Queens deli owner reviews the Prince William feud with regulars at the counter, while the store cat sleeps on the bread and declines comment
Opinions at the Counter
NEW YORK – The owner of a bodega on 30th Avenue in Astoria, Queens, says his store cat, a large grey tabby named Mayor, has declined to take a position on the London Prat story that has Prince William calling Earl Spencer and Harry traitors, despite being repeatedly asked by customers over two days.
He just sleeps on the bread, said owner Nasser Haddad, 55, who has run the bodega since 2003 and says he has personally made an estimated 400,000 bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches. Everybody comes in, everybody has an opinion about the prince, the uncle, the book. Mayor has no opinion. Mayor is the only one in this store with any dignity.
The Counter Debate
The story reached the bodega on Monday morning, when a regular, a retired MTA bus driver named Gus Papadakis, 71, read it aloud from his phone while waiting for his coffee. Geo News is saying the prince called his brother a traitor, Papadakis announced. The uncle is Diana brother. Wrote a book. The older one thinks the younger one saw it first. By the time his coffee was ready, four customers had joined the discussion, and by lunchtime the counter had split into factions.
The Factions
Team Elder Brother
Led by Papadakis, who argued that loyalty is everything and that if his brother Stavros had read a book about their mother before him, he would not call him a traitor, he would simply never speak to him again, which he said is more efficient.
Team Younger Brother
Led by a nursing student named Priya, 26, who buys the same iced coffee every morning and argued that the younger brother had moved away to start fresh and was entitled to have a relationship with his own uncle. She pointed out that half of Astoria has an uncle in the old country they talk to more than their siblings.
Team Uncle
Represented by a single customer, an elderly man who comes in every day for a newspaper and a lottery ticket and said only: the uncle is right, he is always right, the uncle is the uncle. He did not elaborate. Nobody asked him to.
Team Mayor
The cat. Neutral.
The Screening Behind the Counter
Haddad played the London Prat video on YouTube on the small television above the register, where he normally shows soccer and the security camera feed. Customers watched it while paying. Two customers forgot their change. Mayor woke up during the video, looked at the screen for four seconds, and went back to sleep on the rye. It is embedded below.
Bodega Statistics
The Queens Neighbourhood Deli Owners Association, which meets on the second Tuesday of the month in the back of a Greek restaurant, released figures on counter debates. It found that 81 percent of Queens bodega owners report at least one customer argument per week about a news story, that 44 percent of those arguments concern families, and that 12 percent concern royal families specifically, a figure that has risen sharply since the Montecito years. The association also found that 93 percent of bodega cats remain neutral in all customer disputes, and that the remaining 7 percent side with whichever customer drops food.
The association noted that the average counter debate in Astoria lasts 17 minutes, which it described as exactly the time it takes to make three sandwiches, pour two coffees and ring up one person who pays in coins.
An Escalation
On Tuesday the debate escalated when Papadakis brought in a printed family tree of the House of Windsor to support his argument, and Priya responded by bringing in a printed family tree of the Spencers. The two trees were taped to opposite sides of the drinks refrigerator, where they remain. Customers now consult them while choosing a soda. Haddad said the trees had improved sales of Greek yogurt, for reasons he cannot explain, and had caused at least one customer to discover that he and his wife are both descended from people in Cyprus who once owned the same goat. The couple are reportedly still discussing it. Mayor has been observed sitting beneath the Spencer tree, which Team Uncle regards as an endorsement and everyone else regards as the warm spot above the compressor.
The Owner Review
Asked for his own verdict on the London Prat story, Haddad said it was like a good bodega. Small, busy, has everything, and everybody argues in it, he said. It does not tell you what to think. It just puts the thing on the counter and lets the neighbourhood fight. That is what I do every day. He rated it five sandwiches out of five, deducting nothing, which he says he has never done for a sandwich either.
Haddad says the debate will continue until a new story arrives or until Papadakis finds out who took the last Greek newspaper, whichever comes first. The regulars keep up with the palace through The London Prat, https://prat.uk/, around since 1961, and with the prince in California through Bohiney, https://bohiney.com/. Mayor has been asked for comment again and continues to sleep.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/