Behind the counter with Bodega Comedy
Three friends created NYC’s most absurd comedy show. Here's how, and why it works so well
On Sam Boston’s second day as part-owner of the Atlantic Grill & Deli in Downtown Brooklyn, local comedian Christopher Isaacson came in and asked him if he would be in a video. Before Boston could figure out what was happening, Isaacson stretched his phone out in front of him and loudly declared, “I am out at the bodega, and I am soft as a pillow. No erection, no perverted thoughts, just enjoying life.” He then proceeded to take a box of Chips Ahoy from the wall and walk out, leaving Boston and a co-worker yelling behind him.
A few days later, Isaacson returned to tell Boston that the video had blown up: nearly a million views on TikTok, and over 200,000 likes on Instagram. For Isaacson, this instant virality told him he had something good on his hands. The bodega felt real. It felt like New York. Less than a month later, he and fellow comedian Vikrant Sunderlal got Boston to agree to host a pop-up comedy show from behind the counter.
Thus began the bi-weekly comedy show now known as Bodega Comedy. Since that first show in December 2023, Bodega Comedy has hosted a rotating lineup of local comedians (everyone from Anora’s Ivy Wolk to SNL vet Chloe Troast) at three different bodegas across the city. They consistently fill seats, cramming upwards of 40 people into bodegas to watch comedians of all kinds give their best 10 minutes from behind the counter. Along with the Atlantic Grill & Deli, Bodega Comedy has hosted shows at Chelsea Organic Convenience on West 14th Street, and recently brought the show to Codigo58bk in Bushwick.
“That first show was insane,” Boston tells me with a flash of his charming smile. “We couldn’t close the door. It was so packed, and that’s when we were all like, ‘All right, we have something going on.’”
Isaacson chimes in. “It felt so rewarding. It was soul-filling. Like, ‘Oh my gosh, here’s my local bodega, and here’s a line to get in that goes around the corner. It’s like the Apollo or something.”
One side of the menu handed out to audience members at the 3/28 show
“All bodega guys are comedians, in the way that all uncles are comedians,” Sunderlal tells me in his surfer drawl, laughing through his words. Originally from India, Sunderlal says as a kid he modeled his English off the turtles from Finding Nemo. I’m somewhat shocked to learn he’s a tenant’s rights lawyer by day, as his warm, goofy presence—complete with an oversized flannel, a ratty baseball cap, and a possibly stoned look in his eye—suggests otherwise. “Oh yeah,” he insists. “I’m a different guy in a suit.” Isaacson pipes in: “You don’t realize it because he talks to you like this,” referring to said Cali-boy inflection. “He turns it on. I’ve seen it happen.”
For Isaacson, Bodega Comedy offers him a much-needed community-focused outlet to pursue his comedy offline. After graduating from Skidmore in 2019, the DC native moved to Brooklyn and tried to grow his online presence — he currently has almost 15,000 Instagram followers. “I was doing a lot of internet sketch videos and making a lot of memes,” he says. I immediately think back to the pranks and skits that fill his social media. “I wasn’t super happy making memes all the time. It felt so empty. I really wanted to do something with my friends and my neighborhood.”
Isaacson met Sunderlal at a party after crossing paths in the NYC comedy circuit. Boston, who just so happened to co-own the bodega down the street from Isaacson’s apartment, had never met him until his fateful second-day ambush.
Isaacson and Sunderlal’s opening set, March 28, 2025
Isaacson and Sunderlal have a natural banter they’ve only sharpened through hosting the show. They both stand tall, but not without a slight slouch, like they’re perpetually holding a mic in front of their mouths. Isaacson appears in full Jesus-mode; his scraggly dirty blond hair lands at his shoulders, and his light blue cardigan feels slightly out of character. You don’t expect that thick of an East Coast accent to come out the mouth of someone who looks like they might be able to walk on water. He extolls the superiority of a bodega counter over a typical stage: “You feel like you can talk to anybody. I’ll hang out with Sam here all the time and I’ll talk shit with whoever is on the other side,” Isaacson says. “You can never get in trouble when you’re behind the counter.”
“They’re at your mercy!” Sunderlal interjects. “You have so much more agency.”
Bodega Comedy is setting up for tonight’s show at the Chelsea Organic Convenience on West 14th Street. Folding chairs get filed into six rows of five, a sheet of wood is placed over a set of milk crates behind the counter, and a three-piece band sets up in the corner.
Trumpet player Geraldo Marshall met Isaacson through his girlfriend. He came to a few shows before approaching Isaacson about adding live music. He’s been performing at Bodega Comedy for over six months now. He’s since brought in Floyd Ding on guitar, and most recently, Andrew Emanuel on flute. Marshall uses an electric drum machine to add backbeats and deepen their sound, which bounces off the bodega’s walls. “The first show I ever did, they had us right by the fryer. It was so hot,” Ding tells me. “But we did some shows at my neighborhood bodega, and it gave me so much cred.”
Marshall and Isaacson’s creative partnership came as organically as their friendship. “It’s fun working with friends. And comedy is similar to jazz,” Marshall tells me as he sets up his mixing board for the night. “They have to be able to vamp and improv if things go off book, and so do we.” Marshall has different sound effects logged into his Roland SP404 sampler. He interjects throughout the night with different audience reaction sounds (gasps, claps, your typical sitcom laugh tracks), sometimes even landing a better punchline than the comic behind the counter.
