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Comparison 🔎 Party stores and party houses: unusual local names for common business types

Dan

Dan

ADHDP / Dear Leader
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In my travels throughout the US, I've noticed that certain types of businesses are called a completely unique name in one city or region. If you refer to that type of business using the local vernacular outside the region, most people will have no idea what you're talking about. A few examples:

Banquet hall: in Rochester, it's a party house, while in Cleveland it's called a party center. When I think of "party house", I don't think of huge Italian weddings, but rather this:

animal20housegm8.jpg


Inner city convenience store: NYC has bodegas, and Detroit has party stores.

Convenience store: in some parts of southern Ontario near the US border, many are called a milk bar.

Can you think of any other examples?
 
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Around here banquet halls are often called party barns, especially when they are in a more country setting like a log building or something like that.

The drive-thru liquor stores vary by name across the country as well. Incidentally, those are also called party barns.
 
Liquor stores in South Carolina are called "Package Stores". When I first moved here someone said he had to go to the package store before it closed, I thought he was talking about a UPS Store, Mail Box Etc. kinda thing.....guess there is something offensive about Liquor being in a store's name.
 
Historically Michiganders have referred to those places that sell six packs, candy, and lottery tickets as 'party stores' or even 'liquor stores' but more and more I've been hearing 'convenience store' creep into the vernacular.

How about 'ports' vs 'harbors'? Seems like you hear folks from New England or the Maritimes referring to places where ships moor as harbors alot more than folks from the Great Lakes region.
 
Redemption Centers

I always thought those were churches, but it turns out that in Maine (and elsewhere?) it's a place to get your bottle deposits back. Here in Oregon you get your deposits back at Safeway or Albertsons, of the IGA, or wherever fine libations are sold.
 
Philadelphia has a lot of "delis" that are basically corner stores that sell 40s and junk food. Pennsylvania's liquor laws influence the vernacular. They call themselves delis because they're technically take-out restaurants, so they have a take-out beer licence. A convenience store wouldn't be allowed to sell beer.
 
passdoubt said:
Philadelphia has a lot of "delis" that are basically corner stores that sell 40s and junk food. Pennsylvania's liquor laws influence the vernacular. They call themselves delis because they're technically take-out restaurants, so they have a take-out beer licence. A convenience store wouldn't be allowed to sell beer.
Click to expand...

For those of us who will be at APA this year, where DO you buy beer, wine, vodka, etc?
 
Bump
I remember "ABC stores" being a thing in NC back in the day. Basically, they were state-operated liquor stores. Not sure if they still call them that or even still exist.
 
Maister said:
Bump
I remember "ABC stores" being a thing in NC back in the day. Basically, they were state-operated liquor stores. Not sure if they still call them that or even still exist.
Click to expand...

Yes they do still exist. In fact our county has built 2 new ones in the last couple years.

Each county has an ABC Board who runs the stores in that county.

This is the newer one & it includes a warehouse section:
www.google.com

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.
www.google.com www.google.com

Compare to one of the older ones with no warehouse:
www.google.com

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.
www.google.com www.google.com
 
Most alcohol in Alabama is sold in ABC stores. There are non-government stores you can buy liquor from generally called package stores, but the markup is insane. Fancy package stores usually go by "bottle shops". Most of the newer package stores are a couple of hundred square feet on the side of convenience stores. They have to have a seperate door, but the clerk from the gas station will turn around and process purchases at a separate counter.

For years it was illegal to sell to sell more than 12 oz of beer or that wasn't in a bottle or can. I think in the 90s they changed it from being illegal to really hard. During that time a bunch of party stores, draft store, or keg stores popped up especially around college towns. They sold kegs, keg taps, ice, solo cups, cigarettes, and usually chips or some other basic carbs. They would also have a bunch of taps and fill half gallon and gallon milk containers. It was were you got import beers like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, and Rolling Rock before they became easily available.

When the state opened up the draft laws most of these places went away. I saw one a couple of months ago that harkened back to those days, but it may just be package store.

maps.app.goo.gl

Street View of Party On Supply Shop · Google Maps

750 Tallapoosa St, Notasulga, AL 36866
maps.app.goo.gl maps.app.goo.gl
 
Yes, us evolved people out west just sell liquor at the grocery store or head over to the Total Wine. We don't disguise it like some Sesame Street thing. Today's alcoholic is brought to you by the letters A and C and the number 7
 
DVD said:
Yes, us evolved people out west just sell liquor at the grocery store or head over to the Total Wine. We don't disguise it like some Sesame Street thing. Today's alcoholic is brought to you by the letters A and C and the number 7
Click to expand...
I know in parts of TN you'll see grocers and warehouse stores with a small store in attached because they can't sell in the same building so they attached a building.
 
Jaguars in the Pantanal don't need ABC Stores, nor do they understand the concept of Money - "If I can catch it, I can eat it".

A Bodega in Quebec is known as a "Depanneur" or "Dep". When I lived in Montreal, my favorite Dep was called "Chez Joe" and run by the greatest shopkeeper in all of Canada, the veritable Joe. It was an Italian specialty neighborhood grocery in a predominantly Italian-Canadian part of town (hence why I lived there). Joe's people come from the same part of Calabria as my nonna's people. Joe will be my first stop when I visit Montreal next.


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