Outside it might look like business as usual, but inside the Bridgeway Market on Niagara Street there's profound sadness and disbelief.
On Wednesday, Saeed Alsaid told his father, Ahmad, he was going to take a short break from working at the store Ahmad owned.
He wanted to go home for two hours to make sure things were in order and ready for Thanksgiving.
About a half hour later, Alsaid got a phone call from a family friend.
"He says, ‘your father's been shot,’” he said. “For me I couldn't believe it. I'd just left here.”
Police say Ahmad Alsaid was shot during an armed robbery. He was taken to Erie County Medical Center where he died from his injuries.
Friday Alsaid and his siblings were back in the store where their father was shot, running the business and trying to make sense of the tragedy.
"He loved working with people. He loved helping them,” he said. “He wants to be in the store he wants to be on the front line talking to them every day.”
That’s why his father opened this store in one of the city's struggling neighborhoods. He simply believed in helping people.
"He never stopped surprising me. The comments I heard from individuals about how he'd spare a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, even more if he had to,” Alsaid said. “Sometimes he'd go out of his way and give people a ride to the hospital or anywhere they need to be.”
It was that kindness that earned him the nickname "Poppy.”
"When I first started with him I was wondering the same thing. I asked him why people call you ‘Poppy’ out of all the names? He said he never knew. It just caught on, but a lot of people looked at him as a father figure," he said.
Niagara Falls City Councilmember Ezra Scott was one of the dozens of people who stopped by to express their condolences.
"I know Poppy, many of the individuals in the community understand and know Poppy and how loving of a man he was, and he would have given the shirt off of his back to help anyone," Scott said.
Police say about 30 minutes after first the robbery two armed gunmen robbed a 7-Eleven on Buffalo Avenue just a short distance away. They believe the two incidents are related.
They’re still looking for clues that'll lead them to the shooter.
Alsaid is just hoping the community will repay the kindness his father shared with so many.
"He always believed in them, the community he lived in, the kids who grew around him to be fathers and grandfathers, he never gave up on them and I'm hoping that they will do the same," he said.