Main Street convenience store challenged by changing conditions

On a recent weekday afternoon, much as they have been for a quarter-century, Ashwin and Sima Patel are found at Delta Discount, their convenience store at 800 Main St. 

The embodiment of the American dream, the Patels are a hard-working immigrant family who own and operate a true “mom-and-pop” business that is literally on Main Street, USA. 

However, they are now reckoning with the question of whether their small business can survive the current economic environment and a recent change to city policy. 

In his store’s center aisle, Ashwin Patel, 63, discussed his family’s predicament while his wife quietly tended to the provisions on their well-stocked shelves and the occasional patron.

How it began

Their journey began in the Indian state of Gujarat, where the Patel surname is at least as common as “Smith,” and where Ashwin’s family were farmers, growing grains like wheat and rice. They migrated to Canada in the 1980s and then to suburban Cook County in the late 1990s, attracted by financial opportunity. They opened Delta Discount in 1998 and operate it alone, without other employees.

The Patels live in Niles, where they raised their two children – a son and a daughter, now grown – but they treat customers like family and have not shied from helping those in need, donating food, clothing or other necessities and extending lines of credit to regulars short on funds.

Not everyone repays their generosity, but Ashwin’s father always told him that if one plants 10,000 seeds, and 2,000 do not grow, one does not stop farming – “You cannot think about the 20%, you have to think about the 80%,” he said. 

Squeeze Box Books & Music is down the street from Delta Discount and its owner, Tim Peterson, speaks fondly of the Patels. He says he goes to their store for snacks “every single day,” as do his clerks. 

He also marveled at the variety of sundries they offer, and their willingness to cater to customers’ needs. “They really are kind to the community,” he said, observing that patrons seem to prefer shopping there for pantry essentials (e.g. milk, eggs, bread) than at local grocery chains. 

“John W.,” a reviewer on Yelp, said Delta Discount was his go-to place for items he wanted to buy discreetly. “I was always more comfortable purchasing cigarettes and lighters there than at a Walgreens,” he wrote.

Whether in need of an electrical adapter, paint rollers or a leftover cigar box, Peterson said the store’s inventory saves him numerous trips elsewhere. “They really have absolutely everything. … It’s like the world’s smallest Costco.” 

If Delta Discount does not sell something, Patel will order it. “He’s, like, ‘you tell me anything, I’ll get it,’ ” Peterson said.

While the Patels are praised for being kind and accommodating, changing business conditions are anything but. 

“I’m just telling you, the last three or five years, we have been suffering,” Patel said.

COVID “hit us,” he said about the pandemic. He scaled back operating hours but remained open. “We didn’t close here because I have to pay the rent. … I have to feed myself, too,” he said. 

People walking to and from the commuter rail stations nearby used to stop in.

However, with the increase in remote work, foot traffic has dropped off, diminishing sales. 

Roadblock to quick stops

Then, “they blocked the road” said Patel of city street closures, first to accommodate building construction, and then to rehabilitate the sewer line. “So, we lost all of the stop-and-go traffic,” he said. 

No longer can patrons park in front and run into the store for a quick purchase.

Indeed, Main Street is currently a work in progress, allowing only eastbound traffic, and construction is scheduled through October of this year. 

Patel notes lunchtime used to be so busy that he would not have been able to stop and talk. However, on a mid-April Thursday in 2024, shoppers were few and far between.

Meanwhile, the newly constructed apartment complex across Sherman Avenue at 740 Main St., now called Tapestry Station, touts its “state-of-the-art amenities” on the rental and real estate site Trulia. Units are listed between $1,820 – $3,881 per month. 

Peterson of Squeezebox hopes that an influx of new residents will boost local commerce, but Patel is less optimistic, believing the apartments are mostly vacant. A call to the building’s leasing office went to voicemail. 

Patel has a good relationship with his landlord but anticipates that property taxes will go up and that Delta Discount’s rent will rise accordingly. One cannot pay rent with speculation about sales to prospective customers who have yet to move to the neighborhood. 

However, the most painful gut punch came on – no joke – April 1, when a citywide prohibition took effect, banning the sale of “a wide range of products, including flavored cigarettes, cigars, vaping items, loose tobacco and rolling papers.” 

Patel estimates that such products accounted for 15% of his business, undermining both his direct and indirect sales.

“When you come for a cigarette, you don’t just come for a cigarette,” he said, explaining that customers who come in for cigarettes frequently pick up other incidentals, like a newspaper, chewing gum or a can of soda. “Everything is slowed down,” he added.

The city argues that the ban is “a critical step in safeguarding the public from the predatory marketing practices employed by the tobacco industry, particularly those disproportionately targeting Black consumers and young people, leading to disparate health outcomes.”

Patel said he doesn’t find this argument persuasive. When Cook County imposed higher taxes on cigarettes, people did not stop smoking, he argues. It just meant he was selling some 50 fewer cartons of cigarettes each week that were likely being bought in Lake County a few miles to the north. He suspects the same will be true of flavored tobacco products – consumers who cannot obtain them in this city will just go to Skokie.

“I’m not saying that cigarettes are good,” Patel said, but “if it’s a ban, it should be a ban for the whole country, not for Evanston only. … One nation, one law.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been developing a federal menthol ban for some time but, according to a Reuters report from earlier this month, its implementation has been delayed.

Patel is also frustrated by the city’s perceived double standard when it comes to recreational cannabis sales. 

“I get mad because they opened a new drug place on Howard Street, a dispensary … so they think the drug is safer than the cigarette?” he asks.

In an email to the RoundTable, city spokesperson Cynthia Vargas sidestepped questions about the hypocrisy Patel feels is at play or whether one product is more dangerous than the other. Instead, she reiterated concerns about the dangers of flavored tobacco, and noted differences in the way marijuana is marketed relative to tobacco companies’ aggressive targeting of young people in particular. She also cited restrictions on the number of cannabis dispensaries permitted in the area.

The city had no record of the Patels illegally selling tobacco to minors or committing other such offenses but indicated it “would not compensate a business for loss of revenue from the sale of a harmful product.”

Where that leaves the Patels, other than deeply concerned about the outlook for their family and their business, is uncertain. 

“We are coming of age, and we do not know what to do now,” said Patel.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of one of the store owners. His name is Ashwin Patel.