In Your Corner: In praise of the corner shop

My local SPAR is open. When all the major supermarkets are closed, it’s open. In fact, it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that if the West End of Glasgow were to be completely obliterated, there would still be a little corner shop open amidst the ashes.

The SPAR on Great Western Road has been around since the 80s, but its current owner took over on Boxing Day 1999. The shop has expanded from one unit to four, buying out its neighbours. In the earlier days, there was much more corner shop competition, but as local branches of supermarkets like Tesco began popping up, main competitors Goodies closed down, whilst Pricecutter became a Pizza Hut.

When I pop in one afternoon, I ask the owner what a ‘corner shop’ means to him, and he answers: “A corner shop is like a newsagent, a wee grocery shop. They don’t sell everything, but for them to survive now they need to be a one-stop shop. If customers can’t buy everything, they go to bigger shops.” I relate this to my own experience using the SPAR, where I’ve found that, in fact, they do sell almost everything. Every time I go in, there seems to be something new, and it’s true that the convenience of being able to buy what I need a few minutes from home stops me from going further afield.

On setting up his own shop, he explains that it was something he was born into. “I was involved in my family business; they also ran newsagents,” he says. “It’s sort of a part of Asian culture; the dad sets up the business and eventually his son takes over. But I wanted to venture out on my own, so I bought this shop.” Coming to the UK from Pakistan, he describes his parents' insatiable work ethic, coupling cultural differences with being first-generation immigrants. His dad would work long hours, without employing staff, but he has a different attitude to running his own shop. If he wants to take a day off he will, and he’s happy to employ staff to help with the day-to-day running of the shop, allowing him to take a step back from the counter.

Sales doubled last year, but it hasn’t always been easy. “You need luck to survive,” the owner tells me. “Tescos are opening up all around me, there’s new ones opening all the time. It means I have to up my game as well.” The clientele is brilliant, “students from all different parts of the world, and lovely locals.” Having worked in different areas of the city, in some of which he experienced racial abuse, the West End is his favourite. He laughs while recalling how one customer, from the East End, came in to buy cigarettes and was gobsmacked at the price difference. “This is the West End mate,” he explained, and the man replied: “Fucking know that, but it’s not Beverly Hills.”

As for the best part of the job, he says it’s being behind the counter, serving and bantering with customers. He doesn’t like paperwork. He describes the many students who come in “with hangovers, for coffee,” whom he often gives free food if they are short of change. They appreciate the favour, he says, and they come back. “I’ve had students come back even after graduation, when they’re working a big job, because they have memories of coming here as a student.”

Highlighting the genuine warmth and human connection our local corner shops offer us in a world with a growing number of conglomerates, he tells the tale of a group of students who came in on Halloween dressed as Where’s Wally. One girl asked to serve behind the till, and he let her – “sure, Tesco and Sainsbury's won’t let you do that!”

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SPAR, 629 Great Western Rd, Glasgow; open 24 hours
Kaitlin Willoughby is Profile Editor at the Glasgow Guardian and currently studying International Relations at the University of Glasgow

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This article is from issue two of GNAW, our new Scottish food and drink magazine. Free copies are available in venues across Scotland, or read the full thing via Issuu. Follow GNAW on Instagram @gnawmag