mom-and-pop

alternative mom and pop · alternative Mom and Pop · alternative Mom-and-Pop

1. CanadaUSnot comparabletypically of a businessSmall and unsophisticated, typically because operated by a couple or a family.

   Mom-and-pop diners are disappearing from American streets and being replaced by bland corporate giants.

   Synonyms: ma-and-pa

plural mom-and-pops · alternative mom and pop · alternative Mom and Pop · alternative Mom-and-Pop

1. alternativeAlternative form of mom and pop (“a mom-and-pop operation”).

1. not comparableAlternative letter-case form of mom-and-pop.

   That’s how we discovered New England: back roads, Mom-and-Pop diners, historic markers and all.

   1972 August 24, Virginia Payette, “Little Tourist Homes Have Great Appeal”, in The Lincoln Star, 70th year, number 281, Lincoln, Neb., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4, column 1

   2 more examples

   At first glance, Lincoln seemed caught in a time warp—a place of 1930s tourist cabins and Mom-and-Pop diners where one could get honest-to-goodness milk shakes, made in a blender with real ice cream.

   2003, Alston Chase, “Ah, Wilderness!”, in Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, part 1 (The Unabomber: Crimes and Questions), pages 102–103

   But put a Target, JC Penney or Wal-Mart in an existing downtown, and you draw even more traffic to the merchants occupying the adjacent streets. Then, instead of killing Mom-and-Pop stores, they’d present the Mom and Pops with enlarged opportunities for profit.

   2008 June 14, “Our Opinion: Dreaming of Wal-Mart”, in The Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn Heights–Downtown edition, volume 31, number 24, Brooklyn, N.Y., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 14, column 3

plural Mom-and-Pops

1. Alternative letter-case form of mom and pop.

   Wall Street was making a market in footwear but Main St. was seeing stores close. First, the Mom-and-Pops. They said the overhead was eating them up.

   2015, Katha Sheehan, “The Saga of the Shoe”, in Members of Lamplighters Writers Group, Alligator Tales, Homestead, Fla.: Sweetwater Publishers, →ISBN, page 208

   2 more examples

   The new retail marketing companies, being highly profit-oriented, will be interested in the “cream” of the marketplace. The “cream” will not be the Mom-and-Pops and corner service stations of rural Chesterfield County.

   1976, Charles R. Jackson, quotee, “The Southern Caucus Testifies”, in Patricia Maloney Markun, editor, compiled by Michael E. Canes, Witnesses for Oil: The Case Against Dismemberment: Congressional Testimony and Papers, Washington, D.C.: American Petroleum Institute, →ISBN, “Vertical Divestiture” section, page 164

   Eventually, it actually happened as the neighborhood improved, rents got jacked-up and the Mom-and-Pops and importer/exporters gave way to restaurants, bars and coffee shops. The “hood” had now become hip.

   2014, Michael Domino, “A Gypsy Night”, in Park Avenue to Park Bench: Short Stories, New York, N.Y.: Conscience Circle, →ISBN, page 44