Mr. Fruit: Beloved Bodegas of Brooklyn

Chris Crowley, senior writer at Grub Street, discusses the Mr. Fruit stores, a "chainlet" of delis that has amassed a cult following in Brooklyn.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For our last 15 minutes today, we're going to talk to a guest and take your calls on a certain kind of store in New York City. Goes without saying that New Yorkers treasure our delis. Anyone who's been hit with a sudden craving for fresh fruit or that mid-recipe realization that you're missing a crucial ingredients knows the value of a go-to local spot that you know has you covered. If you live in certain neighborhoods in North Brooklyn, that spot might be a Mr. Fruit store.

Mr. Fruit, for those of you who don't know, is a Brooklyn chain composed of 10 stores each named after a different fruit, such as Mr. Mango, Mr. Piña, and Mr. Melon. At Mr. Kiwi in Bushwick and Bed Stuy, you can buy a pound of cherries or a box of Annie's Mac and Cheese for $1.99, while Crown Heights Mr. Kale, hey, that's not a fruit, offers a pineapple or a napa cabbage for only $1 each.

Chris Crowley is a senior writer for Grub Street where he wrote about the Mr. Fruit chainlet of stores which have amassed a cult following since springing up throughout Kings County, including the news hook for this, sadness over one that's closing. Welcome to WNYC, Chris. Thanks for coming on.

Chris Crowley: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anybody want to just call in and celebrate Mr. Fruit, your local one, or where do you go when you need to buy affordable or downright cheap fruits, vegetables, or specialty items that aren't spoiled? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Again, if any regulars of Mr. Fruit want to share your odes to Mr. Coco, Mr. Kale, Mr. Beet, Mr. Piña, you're welcome. 212-433-9692. Tell us more, Chris, what makes a Mr. Fruit store different from your typical corner bodega?

Chris Crowley: I guess the way I think of them is that they're these deluxe bodegas. The main draw has always been relatively cheap prices for the produce outside. You might end up spending more money on strawberries inside, but outside you can find these deals. You have to be willing to sift through because otherwise, you might end up buying some berries that aren't going to last very long or maybe already expired.

That's the main thing. Then inside you have a lot of products that you might find at other stores. The people that I know who like them tend to talk about, in addition to the produce, the fact that they're these efficiently designed places and that they have all the things that they're looking for versus a lot of the times when you go to a corner store or a bodega, the shelves, the selection might be a little more chaotic.

Brian Lehrer: What are some of those maybe more obscure items?

Chris Crowley: The maybe more obscure items? One of the things that they have is, because it's owned by these Korean brothers, they have a lot of Korean products in addition to things like probiotic sodas or kombuchas or whatnot. You're also just going to find something like gochujang that you won't find at your corner store.

Brian Lehrer: About the lower prices, is it largely because the produce that they sell might be close to its expiration date, or are there other ways that they hold down prices, too?

Chris Crowley: I think that obviously has a lot to do with it. They've said different things in the past. They told other people that they have deep ties at the Hunts Point Market. Back in 2016, my coworker Lauren was writing for a magazine called Lucky Peach. They talked about going to the market late at night and so on.

When I talked to one of their operations supervisors, John Yoo, he had talked to me about going there to the Hunts Point Produce Market every day in the middle of the morning. He says at this point is that they have these 10 stores, so they're able to purchase in greater bulk. They don't necessarily want to spoil whatever other secrets they have or relationships they have with people or tell people their strategies, but they are able to buy in bulk.

Brian Lehrer: Here is Ken in Park Slope who wants to shout out a Mr. Fruit that we haven't mentioned yet. Hi, Ken. You're on WNYC.

Ken: Hey, Brian. Yes, Mr. Lime on 7th Avenue near 9th Street in Park Slope. The outdoor stuff is excellently priced. When I'm in Clinton Hill or Myrtle Avenue area, Mr. Coco is also great. Mr. Lime also has a great guy who works there who came all the way from Bhutan, the Himalayan mountain kingdom to work there. He's a great guy. His name is Gene. He's always very friendly and congenial. I'm a big fan of the outdoor stuff. I rarely buy anything on the inside part of the store.

Brian Lehrer: Ken, we're going to leave it there. Thank you very much. Hello, Gene at Mr. Lime if you're listening. You have a fan in Park Slope. Ellen in Williamsburg, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ellen.

Ellen: Hi, Brian. I'm glad to be here. I'm just distraught over Mr. Piña closing down. I've been in the neighborhood since '89. Now that it's all gentrified, all we've got is Whole Foods and other overpriced markets. It was affordable. The food was good. The people were nice. You could get kimchi at a decent price without going to 30th Street. That's all I'm here to say. I'm just very sad about it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Here's another caller in Williamsburg, Ani, also sad about Mr. Piña closing down. Hi, Ani.

Ani: Hi, Brian. I just walked by the other day after years of it being a mainstay as far as sustenance goes for us starving artists. Mr. Kiwi in Bushwick, I haven't been by in a while, but I presume it's also closed. I just remember growing up with those staples. When I was a starving artist in my 20s, I could afford to buy some fancy fruit. I'm sad to see that gone. It's an institution.

