The Establishment of the Mom and Pop

Everyone stand up right now and give a shout-out for your favorite Mom & Pop Establishment.

Balboa Sushi House!!

It is so worth it to build up a relationship with your local Mom & Pop stores. I'm not hugely connected into a community but I recognize that Community is what America and many places is sorely missing and lacking.

Balboa Sushi House is a little Japanese restaurant near my house run by a woman (in her late 40's to early 50's) and her husband. She runs the front, he makes the food. The sushi is decent and fairly priced. The decor is fun, with a little "fish jar" on each of the five or six tables with a live fish and water plants. Plants all over the place.

I've only seen him once or twice since he's in the back but the woman is super nice. I try to eat my sushi there or order to go any time I'm going for my fix of raw fish or Japanese and have been doing so for the past two and a half years.

I hadn't been in a month or more and I walk in yesterday, which also happened to be Valentine's Day, to get some tastey raw fish for my dinner and she is receiving flowers from her husband who then disappears back into the kitchen. She was giggling and it was all very cute. She then says to me in her thick Japanese accent, brightening up as if I were their first and only customer of the day, "Hello, Heather, how are you?!" I think I was a little non-plussed. Not at her brightness but remembering my name.

One might say, "She's seen your credit card and probably has a good memory." And yes, that's likely true. But let me relay another story.

This was about a year ago. I had lost my credit card, couldn't find it for months, and I hadn't eaten at Balboa Sushi House for months either. I was sitting in Canvas Cafe, which is on the other side of Golden Gate park from where my house and this little sushi restaurant is, studying with a friend when she walks by the window. I immediately recognized her but couldn't place her. She was out of context so I couldn't get my associational memory to kick in. She comes into the cafe, saying, "Oh, you left your card! You should come by and get it!" I had left my credit card there, last time I had eaten, months and months previous.

And that's why, my friends, you support and build up relationships with your local shops, farmer's markets, little grocers, etc.

Sushi Rock (big sushi "chain"), eat your heart out because I ain't buying.