After running a one-hour photo store in Queens and a gift shop in the Bronx, neither of which fared well, Mr. Yao eventually made his way to the military surplus store.
It was 2007, and by then Mr. Yao was married with three children, living in a two-bedroom co-op in Bayside, Queens. But he was spending the weeknights with his ailing father who lived in a public housing development on the Lower East Side. Mr. Yao’s mother had died years earlier, and his father required an oxygen machine for the fluid in his lungs. Mr. Yao ran his errands, bathed him, slept beside him, listened to him gasp for air.
At the time, Mr. Yao was working as an umbrella salesman, and one of his clients was Zygmunt Majcher, the owner of Army Navy Bags. Mr. Majcher, a Polish immigrant who told Mr. Yao the place had been in his family since 1959, offered him a job.
With Mr. Yao at the helm, sales shot up. Rothco, the store’s wholesale supplier, thanked Mr. Yao with a cheesecake and a Smith Wesson watch.
A handful of years later, Mr. Majcher was ready to retire.
Mr. Yao signed the lease.
‘He really missed his store’
The moment Mr. Yao took over, it felt as if Amazon and online shopping exploded. A store without a website was no match.
Still, he kept his prices low, believing they drew return customers. The cost of goods, utilities, property taxes, insurance and merchant fees meant sometimes his cut at the end of the month was a few hundred dollars.
Thankfully, his wife, Shirley, thrived on finding inexpensive ways to nurture the family. She kept a sharp eye on the electric bill, bought dented cans of food and overripe produce at a discount, trimmed Mr. Yao’s hair herself and sent him to work with a plastic container of lime chicken broth, which he sipped to keep hunger at bay.

Source: New York Times

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