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Smiley's Facts (a must read) Updated September 5, 2007 Interesting Facts About Smiley's and Area Around Smiley's I purchased Smiley's in October 1987...At that time there was a Karate place (where all the beer is now), Smiley's And Dover House Of Pizza. There was a fire in September 1987 that burned the end of the building down (where the Tattoo shop is now). There was a used clothing store and a Taxi Cab company located there. In the building that burned in 1999 there was a furniture store. Dover House Of Pizza NEVER reopened. In 1988 it became Scarletti's Pizza & Subs...they lasted about 8 months. After this it became (I think) Dover House of Pizza. The reason I think this is because the now Dover House Of Pizza sent me a letter through their lawyer asking me to take down the sign when I opened the deli side. I didn't care because I didn't want the name anyway. They didn't fare too well in this venture so they went on to being a donut shop. That lasted about 6 months and in January of 1990 I decided to take the wall down and make the best food in Dover. We also decided to deliver everything from the store with your order. We actually were the first in NH to attempt this. The Karate school moved to South Dover and I took over that half of the building also in 1991 or 92...... The furniture store went out of business in 1988 or 1989. After this it became Movieland....Remember, the people that lived in the building? Would like to hear from them sometime...I would like to know what the kids are up to. They were there for about 1 year (maybe more) and they sold it to David who in turn moved it to where the tattoo shop is now. Needless to say...Movieland doesn't exist any longer. After movieland moved out Dover Cards and Comics took over. Steve did a great job! There was also a used clothing store in the lower half. They went out of business and a Wedding shop went in there. Then.....poof, it was all gone in a fire....The building was torn down and replaced by the Spa (Which by the way is the best spa in Dover!!!) Meanwhile the shop next door was rebuilt. Now don't quote me but I think the following businesses have been in there...A Chinese Shop that sold baseball cards, a locksmith shop, Movieland and now the tattoo shop. Not much to say about this unit except thank god for Steve & Mary...I spent many lonely nights working alone because no one could keep a business alive here.... Now let's talk about the building next door....that has been a real estate office, an insurance office, a t-shirt shop, an antique shop and now a smoke shop. The building outback has only been Klinker's, Who's on First, and Main Street Something...underneath was the grandest bar of them all...the Leb club....miss the customers from there but I don't miss the problems...remember the death off the bridge? Not their fault but exciting times...or the time we found the man in the snow bank not breathing....the 2 men that got in a fight and pushed each other into the river then became best friends again.... Now the neighborhood has changed for the better. Around the corner we used to have the "Social" Club where the eye doctor is...across the street used to be the old smokestack where the young kids would sometimes go and party...the mill had Clairistat which were the first friends I ever met...I miss them too....Now it is a thriving office building.... Some funny and not so funny stories from the life of Smiley's...We have had a streaker with a camera behind him, we had the UNH girl Ruby team who entertained us so many times, I had the woman who cried rape and ended up beating me up in the back of an ambulance...I had some young thugs who tried to beat up a muscle guy from the Old Gold's Gym and I ended up breaking it up, We had the kid who was 15 that drove into our building only to change places with the legal driver (the cops don't know this) the man that used to come in for food and pass out at a table...the under age kids that tried to get me to buy them beer only to lose their money (I put it to good use), the man that was caught shoplifting and ended up getting pepper sprayed on him after he broke the police car window, the person who broke in and stole my cigarettes (however I am convinced it was an employee who will remain nameless but after 10 years I still would like to meet her somewhere) I am also convinced that she stole a money bag....hope she can live with herself...The employee who tried to steal $1000.00 only to be conned by me and she confessed and I got the money back....The person who broke in and ruined Smiley's trust in people....That case is still open and before I die I would like this person to be caught...IMO they may be a boater....Ahh so many stories which you will be able to read them all when I release my new book "Smiley's..The Life Of A Convenience Store"...... Some funny and not so funny Employee Stories: I have seen so many different people come through these doors...I have employed probably just about every type of person that you could imagine. The saddest part of this history is that some of them that we had to "let" go were the best "people" in the World...just a few French Fries short of a Happy Meal...Where do I begin? There is one employee who still remains with Smiley's today...it started 14 years ago...he worked, got fired..worked again...quit...worked again..got fired and finally came back for good....I guess it's called "growing up". We had one that tried to "exchange" Beer for Tanning...needless to say, he was caught...We had a driver go all the way to Rochester for a delivery and he had WORKED for us for awhile....then there is the one that tried to put a metal tin in the microwave..or the one who tried to heat something up in styrofoam in the OVEN...or better yet how about the one who watered our PLASTIC plants!! Here at Smiley's we have a way