The Mom & Pop Store: How the Unsung Heroes of the American Economy Are Surviving and Thriving

When I put myself on the list to obtain an Early Reviewer's copy, I hoped it would be inspiring and well written -- because I find the topic especially interesting. I have been a consultant for several small businesses and the owners were, as a rule, quite inspiring. And I patronize many small businesses -- when possible, I choose them over the national chains or franchises.

I enjoyed the book, found the stories compelling and the writing very fluid and fun to read. It's obvious that the author has great fondness for the entrepreneurs he patronizes and/or interviewed for the book.

The book is so good, in fact, that I'm going to make a suggestion that we read it for the non-fiction group at my public library. (Each year in July, we vote show more for the next 12 books we are reading, all of them suggested by members of the group.)

Books for that group have to be well written and fun to read -- and also give us something interesting to talk about. I look forward to a wonderful discussion -- prompted by The Mom & Pop Store -- about the small businesses we remember from the past and patronize today.

Review based on an Early Reviewer's copy of the book. show less

This book is equal parts love story (with small business), biography and economics history. While I could see how some of the biographical details could get a little stale and repetitive for some readers, I felt that it really helped frame the nuts and bolts of what it means to be a small shop owner. Spector did a good job of covering small shop owners, in all industries, from across the whole country.

It was interesting to see all of the similarities in all of these family-owned businesses. And how these lessons learned translate into community and a sense of creating a better place. All of the shop owners seemed to share a strong sense of pride in their work their families and for caring for the customer. None of these shop owners are show more set to take over the world, but you can see how each street is better off for having had that privately owned company there. I don't want to overly-romanticize the impact of all of these small businesses, but they all sure seem to have a clue that the rest of corporate America could use.

Sprinkled throughout all of these family histories and shop stories are economic nuggets and facts. Such as, "shop" is derived from an Old Saxon or German word for "porch", from a time when people sold their wares from the front porches of their homes. It's also fun to read how attitudes towards salesmen and shop owners ebb. Spector quotes Nietzche, "Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality."

Even though some of the shop histories and family stories run long and blur in their sameness, this is a book that has stuck with me and one that I will continue to recommend. show less

"The Mom and Pop Store" has something for everyone. It is: a passionate defense of small family businesses; a history of the retail merchant from ancient times to the present; a trip down memory lane; a celebration of the contributions of new immigrants to the melting pot that is the USA; and – most interesting of all – an exploration of how a variety of small businesses have contrived to adapt to a changing environment that includes big box stores, the Internet, gentrified neighborhoods, and more.

Any reader looking for a calm and rational analysis of the place of small family businesses in our economy will be disappointed. This book is highly anecdotal. Robert Spector begins with his youth in the family butcher shop in Perth show more Amboy, New Jersey and ends with a walk through his current Seattle neighborhood. In between, he profiles a myriad of small stores around the country – and the world – pausing occasionally to dredge up a bit of retail history or to reminisce about some aspect of his grandfather's shop.

It's true, the author does ramble a bit. But that's part of the charm. Concise? Well, no. Analytical? Uh, no, not that either. But fascinating, charming, and totally convincing? Absolutely yes! show less

For many Americans, the phrase "mom and pop store" is irresistible, bringing back memories of a favorite candy store or corner grocery, usually run by an irascible immigrant with a hidden soft side. It's no news at all, of course, that the advent of monolithic chain stores and "big box" "category-killers," to use retailing parlance, threatens the existence of these embattled gems.

With "The Mom & Pop Store: How the Unsung Heroes of the American Economy Are Surviving and Thriving," Seattle-based business guru Robert Spector has written a celebration of the traditional virtues of such shops and a proclamation of their continued vitality. Spector crisscrossed the country, speaking to the owners of small operations from classic Jewish delis show more to Southern barbershops to funky Little Havana fruterias, listening to their stories and asking about their secrets to success. The common themes are no surprise: Customer service and a friendly atmosphere are the not-so-secret weapons against corporate competitors. In Dayton, Bill Furst of Furst Florist says, "We don't want to be the largest; we just want to be the best," before asking the author, "When you came through the front door, were you greeted with a smile?"

