[SF] Bodega- tech startup running pantries connected to an app aimed to replace real bodegas

Isn’t that just a vending machine connected to an app?

I am not worried about it killing the neighborhood bodega though. Try putting one in the Tenderloin.

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This Twitter thread is a pretty good rundown on why this is more likely to be the next Juicero than it is to kill any bodegas. TL;DR: the logistics of what they propose are incredibly complicated and labor-intensive.

ETA: And the thread has been adapted into an article: Bodega Isn’t Just Bad Branding, It’s Bad Business.

I wasn’t even thinking in that level of sophistication about their business model. Just thought someone’s going to pee into that vending machine…

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Where will they get the approval to sell Muscatel and Olde English 800 from a vending machine?

And BTW, a real San Franciscan would never call them “Bodegas.” Just “Liquor Stores” or “Corner Stores.”

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We used to call the one on Broadway, between Big Al’s and the Condor "the Dirty Book Store ". :wink:

For good reason. I knew that one well.

The discussion of this I’ve seen has been weirdly NYC-centric in that respect (maybe because of the company name, but still).

That’s just what I’ve been thinking. Bodega is the name of a bay.

To me “Bodega” calls up La Bodega, not the recent restaurant of the name, but of a 1960’s dive bar with live flamenco on Columbus Ave. were the Devil’s Acre bar sits now.

Oh, the smell of the focaccia oven — O Home. A florist with white moustachios jaywalked through traffic with armsful of leonine football chrysanthemums. Behind glass, at the all-day-all-night place on the pie-wedge corner, poets, one to a table, were eating breakfast. The Co-Existence Bagel Shop was gone. The old guys, Seventh Seal knights, had played chess with Death and lost. The Bagel Shop, Miss Smith’s Tea Room, Blabbermouth Night at The Place — all of a gone time. Out from the open door of La Bodega, a folksy guitar sweetened the air. The guitar was being passed around, and each played the tune he knew. You should have been there the night Segovia dropped by and played flamenco.

–Maxine Hong Kingston

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