to make the "new" employees feel at home. One of the ways is when a "newbie" asks where something is we send them to the cooler and tell them that it's next to the bucket of "steam". We usually get 1 out of 3 to fall for it. ( I guess that doesn't say much about some of our employees uh?) Our favorite trick it to ask someone to go get the "dough repair kit". Usually we tell them that it's in the cooler next to something. After a few minutes they always come back and tell us that they can't find it. Twice we have sent someone to another Pizza place to ask them if we can borrow their "dough repair kit"...I am really surprised that they didn't quit after that. I guess one place was laughing so hard that they couldn't tell him that a "dough repair kit" doesn't exist. Then we have the disappearing employees...The one who took the garbage out, never to be seen again (we are still looking for him after 7 years!!), The other one who took the garbage out only to be found 2 hours later in the bar outback..drunk!! Or the Driver who never showed up for work, never called, never came in to pick up his last paycheck...but we know he isn't dead....he was found... Then we have the employee who quit because we "yelled" at him for changing his tire on our time..he wasn't a driver..oh and another co-worker who was friends with him left also...We have the crazy employee who really really needed medication!!!..actually I think there was more than one of these...We had the employee who said "I just want to pick up a knife and hurt someone..." needless to say..he isn't employed here any longer...we then of course have the employees who always wanted to make a scene about leaving....oh how we love them....the employee that quit because the "kids" at night whip creamed their car...and how we love the "employees" that walk out in the middle of a shift leaving us with our mouths hanging open because "they" acted like such a jerk...some of these we even hired back (you know forgiving and all the happy bulls**t) only to have them do it again!! We have the employees who have the "BEST" stories about why they didn't show up for work.."Someone" put DRUGS in my drink...UPDATE: This employee (the one about drugs in his drink) came in and wanted a part-time job. Said he was clean and sober and had grown up so we being the people we are hired him back. You would think that after 7 years things would change uh? Well he worked ONE night and never showed again, never called, nothing nata...MIA again. the one who said his grandfather died (3 times).....the one who said their mother, sister or brother got in a car accident but didn't realize that we would call the hospital or better yet..the person who was in the accident walked into the store a couple of hours after they called...The one who said he was sick but yet was seen that night in the bar out back... drinking....the last one that didn't show up came in 3 weeks later and told us that he was arrested for unpaid fines and placed in jail...yeah right.... Last but not least let's talk about the ones that were "Looking For Love" at Smiley's...We sure did have our share of them...you know the ones that wore mini skirts and high heels to work in the deli...the ones who leaned over the counter and surely were flirting with the customers....and then we have the ones that put "notes" in your bags asking you out....and the best of them are the ones who always made it seem like "every" customer "wanted" them..only for me to find out the hard way...that it wasn't true...they (the employee) just wanted to make a scene or make a boyfriend jealous...I stick up for my employees so when I hear of these stories I always go to the source...which at times has saved me embarrassing moments....Needless to say..these people do not last long here...We do have some "jerks" for customers but 99.9% of them are very nice and have been our friends for many years... UPDATE: Now I have seen everything...as many of you know, if you attempt to purchase alcohol with a fake ID or your underage we take the ID from you. (We pay our cashiers $75 for each ID taken.) 2 weeks ago I had a "kid" that had his ID taken from him a couple of days earlier...guess what? He wanted it back!! Even after I pulled out 4 other ones that looked just like his, he was still trying to convince me that it was a "real" ID...Now I was born at night but I wasn't born last night...When I wouldn't give it back to him, he said "well you didn't have to be so rude about it!!" Go figger... One night I happened to be in the store when I saw this woman who I have been chasing for over 6 months about a couple of bad checks. (worth over $60.00) She got mad at ME because I embarrassed her!!! I told her that I wouldn't have embarrassed her if she had responded to my letters. She said she never received any letters and when I said I had proof, she said "Well people have been going through my mail!!" She kept telling me how rude I was and I had to REMIND her that she is the who broke the law not me.... The disappearing Employee struck again...this time they asked if they could take a break to get a little something to eat...