Third Avenue Foods

What is this a front for? Once I went to get a loaf of bread and it took me 10 minutes of careful searching before I discovered two cheap ass bags of bread tucked in the back of a bottom shelf, looking like the last sad puppies left at the pound. The produce is in a perpetual state of wilting. There’s a limited variety of marked up pasta and canned goods. They claim to rent videos but I haven’t been able to locate any. Outside of an emergency onion or last minute bag of shredded cheese, Third Avenue Foods offers a little less than what you’d expect from an urban bodega.

This is one of those places you walk by, and if you’ve never been in the area, you shiver a little bit, because it doesn’t look completely on the up and up. Ignore that. Walk inside. In the city, corner markets are a godsend and a necessity to get what you need, but these guys have everything from Top the Tater to scrub brushes. If you’re a local to Stevens Square, and have been coming for a bit, and there’s something you wish they had but they don’t — they’ll start stocking it. Fat free Coffee Mate? Done. Sweet.
Talk to the guys up front. They’re incredibly friendly, especially for some of the fascinating characters that show up in the later hours. I couldn’t ask for anything better than this place.

Make a little birdhouse in your soul and pay a visit to Third Avenue Foods. Corner markets abound in some areas of the city, but this is the first I’ve met that stocks items like baking soda and corn starch. Exactly the kind of things people might want to buy at a corner market. Bravo!
They also have several aisles of other food stuffs, some sad looking produce (but they do have garlic and lemons — useful!), DVDs for rental, and decent falafel at the little deli.
It’s clean and neat and feels safe for Stevens Square. Open late!