Brian Lehrer: Ani, thank you very much. My understanding is that Mr. Kiwi in Bushwick is not closed. Can you confirm one way or the other, Chris?

Chris Crowley: Yes. No, it's still going strong.

Brian Lehrer: Of Mr. Kiwi, you write-- This is off the bustling Myrtle Broadway subway stop. You write that the shop exists in calm contrast to the chaos of the intersection. A calm and a charm it seems. You want to describe anything about that?

Chris Crowley: I feel like that stop, it has a second life on the internet. It's a meme. All the elevated stops in New York, they can feel hectic. There's a lot of traffic there. The store across the street or across the intersection from Mr. Kiwi more or less is a Big Boy Deli which had a different kind of reputation. Well, they were selling K2, and there was a bunch of K2 overdoses there. It was just a weird place. The stop itself, it's always so busy, and there's so much going on. You have this store, the Mr. Kiwi there, where you have the fruit that's sprawling outside, and it feels serene to me.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a Mr. Kiwi shopper. Andrew in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andrew.

Andrew: Hi, Brian. Just wanted to shout out Mr. Kiwi and also say Mr. Kiwi has a juice bar which is amazing. You can get a really cheap fresh juice. My partner and I have been going to Mr. Kiwi for years now. We both love it.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew, thank you very much. Another caller about another fruit that we haven't even mentioned yet in the chain. Nikki in Bushwick calling about Mr. Lemon, right? Hi, Nikki.

Nikki: Hi, Brian. Great to be on the line with you. I just wanted to shout out Mr. Lemon in Bushwick. I started a home bakery business out of my apartment in Bushwick, and Mr. Lemon being open 24/7 saved me so many times by being just able to go grab a stick of butter late night or a snack or whatever I needed. Shout out to Mr. Lemon.

Brian Lehrer: Nikki, thank you very much. The way people are calling in to talk about all these different Mr. Fruit stores, you would think it was this new hip thing that was breaking out, Chris, but you write about the Yoon brothers who opened the first Mr. Fruit store back in 2007 after immigrating from Korea. Tell us a little bit about the birth of the Mr. Fruit chain.

Chris Crowley: The story goes that the eldest brother Joon was working at a grocery store in Queens and in Sunnyside, I believe. He opened this business with one of his other brothers after that grocery store closed. He was figuring out what to do, and they found this space and did that. Then in the years afterwards, more of the brothers got involved, there's five total. They started opening more stores.

It was just a handful at first. I feel like when Lauren, who I mentioned before, wrote about it first, there were maybe close to a half dozen. I think part of the people, they thought there was a mystery around it because there was these random-- You wouldn't necessarily know. They weren't advertising the bits like, "We have a location here and here and here," so someone might move from one neighborhood to another and see that there's a store with another Mr. Fruit name. I think part of it is the names themselves.

I think in New York, it's just you have to find places where you feel like you're getting a good deal that makes, not to be dramatic, but makes your life here easier or more possible. You're so used to going to grocery stores or whatever else, and feeling like you paid too much for something. I think people, they get attached because they like the branding of it and the people who run it being [unintelligible 00:11:03] and people talk about the employees, but also it's nice to not feel ripped off in New York.

Brian Lehrer: There's the one that closed, and I wonder if others are in danger because the neighborhoods where the Mr. Fruit stores have flourished are some of the most expensive and gentrified in Brooklyn. We are talking Williamsburg, Fort Green, Crown Heights, Cobble Hill. How did Brooklyn's rapid gentrification play a role in both the success and if you think it's a threat, potential closings of Mr. Fruit stores?

Chris Crowley: Wait. They're all open in these neighborhoods. It started in Bushwick, and it spread out from there. I think the one in Williamsburg was a good example because as the caller was talking about before, it's like that neighborhood, as it got more and more expensive, you didn't really have places like this that were offering. It's like the gentrification of Williamsburg, I imagine, created an opportunity for them to offer something to people that were feeling more oppressed by their rent. Of course, that then comes around, and it affects them and so they--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Chris Crowley: Sorry, please go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. No, you go ahead. [crosstalk] comes around and affects them.

Chris Crowley: I was just going to say that they-- Yes. They moved to the Mr. Piña to Church Avenue. They now have a store at 4724 Church Avenue. They're just relocating that business.

Brian Lehrer: Last question in our last-minute, text message, listener asks, "Are these cheaper or different from similar Korean-owned groceries," or the listener writes Asian groceries, "In every neighborhood in Queens. Why are they unusual or unique?" We have 30 seconds.

Chris Crowley: I think it probably depends on which one you're talking about. I think that people find that in their neighborhoods that these offer all the prices maybe are comparable, or other places are doing a similar business model that people tend to like what they get at the Mr. Fruits more. Also, it's ultimately, you get attached to a place, and people just like the place for what it is. Maybe there's a comparable store, but they go to the one that they know and the ones they like where they like the people.

Brian Lehrer: Chris Crowley, senior writer for Grub Street, where you can read a story. Do you know Mr. Mango? Chris, thanks so much.

Chris Crowley: Thank you so much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our National Politics podcast. Our interns this summer are Sasha Linden Cohen and Lucinda [unintelligible 00:13:36] who did all that homework on Mr. Fruit. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio, Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Stay tuned for Alison.

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