Who’s the Boss?

Pritam is asleep on the job. Literally. Pritam “Tony” S. Saini, the new owner of Louie’s Superette, crumbled under the stress of running his burgeoning convenience store two Monday afternoons ago.

At around 4:30 p.m., Saini dropped the metal security gate in front of the beer-bloated convenience store entrance and took a catnap. “I was sleeping there,” Saini says, pointing to the floor beside the door. “I had a headache.” Saini is no novice at convenience store ownership. Before immigrating to the United States, Saini founded a convenience store in India, the Darshan Confectionary, which was named after a family member.

After emigrating from India, Saini took a job directing traffic at the Big Dig. “When I got hired,” Pritam explains, “they asked for my real name. I said Pritam. He gave me the name Tony.” Since then, his friends have known Pritam by his American name.

Although “Tony” and the former owner of Louie’s, Cheng-san “Louie” Chen, both share nicknames straight from the script of “The Sopranos,” Saini insists he is not just trying to follow suit. Feel free to call him Pritam or Tony.

Even so, don’t plan on seeing a “Tony’s” sign in front anytime soon. Saini is content with the status quo. “It’s better to keep the same name so people know it’s the same place,” Saini believes. And regardless of what customers call the man behind the counter, the fact remains that a Pritam by any other name is still a Pritam.