MENDOTA, Calif. — Westside Grocery, serving this self-described Cantaloupe Center of the World since the 1940s, removed its gasoline pumps around 1980, the result of increased regulation. Fresh steaks and pork chops went by the wayside in the 1990s: too few could afford them.

Fresh milk was the next casualty. No one ever seemed to hurt for money for beer, but Westside Grocery eventually stopped selling that, too. “Too many alcoholics stinking of urine and worse,” said Joseph Riofrio, who took over the business from his father, who had taken it over from his. “But the truth is that the electricity for the cooler was getting expensive.”

Now Westside Grocery is gone. Last month, Mr. Riofrio, a City Council member and former mayor of this Central Valley town, where a street is named after his grandfather, pulled the plug — done in by a 38.7 percent unemployment rate, the foreclosure and credit crises and hoped-for economic help that never came. “How can a community in the heart of the most abundant farmland on earth suffer this way?” Mr. Riofrio said, fighting back tears.

Another question: If Mr. Riofrio, 50, cannot make it here, can anyone?

The Detroit of California. The Appalachia of the West. This town of 11,100 has been called both, and it is not an exaggeration. About half of Mendota’s residents, according to city officials, live below the poverty line. Alcohol abuse is unbridled. A recent killing appeared to be tied to the violent street gang MS-13.