This tiny Kendall grocery was the heart of Miami’s Indian community; now it’s closing
When he opened his tiny Indian store almost 40 years ago in a West Kendall strip mall, Suresh Sheth knew he wanted to do more than sell groceries.
He wanted to offer strangers hope — and a sense of home in Miami.
So while they loaded up on lentils and rice, curries and chutneys, impossible-to-find Indian spices and vegetables at the Indo American Store, immigrants from India and Pakistan and Bangladesh could fulfill other needs, too. They could get help finding a place to live or a lead on a job. They could receive friendly guidance on how to negotiate complicated Miami bureaucracy. They could rent VHS tapes of Bollywood movies that reminded them of home, the ones they couldn’t find at Blockbuster. Most importantly, they could experience a strong sense of community at a time before cellphones and the Internet
made the world feel smaller.
Some got free groceries until they could get on their feet. To others, Sheth gave money with no expectation of being paid back. “Just do the same for someone else,” he would tell them.
Now, Sheth — for decades a grocer and philosopher, herbal
specialist and health advocate, therapist and matchmaker for Miami’s Indian community — is closing his store at 13760 SW 84th St., another victim of rising rent and other expenses in South Florida.
“The rent goes up, that’s the main problem,” says Sheth, 78, adding that his rent
increased from $3,100 a month to $5,000. “The light bill goes up. We have to have insurance. Where can you get that kind of money? Everything costs money.”
Losing a Kendall institution that survived Hurricane Andrew and the Covid pandemic is