Oxford St. blues: Even in the best of times, life under the El can be bleak (photo by michael persico).

Under the Weather Under the El

Talking to Kensington business owners while the economy suffers.

by Liz Spikol

It’s 2 o’clock on a recent Wednesday afternoon, and on Kensington Avenue near Lehigh life has slowed to a virtual standstill. The sun filters in slivers through the blue girders of the El, which rumbles above, but businesses—their doors left open in the unseasonably warm air—see few customers.

Estrella Espinal, manager of the corner sandwich shop One-Pound Cheesesteak, sits in the window and waits for orders that don’t come. Pretty, with smooth straight hair and a silver-ball piercing just above her lips, the twentysomething Espinal says business is much slower than it used to be.

“Everything is going up,” she says. “We had to raise the prices of our cheesesteaks because we don’t want to go with a cheaper cut of meat.” But where the restaurant used to pay around $500 for 60 pounds of meat, they now pay $1,000.

Behind her a man puts chicken cutlets in a metal sandbox of breadcrumbs. He doesn’t say anything as she talks about the customers that no longer come.

Espinal is also worried about her mother, who has to sell the neighborhood grocery store that she’s owned for 12 years. The customers are complaining, she says, because the bags of potato chips have gone from 25 cents to 50 cents, and the price of milk has gone from $1.69 to $2.39. Her mother’s future is uncertain; she doesn’t speak English.

Vincent Lau, whose family owns the Kensington Mini Mart down the street from One-Pound, is feeling the same kind of pinch Espinal’s mother does. Not only are products more expensive, he says, but manufacturers are shrinking their sizes.

Standing next to a display of candy necklaces and toy cap guns, the young Lau slowly stirs a cup of tea, a frayed black baseball cap on his head. “We do have fewer customers now,” he says, “but we can’t really raise prices. The customers only have a fixed amount of money. You increase the prices and they’re not going to come.”

Lau’s profit margin has taken a hit, but he hasn’t reached the point where he has to pass that increase on to the consumer. “Maybe if there are two or three more increases,” he says, “but we’re eating the cost right now. What are you going to do?”

A major factor for Lau is the traffic to the neighboring hair salons along Kensington Avenue. Since they offer $5 haircuts, they typically see business from out-of-staters who come to Philly for shopping and then duck into a Kensington barbershop for a quick cut.

Now, Lau says, those salons have less business. People don’t have gas money to drive in from New Jersey, and they don’t have disposable income for shopping. “If the salons and barbershops don’t do well,” says Lau, “I don’t do well.”

And Tommy Nguyen, manager of Kim’s Haircut, doesn’t have good news for Lau. “Things are very bad,” he says, standing in a large barbershop with more chairs than customers. “Poor people need jobs,” he says, struggling a little with English. “Businesses around this location very bad. Our income go down. I have 10 employees here. I lay off six. We need change. We need solution. We need jobs.”

Nguyen is especially worried about heat this winter. “Utilities going up 15 percent,” he says. “We have no customers, no business, but prices go up.”

The Department of Energy recently released estimates of surges in heating costs this winter. According to a breakdown in the Associated Press, users of natural gas will see an 18 percent increase while users of heating oil will see an increase of 23 percent. Tommy Nguyen gestures at the ceiling as he says, “No customers, but we have to heat. How?”

Farther down the empty street, at the Tac Kee Oriental Food Store, Tina Huyh is on the phone by the cash register. When asked whether the economy is having an impact, she puts down the phone and assumes a sad expression.

“We’re very, very affected,” she says. “We have less customers and they buy less.” Tac Kee has been here on Kensington Avenue for 17 years—an eternity compared to these other businesses. But Tina Huyh doesn’t want to talk about the store, or anything else really. “I just hope we can pay the bills,” she says. “I just hope my family can survive.”