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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).