Store clerk Nur Hossain: Business has been slow so far. Newly reopened, at 704 Dixwell Ave. A Newhallville corner store is now back open — roughly seven months after the city’s Building Department shuttered the property for having improper wiring and a structurally unsafe first floor. That store, Dix Deli, is located on the ground floor of a two-story, mixed-use building at 704 Dixwell Ave. at the corner of Bassett Street. The store reopened last week, according to store manager Babu Khan and store clerk Nur Hossain. “We’re happy” to finally be back open, Khan said. He said the past half-year has been difficult for him, given that Dix Deli is the only store he manages. “I took out a loan on my home,” he said. Khan and Hossain said that business has been slow since the store reopened. The store is “a little short-handed” right now, Khan added. Asked if anything has changed about the store since it fire closet, Khan said, “We’re gonna bring lottery back.” He and Hossain said the store is open seven days a week, roughly 12 hours a day. While Khan manages the property, the 704 Dixwell Ave. building is owned by a man named Mounir Benkhedda. Khan said that the store completed all of the structural and safety repairs ordered by the city. Last September, the city’s Building Department closed 704 Dixwell Ave. — including Dix Deli — because of building code violations related to “improper wiring” and structural problems with the flooring on the first floor. The city’s building permit database includes a letter dated Oct. 17, 2025, that was authored by a professional engineer named James E. Quill of the firm Atlantic Consulting Engineering, LLC. Quill wrote that he inspected the property on Oct. 14, 2025, in an attempt “to develop a safe plan to get the variety store open since it was closed down due to structural issues primarily as a result of fire damage.” (A fire at the Dix Deli property in April 2023 displaced seven residents — including three adults and four children.) Quill wrote that the goal of his inspection was “to make the support for the store safe and repair the structural components of the upper two floors of apartments so that the store could operate, while leaving the apartments uninhabitable until the owner of the property conducts the proper repairs.” Quill wrote that his inspection revealed that the first-floor flooring needed to be repaired “with new plywood, joists and rim board in the basement.” He called for the store to replace a support beam and posts on the southern wall, to replace a broken joist and associated flooring in the southern area, to replace flooring by the northern wall “that was compromised by the electrical fire,” and to rewire “as needed for the store area only.” While the upper two floors will remain uninhabited, Quill continued, the following repairs will make the building “structurally sound”: replace the western portion of the roof, replace “all charred members on both floors,” close off the stairway to remove access “until a proper restoration is conducted,” remove all BX wiring, and secure any windows. In a separate “authorization letter,” dated Nov. 25, 2025, Benkhedda authorized Khan to undertake the needed repairs. Benkhedda authorized “general repairs,” “structural repair” as needed, “routine maintenance,” “cosmetic improvements,” and other renovation work. Then, on Feb. 5, 2026, city Building Official Robert Dillon issued a certificate of approval for a host of first-floor-only rehab work at 704 Dixwell Ave. That work included the replacement of the “main support located in the left side of the property” and the replacement of one section of the main support located at the center-back area of the property, among other repairs. On Monday, a few customers trickled in and out of Dix Deli at around 11 a.m. One, a man named Randy Weis, walked in with his dog Raven on a leash. Weis picked up a cup of cherry-flavored ice cream before heading back home to his apartment in Newhallville. He welcomed Dix Deli’s return, saying that for the past several months he’s had to walk further up Dixwell to pick up food he would normally buy there. Another man, named Henry, walked into Dix Deli Monday morning to make change so that he could pay bus fare for his trip to therapy. A stop for the 238 bus is located right outside Dix Deli at the corner of Dixwell and Bassett. Rochelle Phillips also waited for the 238 bus on Monday. She said that she runs her own home health aide business, and just finished a busy weekend full of work. She said she was going to take the bus to the mall now that she’s finally finished her shift. Phillips said she sometimes goes into Dix Deli to buy snacks. She said she’s OK with the store reopening, so long as they keep the “riffraff” from congregating outside. She said the corner has been pretty quiet, in a good way, in the week since Dix Deli reopened. Inside Dix Deli. Weis with his dog Raven. 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