NYC small business owners navigate Mamdani administration’s small business promises; Starbucks maintains $8 latte position regardless
NEW YORK CITY
New York City’s estimated 13,000 bodegas — the hybrid grocery-deli-pharmacy-social service centers that function as the city’s unofficial community infrastructure — are navigating their annual summer inventory rotation while also processing the new Mamdani administration’s stated commitment to small business support, which has been articulated in several press releases and one executive order and has not yet produced measurable changes in the cost of commercial rent, the price of the city’s commercial refuse fee, or the time required to obtain a sidewalk cafe permit, which remains approximately eighteen months and a stack of paperwork that would discourage a less committed entrepreneur.
“Mayor said he’s going to help small businesses,” said Jorge Reyes, who has operated a bodega on 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue for fourteen years. “I’m waiting for the help. The rent went up $800 a month in February. If the help could help with that, I’d appreciate it. Also the $2 coffee is not the problem.”
The $2 coffee is not the problem.
The Bodega as Institution: A Brief Defense
The New York City bodega is among the most studied, celebrated, and culturally over-analyzed institutions in urban America, second only to the New York pizza slice in its capacity to generate opinion pieces, documentary treatments, and sincere arguments about authenticity. It operates on the principle of maximum convenience at minimum margin: small storefront, extended hours, complete inventory for any household emergency including but not limited to sudden need for one egg, a birthday candle, cold medicine, aluminum foil, and a phone charger at 11:30 p.m. when everything else is closed.
The bodega cat is a separate institution within the institution, legally questionable from a health code perspective and culturally non-negotiable. Health inspectors have reached a practical accommodation with bodega cats that has not been formalized in writing. This is fine. Some things work precisely because they are not formalized in writing.
Commercial Rent: The Actual Problem
Commercial rent in Manhattan has increased sharply as post-pandemic retail markets recovered unevenly, with ground-floor commercial spaces near transit hubs — i.e., where bodegas are located, because bodegas are located where people are — seeing significant appreciation. The average asking rent for ground-floor retail in Manhattan rose approximately 12 percent in 2025, according to real estate data, with some corridors in the Upper West Side, Harlem, and Lower Manhattan seeing increases of 20 percent or more.
For a bodega with 800 square feet of floor space operating on margins of 15 to 25 percent, a $1,000 monthly rent increase requires either selling considerably more $2 coffees, raising the price of the $2 coffee, or absorbing the increase until the lease cannot be renewed at the new rate and the bodega is replaced by a CBD dispensary or an artisan cheese shop, depending on the neighborhood’s current demographic trajectory.
The NYC Small Business Services offers resources including lease negotiation assistance, business planning support, and a commercial lease guarantee program for qualifying small businesses. Jorge Reyes said he was aware of these resources and had looked into them. “They help some people,” he said. “For my situation, the landlord knows what the space is worth now. There’s nothing to negotiate. He has other interested parties.” He said this without bitterness, which is the emotional register of a man who has made peace with a situation by deciding to describe it accurately rather than dramatically.
The Starbucks Across the Street: A Study in Coexistence
The Starbucks on the opposite corner from Reyes’s bodega charges $8.25 for a large latte. It has 22 indoor seats, a playlist that cycles through the same 40 songs, and a mobile order queue that produces drinks at the approximate rate of one per two minutes during peak periods. It is consistently busy. Its customers are, by observation, a mix of office workers on expense accounts, tourists finding comfort in familiarity, and people who have mobile-ordered something very specific and are prepared to wait for it.
Reyes’s bodega serves coffee from a machine for $2.00. It has two stools. It plays Spanish radio. It serves forty to sixty cups per morning rush to people who want coffee quickly and cheaply and do not require an app to accomplish this. Both institutions are profitable. Both are packed at 8 a.m. They serve different needs. The city is large enough to contain both. The rent increase pressure affects the bodega more than the Starbucks, which operates at corporate margins with corporate lease terms negotiated by attorneys who negotiate leases for a living. The bodega operates at Jorge Reyes margins with a lease negotiated by Jorge Reyes, who negotiates leases when the landlord tells him the rent is going up.
What the Mayor’s Office Has Said
Mayor Mamdani has expressed support for commercial rent stabilization legislation, which would cap annual increases for small business tenants in ways analogous to residential rent stabilization. This legislation has been introduced in the City Council multiple times, has not passed, and faces opposition from real estate interests that argue commercial rent control reduces property values, discourages maintenance, and creates market distortions. The small business community argues that without some form of stability, neighborhood commercial corridors will continue to be replaced by national chains that can absorb volatile rent costs and chains that, having absorbed them, serve coffee for $8.25 and are not at any risk of being displaced by a bodega.
Reyes, asked if he thought commercial rent stabilization would pass in the current council term, said “probably not.” He said this and then went back to making coffee for the person who had just walked in wanting a large regular and a bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll, which is what he does every morning, which is what he has done every morning for fourteen years, which is what he will continue doing until the morning he can no longer make the rent, which he hopes is not this year and suspects might be two years from now, and which he does not spend a lot of time thinking about because thinking about it does not change it and there is coffee to make.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com