Marshall’s soundboard with a cheat sheet for his effects
As the crowd trickles in, Ding, Emanuel, and Marshall set the vibe with a swirling jazz-funk jam. The audience includes Bodega Comedy regulars, wayward tourists, a few first dates, and other small groups of friends. After scanning their $15 ticket, each audience member gets a “menu” that shares the full lineup, and after the first two comics, Boston passes out chopped cheeses—an NYC bodega specialty consisting of chopped ground beef, cheese, peppers, and onions.
A group of European girls living in the city for internships were intrigued by the show after seeing a video on Instagram. Leif Gilliam and Ashley Allen, first-time NYC visitors from Kentucky, decided to drop in as they were walking past. “We’re only here for a weekend, so we’ve been cramming a lot in,” Gilliam says. “And I mean, bodegas, comedy, chopped cheeses. That checks a bunch of boxes on our New York to-do list.”
The reverse side of the 3/28 brochure
The comedians gather backstage—aka, in the stock room—buzzing with pre-show anticipation. A photographer sets up a tripod near the entrance while a duo with a VR camera prep to film in 360º from next to the counter. All the while, Boston, Isaacson, and Sunderlal stand out front next to red velvet ropes, greeting audience members as they come in.
“What me and Christopher are really tickled by is the people who are outside,” Sunderlal says. “There's always people stopping, looking in, people looking weird. People trying to come in, take pictures.” As he says that, a wandering man slows down in front of the bodega’s floor-to-ceiling windows, and takes a moment to stare. Soon after, a meek older woman in a pink beanie pauses at the door. Isaacson invites her in, free of charge, pulling out a cushy office chair for her to sit in (“Best seat in the house!”). Not long after Isaacson and Sunderlal’s opening bit—about watching porn in a VR headset—I look over my shoulder and see that she’s snuck out the door. I guess it’s not for everyone.
Bechy, an Eastern European who works the cashier at this location, watches the show while resting against the side wall, taking it all in. “This is my first comedy show,” he leans in to tell me. “It’s so fun and so, so weird. Like, this is where I work!”
Tonight’s lineup features comedians from all edges of the comedy spectrum: Ghosh brings a music-meets-standup flair and drop-in Tommy Bayer leads with his Please Don’t Destroy-meets-John Mulaney charm. Ethan Mead jokes about Bay Ridge (“It’s where cops lay their eggs”). Bayer laments high rent prices (“Please, can I live in Crown Heights with four other grown men?” he wails desperately to an eruption of laughter). Troast, as acting coach Gail Spinelli (who happens to live above this very bodega), ponders the existence of man (“We don’t know”), instructs the crowd to moan if they have trauma, and discusses the ethics of a cinematographer orgasming during a sex scene.
The counter
Bodega Comedy doesn’t necessarily have a “house style,” but they find that the audience “prefers an alt comedian who knows how to reach a mainstream audience,” as Isaacson concisely put it.
“They have to have already done comedy a little bit,” Sunderlal says. “The room is so crazy and there’s so much in it that could distract you. If you don’t have some understanding of your comedic sensibilities and your voice, you can kind of get lost.”
Social media plays a part in getting the word out, but it’s important that the comedians at Bodega Comedy don’t exclusively exist online. “Online, people can just scroll past you if they don’t like what you’re doing,” says Ghosh. “But when you’re on stage, you have to know how to get over the humps.”
And while a bodega counter might be more distracting, it also gives you a whole new lens to project your own comedy from. “A room like this makes you get better a lot faster,” says Sunderlal. “You can’t just be like, ‘Oh shit, there’s Celestial Tea here.’ You gotta go one step further.”
Some comedians choose to acknowledge right away that they are all currently standing in a bodega. Ghosh brings up a mixing board and a soprano saxophone and makes a song about chopped cheeses in real time, crowd work and all. Bayer kicks off his set with a hyper sarcastic “Woahhhhh. I’m in a bodega right now!” But others approach it like any other gig, telling long-winded stories about drunk driving a Citi bike or quippy routines about Chappell Roan and the Department of Education (or its demise).
Each comic has their time behind the counter, with a Bodega Comedy banner taped to the wall behind them. A rainbow of lighters fill the back counter, bookended with even more cases of Zyns. The glass cases in front of the counter are packed with everything from Advil to rolling papers to poppers. Isaacson’s comparison of the bodega to a run down Apple Store isn’t far off given the blindingly metallic walls and the LED lights outlining the counter’s glass cases. “Yeah we know, this is more of a smoke shop than a bodega,” Isaacson jokes during his opening set.
I catch Ghosh in the back room after his set. It’s his second time behind the counter, and I ask him how it compares to a typical comedy club. “I just love the absurdity of it,” he says. “The counter is what makes the whole thing different. And I love leaning into that part of it. There’s so much going on.”
After the last act, Isaacson, Sunderlal, and Boston take the stage to say their thank yous and well wishes and wrap up the night. “We’re truly just here to have a good time. We’re here to laugh,” Isaacson tells the crowd. “Whatever’s bothering you in life, we hope you left it at the door.” Before letting everyone go, Sunderlal makes sure to invite the entire crowd to meet them at a bar across the street for post-show drinks.
As the crowd disperses and the comedians pack their things, all while still being soundtracked by Geraldo and his band, Isaacson and Sunderlal (slightly counterintuitively) step outside for a cigarette and some fresh air. They go over the show, already bouncing around ideas for what can be reworked for their first show in Bushwick. I ask Isaacson to try to sum up what he thinks makes this show work. “People don’t come for Christopher, or Vikrant, or Sam. People come for the bodega. They stay if they bond with us, and we have a good time. We try to treat everybody like family.”
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