find a parking spot,” says Mac in his store that was built in the 1950s and was renovated and expanded a couple of decades later.

Mac, who lives in the building with his family of five, gets some help from suppliers that allows him to sell their product at supermarket prices and still make a profit. It’s helping him put his son and two daughters through school.

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Shum’s Grocery is in an old stucco house Douglas Road at Parker in North Burnaby, just a block from Boundary Road, with two fading classic 7UP signs identifying it.

Inside the cramped little store are wooden shelves stacked to the ceiling. Toilet tissue is on the top shelf, which also has playing cards and party hats that look to be around 30 years old hanging from the ledge. The Shum family bought it in 1971, but mom and pop have moved on. Daughter-in-law Lisa emerges from the back where the family lives when a UPS driver makes a pit stop for a drink. They do all right, but it’s a struggle, says Lisa, who has two kids.

“Lots of hard work.”

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Over by the Pattullo Bridge, Morgan Jackson’s mom Gail was a cooking instructor at Douglas College and had planned to retire to run Mom and Son’s, but she died suddenly last November of cancer before she could see that come to fruition.

Jackson gave the place a small facelift, painting everything and brightening it up.

“A lot of people wouldn’t come here before,” says Jackson, who was making a good living working as a bouncer at Downtown Vancouver nightclubs. “It’s a lot more friendly, more inviting.”

He would ask customers about what they needed to buy and what they would buy. He had been selling mostly cigarettes and chips, but they told him they also wanted milk, bread and pop.

Since his mother worked full time, she had her product delivered, but that drove the costs up so Jackson started going to discount warehouses and picking up the product himself. It’s a formula that’s worked so well he’s able to hire a employee to work the counter while he goes out three or four times a week to pick up product.

Although it’s tucked away at the very end of Agnes Street, it’s location is the small gem Jackson’s mother thought it would be. There’s several apartment buildings and a couple of highrises within a few blocks of the store with his nearest competition quite a ways a way. A lot of the area’s residents don’t own a car, so for them a quick trip to the nearest 7-Eleven or Safeway isn’t practical.

It’s been quite a change in lifestyle for Jackson—less money, but no fights. He likes it enough that he’s checking out Craiglist these days for another store to buy, and he even has one or two in mind.

“It’s a bit of an adjustment, but it’s a lot better than working for someone else,” he says. “Now I work for me.”

ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com