Meet the hilarious 72-year-old owner of Brooklyn’s best market

On a snowy Monday morning, customers crowd into Sahadi’s market in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, where they pull numbers to place orders with delightfully brusque men in blue vests for bulk bags of roasted almonds and dried Turkish apricots. Family patriarch Charlie Sahadi is often on the floor, greeting old customers by name, quick with a corny joke or a recommendation for cheap olive oil.

Since 1948, the market has been a constant on a rapidly changing stretch of Atlantic Avenue, where Trader Joe’s and Barneys have replaced mom and pop stores.

But now, even Sahadi’s is changing.

After 52 years at the helm, Charlie, 72, is, retiring, with his two children, Christine and Ron, taking over day-to-day operations.

“They are the present and the future,” says Charlie, who quit college to work at the shop full-time in 1964 at the age of 20. “I am the present and the past.”

Founded by his Lebanese immigrant father, Wade Sahadi, who passed away in 1967, it has since grown from a cozy Middle Eastern grocery to a 6,000-square-foot international specialty-food store, with its own deli serving prepared foods — like tabbouleh and kibbe based on family recipes — and an off-site nut-roasting plant that fills the dozens of the store’s trademark bulk bins.

“I’m lucky enough to be a people person in a people business,” says Charlie, who was born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

While Christine and Ron have each worked in the store for decades, both say they’re worried about replicating their father’s way with customers.

“I am nervous about trying to fill his shoes,” says Christine, 49, who has two children, including a 22-year-old son who is interested in taking over the shop one day.

“I’m very friendly, but I’m not the talker he is,” adds Ron, 44.

They won’t be far from dad should they have any questions — they each live in Bay Ridge with their own families in houses within a block of him.

And they say they have no plans to make drastic changes to the successful business.

“We might have a fresh coat of paint, but there are very few changes that a customer is going to see,” says Christine. And Charlie will still be around the shop.

He says: “My daughter said, ‘Any time you want to schmooze, come in!’”

Sahadi’s, 187 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn; 718-624-4550