Bonk's Delicatessen, Vic and Kai's, (665 Oliver).htm

665 Oliver Street, photo (Google 2021).jpg

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Title

Bonk's Delicatessen, Vic and Kai's, (665 Oliver).htm

Description

From: https://ampoleagle.com/vic-kais-ice-cream-bring-back-sweet-memories-p7119-202.htm
Vic and Kai are short for Victoria and Casimir Witkowski, two of North Tonawanda's more prominent Polish proprietors. But this little shop on Oliver Street has a longer history than just the couple.

The history of Vic & Kai Delicatessen actually begins with Vic's father, Joseph Pawlicki some 15 years before Vic and Kai married. Born in Poland, Joseph arrived in North Tonawanda in 1914. By 1925, Pawlicki saved enough money to open his own dry goods store at 665 Oliver St. in North Tonawanda's Polonia district. Billed as "Everything for Everyone," Joseph sold crockery, enamelware, pictures and picture frames, clothes lines, rakes, baskets, pails, brooms, mops, nails, cake, soap, glue and just about anything else you could want. Joe enjoyed his place in the community; he knew all of his customers and what they needed. In 1938, Joseph's daughter Victoria married Casimir at Our Lady of Czestochowa and the couple moved in above the store. Seeing an opportunity to retire, Joseph arranged for Vic and Kai to run their own store out of 665.

In 1940, Vic & Kai Delicatessen opened for business. Like all good delicatessens, Vic & Kai's could meet all convenient store needs. You could pick up a pack of cigarettes, a bag of penny candies, lunch meats, a six pack, and if you had 75 cents, a half gallon of store made ice cream. The deli thrived through the 1940s and into the 1950s. The couple welcomed their first son James soon after starting the deli with their daughter Linda following a few years later.

The business was good for the young family, but the lead up to the recession of 1953 hit the mom and pop shop hard. In a September 1952 interview with the Tonawanda Evening News, Kia was asked if he was better off today than two years earlier, his reply, "No, we do not know what is going to happen day-to-day. Prices are sky-high and money is spent by the government foolishly."

With the difficulties in the economy and their passion for the business dwindling, Vic and Kai began putting out feelers to sell their business in mid-1953. With no acceptable offers, the couple kept grinding a profit out of the deli. For four years the family worked the deli but by 1957 they had had enough.

A deal was struck with John and Joseph Bonk and on July 1, 1957, Vic and Kai officially handed over the keys of 665 Oliver to the Bonks and the store would be eventually rechristened Bonk's Delicatessen.
The Bonks would serve Oliver Street for the next 28 years closing in 1985.

In the summer of 1958, Victoria and Casimir took their money and took over a business in a growing section of North Tonawanda, Payne Avenue. For the next 20 years they would run Avenue Liquor in the Payne Avenue Plaza.

Citation

“Bonk's Delicatessen, Vic and Kai's, (665 Oliver).htm,” North Tonawanda History, accessed March 29, 2024, https://nthistory.com/items/show/2940.