(they had only been working for a couple of hours) Tracey said "sure" and about an hour later she realized that he hadn't returned...we sent someone to his home and he was taking a nap....he never showed up for his next shift...this was sad because his co-workers really liked him (I kept telling them not to trust him)...a few days later the chicken shit was walking on the other side of the street looking over laughing and waving...I guess just another lesson learned.... Today as I was updating the CONTEST I was reminded of some pretty funny "animal" stories. Smiley's certainly doesn't live near a forest however I guess the word of Smiley's GREAT food and GREAT customer service has even gotten to our furry friends. One day last week as Angel was clocking in, a Squirrel, yes a Squirrel jumped on her shoulder! You could hear her scream for miles around. Well that all started the obstacle course race of a lifetime. The contestants were John, Angel, Bryan and an unnamed furry Squirrel! They "tried" to chase him out the door but the Squirrel was so much faster and smarter than they were. He hid under the beer on the lower floor. He ran behind coolers. He tried to escape out the back door but didn't know how to open it. At one point they couldn't even find him. Customer's were helping by letting the Smiley Race team know which way he went. They found him hiding around the ATM and that started the race all over again. They thought that they had lost him again but Mike one of our regular customers came in and said he couldn't buy any beer because he could have sworn that he just saw a Squirrel run out of our door and haul ass up the parking lot. Come to find out, this Squirrel had made a home for himself at Smiley's for a whole day. John said he could've sworn that he saw a squirrel the day before but he didn't dare tell anyone because he thought that they would think he was crazy! After the race was over, Bryan went to take a delivery and guess what? That darn Squirrel was sitting on the steps to our back dock. He was probably trying to figure out how he could get back into his "new" home...Bryan the meany, chased him off again and we haven't seen him since....let's hope he isn't telling all of his friends how GREAT Smiley's is!! Now because of this we have remembered our other furry friend stories... Mr. Possum. A few years back Joe and Bryan "thought" they had seen a possum but nobody believed them. That is until a customer came up and said that he "thought" he had seen a Possum on the lower floor. Once again a race began...Joe and Bryan tried chasing this thing around but couldn't get him to the front door. They decided to "throw" a box on him but he just started running with the box on top of him. Somehow he got the box off and ran behind the soda coolers. Bryan and Joe pulled coolers out, banged on the coolers but Mr Possum wasn't buying into it. They finally got him out from behind the coolers but he ran under the Beer displays on the lower floor. Finally Joe and Bryan knew they were no match for Mr. Possum....so they called the Fire Department...the fireman came to their rescue and removed the Mr Possum out of Smiley's. Without admitting defeat Joe and Bryan went on to say how "big" Mr. Possum was and how "big" Mr. Possum's teeth were....Mr. Possum 1 The Smiley Duo 0 the Fire Department 10! Mr. Field Mouse. I was in on this one....It was evening and one of our OLD employees (I won't say his name only because he would be highly embarrassed) and I were stocking. All of a sudden the employee jumped on top of the ice cream cooler yelling..scared the crap out of me. He told me he had just seen a HUGE mouse! Now bear in mind this "guy" weighed probably 250 and was 5'9" tall. I am from the country so I am not afraid of much but man I was afraid of this thing. Especially since it made the "big" guy jump on the ice cream cooler. Being the cool person I am I asked him where it was. He pointed and I said you have got to be kidding me! I took my dustpan and broom and swept this HUGE mouse into my dustpan. You could hardly tell the mouse from the dustball I had in the dustpan! It was a BABY field mouse! This thing was no bigger than my pinkie..I swear...I swear I think the mouse was laughing at him. Let me tell you he as long as he worked here he NEVER lived that one down! One day I was in my office and I could've sworn that I heard...Ducks! Thinking I was crazy I looked outside and there sat 2 ducks. What did I do? I fed them bread of course! Big Mistake! Now they had a food source. Now these Ducks were Boyfriend and Girlfriend and very very lost. I called everyone that I could think of because Ducks do not belong in Smiley's parking lot. Especially since they wouldn't move for anyone! Nope a car would drive in and Mr. and Mrs. Duck just sat there. First of all I think all of the people I called thought I was crazy and 2nd. of all not one of them would help me. Well this went on for a couple of days. The ducks would arrive, I would feed them bread, they would eat and then they disappeared. Well after a few days of this they decided that they wanted more bread! They would finish the bread I gave them and come into the store. They had a routine about this too. They would walk in the Store, quacking, go over to the deli seating area, come back and leave. When they saw me they would come over to me with those "sad" eyes so of course I gave them more bread. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen. By this time I had exhausted all of my searches for someone to help these poor ducks. This went on for about a week or maybe a week and 1/2. Then they never showed up again. I think out of all of my furry friend stories this is my favorite! The Birds. One morning I, Bryan and Asher opened the store. There was a Bird flying around inside. Asher and Bryan went to catch the bird while I continued setting up for the day. Well this little bird just did not want to be caught. The 2 of them were running from 1 point to the other. I heard one of them say why are you up there the bird is down here and the other saying how could it be down there? I just saw it up here. This went on for several minutes. I then started to help them out. Well I couldn't figure out how they saw the bird on the bottom floor when I had just seen it in the deli. I thought that bird is a fast little sucker. Finally one of them said I have it trapped down here and then I saw it in the deli I realized that we weren't chasing just one bird but two birds. They were twins! This had gone on for about 15 minutes...both birds were caught and set free...actually I wanted to strangle them... Last Bird story