Sam Kaye got his first job at Daisies, an old-fashioned corner store set among the pine trees in Cottesloe.

Like so many people his age and older, he has fond memories of taking a handful of coins to the local deli and leaving with several handfuls of lollies.

You might not share his tastes — red frogs and bananas were two of his favourites — but he is not alone in his nostalgia.

It was 1997, and the Year 6 pupil started buying his own lollies with the money he made from stocking the deli’s fridges.

“I kind of grew up with Daisies,” he said. “You’d go to the beach with your friends and then grab a sandwich and sit on the grass.

“I still remember walking down with my grandfather to get a Kinder Surprise on the weekends. Those are things you remember.”

In the same year that Mr Kaye got his first job, single mother-of-three Annie Hong bought the Hazelmere Store, in Perth’s eastern suburbs.

Ms Hong came to Australia by boat, fleeing communist rule in Vietnam to find a better life for her children. Her English was poor but her work ethic and thriftiness held her in good stead.

Business was good back in the 1990s and the mining boom kept it that way.

“Sometimes we would make $25,000 per week in the mining boom because FIFO people spent a lot of money,” Ms Hong, 71, said. “But for example in the last year we dropped down to less than $5000 a week. I’m losing $1000 a week. Before the IGA came here, we did very well on Saturday and Sunday — they were our best days of the week. Now, it’s the opposite.”

She lives at the back of the store and does not pay herself a wage, living off the rent from a bigger house she bought nearby.

Her sons, Andy and Tom, help out with the business as they always have. Barring a dramatic economic turnaround, she doubts it will make money again. “I don’t complain because everything has good times and bad times,” she said.

Camera Icon Sam Kaye went back and bought the corner store he remembers from when he was a kid - then adapted it. Credit: Steve Ferrier

Mr Kaye, meanwhile, has gone back to stocking fridges at Daisies. He left his FIFO job in 2015 to buy his childhood corner store and return it to its former glory as a neighbourhood hub.

“It was really run down,” Mr Kaye, 31, said. “It hadn’t had any work done to it for a very long time. It was your traditional corner store stocking anything from toilet paper to packets of chips.”

He still sells lollies, milk, bread and the newspaper, but his main earners are coffee and fresh takeaway food.

Traditional neighbourhood corner stores have been folding under the pressure of the supermarket giants and extended trading hours.

A lot of effort has been put into building the Daisies brand through social media, charity, community events and branded products.

“What I’ve noticed is a lot of stores don’t adapt quickly enough,” Mr Kaye said. “You need to think on your feet. You need to keep your eyes on current trades. I believe that these corner stores can be viable.”

Diana Maniulit has focused on Asian groceries at Darling’s Delight in Bunbury, a deli that has been operating since 1912.

Since she took over two years ago she has kept the deli staples but stopped selling items such as bait, because it is seasonal and drains electricity. The opening of an Aldi supermarket 500m away last year highlighted the need to specialise.

“Some of our goods you can’t get from other shops,” Ms Maniulit said.

“There might be other versions but the taste isn’t as good.”

On a busy corner on Beaufort Street in Highgate, the Trans have put their faith in flowers.

Camera Icon Business has had to bloom for Kennedy and Peter Tran at their Chatsworth Deli. Credit: Nic Ellis

Peter Tran and his family have run Chatsworth Deli for 23 years, tweaking their business model to stay profitable.

“We still sell chocolates, milk and everything else as a deli, but you can see that we’re probably got 95 per cent flowers — and that’s what sells,” Mr Tran said.

The common threads between all four delis are the staple products and friendly, familiar faces.

Increasingly, that is not enough.