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convenience store

small corner shop selling bread, milk, lunches and other necessities and open for long hours, usually 7 days a week. Compare deli, milkbar, mixed business.

Contributor's comments: Convenience store unfortunately is an example of the dilution of our language by Americanisms.

Contributor's comments: Used in Melbourne too.

Contributor's comments: I agree that this is an Americanism. Cite: Twin Peaks (1991) - Philip Gerard: "We lived among the people. How do you say, convenience store? We lived above it."
deli

small corner shop selling bread, milk, lunches and other necessities and open for long hours, usually 7 days a week (as opposed to a delicatessen, with normal opening hours and selling smallgoods only): We're out of milk - I'll just nip down to the deli for a carton. Compare convenience store, milkbar, mixed business.

Editor's comments: Deli has slightly different meanings in different regions. In some areas a deli is a shop selling relatively expensive smallgoods, fresh cheeses, hams, etc., whereas in other areas is it equivalent to a corner store. Which is it in your area?. [A similar problem occurs with "milkbar", which see]

Contributor's comments: I am from Victoria where a "deli" is commonly called a "milk bar." I consider a "deli" to be the section in a supermarket that sells cold meat and cheese.

Contributor's comments: Sydneysiders assume I'm referring to a continental deli (one that specialises in imported smallgoods and other delicacies) when I use the term there. A South Australian 'deli' is a mixed business, '7-Eleven' or milk bar in Sydney.

Contributor's comments: I come from Adelaide, and I always thought deli was just an abbreviation of delicatessen. They sold bread, drinks, smallgoods, lunches, icecream, lollies, papers etc. Opening hours were not controlled by the name (deli or delicatessen) but depended on the local trade (eg, some were mainly lunch shops, so didn't open long hours). Most delis I knew were not on corners, but may have been similar to shops known elsewhere as corner stores.

Contributor's comments: The corner store in Adelaide is always a deli. Never a milk bar. In Melbourne, I have heard 'deli' and 'deli-bar' to mean a sandwich bar (ie a place where made-to-order sandwiches are available)

Contributor's comments: Brisbane: I grew up with "deli". "Pop to the deli to buy some bread". It was always a little general store down the road. Thinking about it though, I don't have any memory of ever hearing anyone else use it. May have come from parents (New Castle, Toowoomba).

Contributor's comments: In Perth we always referred to the local 'milkbar' or equivalent as the deli. It would be a place that sold a range of convenience food like icecreams, pies, cigarettes etc. I found when I moved to Sydney my friends referred to the same type of establishment as the milkbar, while I continued to call it the deli.

Contributor's comments: Deli: We used this word in Whyalla growing up.

Contributor's comments: [Adelaide informant] A corner food shop, bread, milk etc. Commonly called milk bar in other states: "I'm going to the deli."

Contributor's comments: "Deli" is almost exclusively the term in SA for what inter-staters call milk bars, corner stores or general stores and what the Yanks call convenience stores. The term corner store and general store are also used in SA, but milk bar is unknown. A store which sells gourmet foodstuffs is distinguished from a deli by the names delicatessen, gourmet deli(catessen) and continental deli(catessen).
milkbar

similar to corner store / convenience store: Could you walk down to the milkbar and purchase a loaf of bread? Compare convenience store, deli, mixed business.

Editor's comments: Milkbar has slightly different meanings in differnt regions. In some areas a milkbar is a shop selling milk-shakes and hamburgers, whereas in other areas is it equivalent to a corner store. Which is it in your area?. [A similar problem occurs with "deli", which see]

Contributor's comments: Milk Bar is called a deli (delicatessen) in SA.

Contributor's comments: I suspect this is an Australia-wide term. It's popular in Qld, and also very popular down here in Melbourne.

Contributor's comments: Upon moving to Tasmania from South Australia as a primary school aged child, I discovered that if I wanted to buy lollies etc. I didn't go to the deli anymore - no, I had to go to the Milk Bar - so I think the area where this term is used extends beyond Queensland!

Contributor's comments: Used Throughout Victoria as well.

Contributor's comments: I lived in the Western Suburbs of Sydney for 18 years and the corner shop was always referred to as a milkbar by my family and friends.

Contributor's comments: As I understand it, also very common in Victoria, but I'm from Perth. Not used in WA - prefer deli over here.

Contributor's comments: I grew up in country NSW and Sydney suburbs and a Milk Bar was a milk bar, there they sold milk shakes, soft drinks, ice cream sodas and lollies - never bread. There was a high counter on which you lent whilst your mikshake was being made - if you were tall enough. Generally it was for non-alcholic drinks as opposed to the bar in the pub.

Contributor's comments: I think of the milk bar as a shop selling milkshakes and hamburgers. We would stop at the milk bar after school in Sydney's north and west during the 70s. I could usually only afford potato scallops or a bag of chips.

Contributor's comments: Known on King Island (well the one we had in Currie) in the 50s & 60s as the cafe.

Contributor's comments: In Melbourne in the 60s the "milkbar" was the little corner chop where you bought newspapers, bread, milk, mixed lollies and most importantly, icypoles.
mixed business

a corner shop, a milk bar, a deli (delicatessen): Can you buy some milk when you go to the mixed business? Compare convenience store, deli, milkbar.

Contributor's comments: I've heard this experssion before in Melbourne, though it's very rare. The Victorian government used this expression in their brochure about scratch tickets which they introduced to public transport at the end of 1989. I don't know what the word officially means. To me, it means a small store like a milk bar except larger, with a few aisles of products ranging from chips to chocolates to wafers and biscuits etc. and sometimes imported products if the owners are of a particular ethnic background. It's larger than a regular milk bar but smaller than a Seven Eleven.