I swear. It's about a lonely pigeon that entertained us during lunch..only to be taken out in a box each day....I don't understand why people don't like pigeons. They seem to be rather nice birds with a laid back attitude. Well at least the one that visited us everyday for a week until we had to let it loose far far away...We named the bird "Fred". Fred would appear everyday at lunch. He would walk in the store front door and promptly head to the deli seating area. Here he would sit down and wait. He would gaze at each customer hoping just hoping that one of them would feel sorry for him...We caught a couple trying to feed him but we stopped them. All food had to be taken outdoors for Fred. Each day Fred visited we would let him sit for a couple of minutes, get a box, make him go into the box and take him back outside. Sometimes he stayed there and sometimes we would have to do this several times a lunch hour. It got to the point that all we had to do was sit the box down and Fred would go into it waiting for his ride outside. This lasted for a week until finally I was paying the employees more to take Fred outside than I was to have them making food for the customers. We finally took Fred down by the river and let him go. Maybe he found another food joint to go to, maybe he was pissed at us..I am not sure but we never saw Fred again. Okay I lied. But I swear this is the LAST bird story...It was a Sunday morning when this happened. There was a seagull in our parking lot with a broken wing. When I say this wing was broken I mean it was really broken. One of our employees felt so bad about this bird. She called every number she could think of. She called Dover PD and they were of no help. I mean what could they have done? Arrested it? Taken a report to see if it wanted to press charges? Somewhere along the way she discovered a phone number for a place in York Maine. She called this number and they told her that if she could get the Seagull to them, they would help it. (I should have had this number for all of our other visitors.) This shocked all of us because this employee was kinda a bully. They didn't seem to care about anything or anyone.... Now I am not a mean person but a Seagull? Anyway we told her to put the seagull in a box until she could get it to Maine. (We were kinda kidding about that part.) So here she is trying to get that Seagull into a box. She called me back and said that the Seagull wouldn't go into the box. (Now I felt bad because I was kidding with her about the box thing.) I told her that the bird couldn't fly away so it would probably be there when she got off work. I told her to give it some food and wait. After she got off work, she managed to get that damn bird in a box. She made her boyfriend hold the bird and the box all the way to York Maine. I guess that was a feat in itself. The place in Maine was so excited that they were able to save a seagull! They sent the employee $10 for gas and time! I never knew there was an organization that protected Seagulls! Well now I have a whole new attitude about Seagulls. When we are out and we are eating we always save a little for the Seagulls. I mean I really hate to see them eating out of dumpsters! We also take the time to feed the one that looks like the nicest one or the one that always loses out when they are being fed out of a car window. Long live the Seagull!!! NOTE: Seagulls are NOT the bird you want to make angry! I mean have you ever seen their BOMBS? Long live the Seagull!!!
Can you stand another animal story? Well too bad because I am going to write it anyway. We have some "little" furry animals living around the store. The woodchucks aka groundhogs have set up home here at Smiley's. They have an entire highway system up on the hill. Man they have the life! Huge caves, they can go anywhere up there and not be seen....anyway there must be some females among them because we have little itty bitty babies running around in the back parking lot. OHHH all of the employees think they are so "cute"..in fact one of them "held" the baby and petted it! Well when I found out the entire situation I started to take action. You see these little critters are cute when its warm out but when it gets cold they will find a warm place to go. Guess where that will be? Yep inside Smiley's! These little critters have very sharp teeth and can chew through anything! The addition on Smiley's is made out of wood...Well as many of you know I am from Upstate NY...you know the "backwoods?" Well when I was little I remember my dad stopping at the side of the road and yes "shooting" the woodchucks in the cows pastures. You see woodchuck holes are not good...cows or horses will step in them and break a leg. When one of these animals "breaks" a leg they have to be "put" down. Nope I was taught that woodchucks are "NOT" the cute little furry animal that everyone thinks! Besides, on Feb 2 they NEVER let winter be over!!!! My first action was going to be.....to bomb their homes. Well if you could've heard Angel and how upset she became I decided against that. My second plan is to set "have a heart" traps and remove them. I then found out I have to take these little critters AT least 10 miles away from here! Like I have the time to do that! Well because there are some many animal activist out there I have decided to do the politically correct thing....I will trap them in the "have a heart" trap and remove them to......Angels house!!!!! If anyone has any other ideas please let me know....I surely would appreciate it!
These are the only stories that we can remember so far...there will be more.....so stay tuned.... If you have any stories to add please submit them to me through my e-mail at stories@smileysdover.com or drop them off at the store...It's important to maintain the history of Dover and Smiley's World..... |
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