The stories that Spector has gathered are cheering testimonials to the value of hard work and creative retailing, heartwarming in this day of conglomerates. Despite his good intentions and obvious affection for his subjects, however, the author provides little evidence that these success stories are the norm rather than the exception.

Although Spector breezily begins with the assertion that "after the apocalypse, the only survivors will be cockroaches and mom & pop stores," he doesn't back it up. He offers few clues to how small-business owners can compete with the Wal-Marts or Best Buys, whose prices are kept low by vast economies of scale and whose computerized "just-in-time" inventories and national distribution offer immediate access to nearly limitless items.

Readers who enjoy Capra-esque stories about plucky general merchandising outfits run by colorful individualists will enjoy Spector's book. Those who are looking for a nuts-and-bolts account of how mom and pop stores can thrive in today's chilly retail climate will have to seek it elsewhere.

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 13, 2009 show less

This book blends practical social anthropology with family history. I work for a nonprofit as an environmental advocate; few of my close friends are entrepreneurs, and I've wanted to get a better sense of how the world looks from the perspective of a small business owner. This book met that need well. On the other hand, I wouldn't rely on this book for an objective analysis of how small businesses compete or are likely to fare in the future. Despite a fair amount of bluff rhetoric throughout the book to the effect that small businesses are the heart of the economy, the last chapter attempts to persuade readers to support local independent businesses to help keep them around.

It seems to me that this book would have a limited natural show more audience, and I've puzzled over Spector's motivation in writing it. I haven't read his other books, including Category Killers, about (mostly) big box chains; or The Nordstrom Way, about (big) business models built around high quality customer service. But I'm guessing that this book makes the most sense as Spector's effort to reconcile the career he's built writing about big businesses with the small business values he learned in his family's butcher shop. The result is a kind of extended personal essay, with all the pleasures and limits of that genre. show less

Free LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. Spector grew up working for the family butcher shop, and so the topic of the small business is close to his heart. The book is a celebration of the community values and hard work of mom & pop stores (or mom & mom, or father & son, etc.), but it is pretty shallow, skipping from business to business and sometimes even from country to country with sweet stories but little analysis. People work hard and change the store to survive; they get help from loyal customers who appreciate the detailed knowledge and service the small store can provide. Spector brushes up against the topic of failure, but it would have been a better book if it had attempted to distinguish success stories from failures, because show more in the end I don’t really know why these businesses thrived/continue to thrive—I don’t know how hard the failures worked or how much individualized service they provided.

Though Spector assumes (and says a couple of times) that small businesses have to deliver better quality to survive, and complains about the red tape that makes it hard for small businesses to compete, he doesn’t do much to prove the existence of that quality as a general rule. In fact, one of the small businesses in his family’s history was selling fake honey at a farmer’s market, sugar and water and coloring mixed together and labeled as the product of bees. It’s not that I think that Wal-Mart’s suppliers wouldn’t do that too if they could get away with it; I’m sure they would and even do. But there are reasons that red tape developed, and it’s kind of odd to say that small businesses have to be honest or they’ll go out of business—trusting the free market—and then also not like massive chains which are themselves products of the relatively free market/consumer choices. (Though he does make the good point that once a business gets big it can buy itself favorable treatment, which is a political problem and possibly a reason to like mom & pop stores regardless of whether you think they directly offer better products and services.) show less

This was a pretty interesting look into Mom & Pop stores. It definitely wasn't any sort of academic text, it's more like an anecdote-filled anthology of different Mom & Pop stores, but not in a bad way.

I'm already pro Mom & Pop store and will shop at them every time I can, which, fortunately, is most of the time here in Boston. I'm lucky, not everyone has such a great selection due to big meanies like Wal*Mart driving them virtually out of existence in many suburban areas.

Spector makes the great points that Mom & Pop stores are the foundation of local economies. They hire local people at decent wages, they usually spend money within the local community, they pay taxes within the community, etc. Big box stores are pretty much the show more antithesis of community. But that's not really the focus of this book. show less