Mi Ja “Tina” Shin smiled at the man approaching the register at Sue’s Produce, her small food market on 18th Street, two blocks from Rittenhouse Square. They locked eyes. Silently, he pressed a $100 bill into her hand. Shin stared at it and gave him a hug.
And so it has been going lately at Sue’s, one of the few small grocery stores in a retail district dominated by restaurants, boutiques, and big-name brands.
While Di Bruno Bros. across the street offers scores of cheeses and elaborate charcuterie, Sue’s takes a more workaday approach to retail: Packaged Dietz & Watson cold cuts and everyday cheeses, plus dozens of varieties of produce, snacks, drinks, and pantry staples are jammed into the narrow storefront. Shin’s homemade Korean food at the counter is the house specialty.
But Sue’s is behind on its rent, and neighbors have been stepping up since Shin’s son James launched a GoFundMe campaign last week.
By early Friday, the fundraiser had exceeded $27,000 and was closing in on its current goal, $30,000.
James Shin said his last understanding was that his mother owed about $38,000 in back rent, which is why the fundraiser was initially set at $40,000. Diaa Sawan, whose family owns the building at 114-116 S. 18th St., said Thursday that the current arrears are about $32,000.
Sue’s has been struggling for some time, according to both Shin and Sawan.
Sawan said the store has typically been three or four months behind, and has at times made partial payments. “We’ve been so patient,” he said. “My family and I are actually trying to give them a chance, and hopefully she can make it.”
Asked whether eviction proceedings were possible, Sawan said it was. “After a couple of years, I have no choice,” he said. “We have a mortgage. We have to pay the bank.” He said well-funded national tenants could pay thousands more in rent.
James Shin, who has been speaking publicly for his mother because she is not comfortable speaking in English, described the relationship with the Sawans as longstanding and accommodating. “They’ve always tried to help my mom out,” he said.
A neighborhood rallies
So are the customers. The man who handed her $100 Thursday morning was Ron Schlesinger, a neighbor.
“I don’t like GoFundMe because they take a fee,” Schlesinger said. “I’ll give her more money if she needs it. My whole family has been coming here for 50 years.”
That history predates the current store. Tina Shin’s aunt Sue operated a produce business nearby before the family opened the 18th Street storefront in the early 2000s next to Byblos, the Mediterranean restaurant owned by the Sawan family. Vango, the Sawans’ club, is above both establishments.
Support is also coming from Amanda Shulman, chef-owner of nearby Michelin-starred Her Place Supper Club, who announced this week that she would host a Korean-inspired benefit dinner Oct. 16, with snacks provided by Shin and proceeds donated to Sue’s.
The dinner will have two family-style seatings, at 6 and 8:30 p.m., with 48 seats total at $275 per person, beverages included. Reservations will go online at 6 p.m. Sunday. The goal is to raise $10,000.
Sue’s is “such an integral part of our little Rittenhouse neighborhood,” Shulman said. “Someone from our team visits Sue’s at least two times and sometimes up to four times a day for this or that or a pick-me-up snack or gorgeous herbs when we’re shorted.”
‘Having a hard time’
James Shin, 37, who runs another market at Society Hill Towers, said the family’s problems built gradually. “My mom has a lot of business expenses, plus the slowdown of the economy and her trying to keep up,” he said. “Eventually, she fell behind on rent. I knew my mom was having a hard time. Business was slow.”
Part of the problem, he said, is that Sue’s was built around a shopping habit that has faded.
“We’ve always been a produce market, so people know us for produce,” Shin said. “But nowadays, no one really grocery-shops or buys produce as much as they used to.”
Tina Shin, 63, has had decades of experience in the food trade. Her son said she came to the United States from South Korea in the late 1980s after marrying his father, Dong Shin. In the early 1990s, the couple took over a fruit cart from a relative at 18th and Walnut Streets, outside of what was then Urban Outfitters and is now Anthropologie.
James remembers tagging along with his mother when he was young because the family had no babysitter. On rainy days, he said, he would crouch beneath the shelter of the building while she cut fruit inside the cart.
The family later operated a series of stores in North Philadelphia that failed through fire or economic downturns. In 2012, they took over Sue’s from relatives. “At the time, business was still pretty good, but it was shifting,” Shin said.
Rent then was about $5,000 a month, he said. Today it is $12,000, according to Sawan.
A survival strategy
As produce sales declined and costs rose, Tina Shin began leaning more heavily on prepared Korean food.
After the pandemic, she started with kimchi, then kimbap. At first, James Shin said, she made only five or 10 rolls a day and would be disappointed if one or two remained unsold. Then demand grew.
“She was selling 10, and next thing you know, she’s selling 20, 30, 40 a day,” he said.
She expanded into banchan and other dishes, studying recipes and techniques online and adapting them.
The cooking also extended an already-grueling workday. James Shin said his mother often wakes at 2 a.m. to prepare food, works at the store from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., then goes home, preps again, sleeps a few hours, and starts over.
But are the fundraisers just putting a bandage on a systemic problem? James Shin said he hopes that the attention will help in the long term.
People who are not donating online, he said, have been coming into the Rittenhouse store to buy Korean dishes, smoothies, and groceries.
“I feel like this is a good opportunity for us to catch back up and try to start — not fresh, exactly — but restart and get everything back together,” he said.
For his mother, he said, the strongest encouragement remains the simplest kind.
“What keeps my mom going is the customer who comes back and says, ‘Your food is the best. Your Korean food is really good,’” Shin said. “I feel like that’s the drive that’s been keeping her going.”
