If there is one thing that is a common sighting in Detroit, it is the ‘party store’. They are typically peppered into the landscape along clusters of abandoned commercial areas on larger roads. They are open from 7am until 2am, save a few exceptions; January 1st: open until 4am, December 24th: closed at midnight and Sundays they do not open until 12pm, as a consideration for church goers. You can often cash checks, buy liquor, cigarettes, lotto tickets and a variety of pops and junk food. They use an elaborate sign campaign to advertise their products, which I liked because many of them date back to the fifties.
The French Canadian version of a ‘party store’ (a term mostly used in the mid-west of the U.S.) is called a Depanneur. The translation of this word to English is “a repairer of breakdowns” or “troubleshoot.”