When PennDOT construction began interfering with customers’ ability to get to their Café Excellence coffee, Corropolese tomato pie at Ana’s Corner Store in East Norriton, loyal Ana’s fans began voicing their outrage via Facebook and several traditional outlets.

Thousands of vehicles travel down Township Line Road every day, and you can bet that for more than a few of them, a stop at Ana’s Corner Store for coffee, hoagies or other life essentials is a must, writes Gary Puleo at timesherald.com.

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PennDOT recently came to town with a  massive road-widening construction project just outside the store’s entrances at the intersection of Township Line Road and North Wales Road, and owner Ana Ferry was concerned about the extent to which she said the construction was crippling her business, in ways she hadn’t really foreseen.

“Customers were coming up to me and saying they were told I was closed. I said ‘who told you we were closed?’ They said it was the PennDOT flagger,” Ferry recalled. “I started hearing this over and over again so I thought I’d put it on Facebook and see if I could get a little more information and at least collect it all in one place. So I did, and never in a million years would I have expected the response I got from customers, saying, ‘yes, that happened to me. They told me I couldn’t go into the store. I said, I have to go in there and they said ‘not today you’re not.’ A vendor said he was in traffic on Township Line Road for 25 minutes and then he gets here and they tell him he can’t go in. He had to move on And I only get a delivery every other week.”

Ferry, who had been mulling over the idea of providing delivery to customers during construction, said she was overwhelmed by the support.

“I talk to customers all day long and 90 percent of them I don’t know by name, but I am so touched by all this,” she said. “I do get it. The expansion is for the good of the community and there are going to be some aches and pains during that time. However, there’s a difference between the work being out there and people telling customers you’re closed or not letting them in.”

To read the full story, click here.

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