Demely Deli Grocery
“Allentown offers a good medium between city and a comfortable quiet lifestyle. New York is very fast paced, which is also the reason why my parents wanted to move out here. I remember getting here and the streets were so quiet if you would drive around late at like, 9 pm. On a weekday, it’d be deserted, it was actually scary. But now, there’s more things, there’s music, there’s people on the street.
Anyone who owns their own business, finding a family life balance between your business and your family is super difficult, especially when you have young kids, or bigger family. And in Allentown since the businesses are small, it’s necessary to have a one-on-one connection with your customers. So you kind of have to put an extra more effort into what you do.
When we moved here, it was very, very different. There wasn’t as much diversity as there is now. It was more quiet. There’s so much culture now, and that’s a really good thing to be surrounded by. So you get a little bit of everything here, you know, you can get like the nice community, kinda like make good relationships with other people, but also have a calm kind of lifestyle where you’re not like, go go go constantly.
Allentown is going to continue to grow. And it’s a nice thing. Just to see how much it has evolved over the years, I never would have thought that Allentown would look the way it does today.”
Interview by Kenny Konigsberg ’25
