Comments on: Party Store

By: Sam Baker

Sam Baker — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 02:58:21 +0000

SE Michigan resident here. There are countless convenience stores around here that have party store in the name. Everyone calls them that too. One thing that tends to be very common in literal named party stores is the fact that they sell fishing licenses and bait too. They almost always have a small carryout pizza restaurant inside of them as well.

By: Bradical

Bradical — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:33:56 +0000

@HumaneCannonball I’m from metro Detroit and we have 7-11s all over the place that sell liquor and there are often times multiple liquor license-holding party stores at the same corner.

By: Humane Cannonball

Humane Cannonball — Fri, 04 May 2018 08:11:46 +0000

Also, the Yooper dialect is heavily influenced by Finnish, Finns (along with Welsh and Italians) landing in the Western U.P.’s mining country in the 19th and early 20th Century. While the Finns were in mining country, their influence spread throughout the peninsula. The accent has a lot of Finnish, but there are also quirks like the way that the preposition “to”, which doesn’t have a counterpart in Finnish, is dropped in the Yooper dialect. My grandparents were born and raised in Gladstone (think “suburban Escanaba”) before they moved down to Muskegon, and they’d say things like, “I’m going store,” and “We moved down Muskegon in 1940.” Neither of them had a drop of Finnish blood in their veins.

By: Humane Cannonball

Humane Cannonball — Fri, 04 May 2018 07:59:26 +0000

A party store may be a convenience store, but not all convenience stores are party stores.

What sets a party store apart is that it has a license to sell liquor, beer and wine. Carry-out liquor licenses are much more rare and much more expensive than a simple beer and wine license. Where any 7-11 can get a beer and wine license, I can’t think of a single national convenience store chain whose stores have liquor licenses in Michigan. Over the last few decades, however, carry-out liquor licenses have been granted to grocery stores and, iirc, pharmacies (think CVS and Walgreens). I don’t know if it’s the state, county or city that sets this rule, but here in Grand Rapids, a store with a carry-out liquor license must be a mile from any other store with a carry-out liquor license.

That said, we save “party store” for mom ‘n’ pop shops, what much of the rest of America would call a liquor store.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 18:11:31 +0000

In Michigan, we really do have more fun!

By: Joyce Melton

Joyce Melton — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 08:13:48 +0000

When I moved from rural California to Orange County in the 1980s I found that convenience stores were frequently called “junior markets” as opposed to supermarkets, I suppose. The locution has since seemingly disappeared though you can still see it on a few old signs.

I also thought it interesting when I went to Saigon to find out that sieu nhan (see-oo nyuhn), the Vietnamese for supermarket, literally translates as — super market.