My first job was at a corner grocery store in Dorchester, Boston’s biggest neighborhood and home to a million tough guys and the man who wrote about tough guys, Dennis Lehane.

The Dorchester Market (Gene & Paul’s to your grandmother) sat across East Cottage Street from its more well-known competitor, Patty’s Pantry. It wasn’t as cool as Patty’s. It didn’t sell cheese steak subs and chicken parm dinners over ziti. It didn’t have the Lottery. It wasn’t the kind of place where guys came in and slapped down twenty bucks on a pack of Marlboros and some scratchies.

No, it was the place where mothers came in and bought groceries for the week for their families. A place where people in need walked in with a Saint Vincent De Paul food voucher from Saint Margaret’s Church. A place where elderly people from the Catherine “Kit” Clark Apartments down the street put food on “the books” until their Social Security checks cleared.

It was the place where, in 1987, I went to work for a couple of guys named Pete and Kev. Peter McGee and Kevin DeMille had bought the business a few years before from the original owners, Gene Vega and Paul Harold.

Working in The Dorchester Market instilled in me a work ethic that I hold to this day. Arrive on time, work hard, stay ‘till the job is done. Go home. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Pete and Kev were interesting guys to work for, with Pete the younger, “cooler” partner who talked about sports and music and told jokes. Kev was the hard-ass. He was also older and seemed like the Dad of the store. But he wasn’t supposed to be. He was there to run a business. And back when I first started there as a teenager, The Dorchester Market was booming, a seriously busy neighborhood grocery store. It wasn’t Shaw’s or Stop & Shop, but it had everything you needed if you couldn’t make it to those places. And it had a full-service butcher shop to boot.

The store was —and is—a place where you can get great beef, pork, and poultry. A place that your Nana would have shopped at a couple of times a week for family dinners. A place that had delivery boys come in after school and run grocery orders non-stop on foot till 6 o’clock. A place that would let you in after closing time because you needed to grab “just a couple of things”.

Kevin DeMille wasn’t my favorite guy to work for. We frequently butted heads because I was —and still am— a strong-headed Irish kid from Dorchester. Peter was easier to get along with, but I think Kev was the one who pushed me harder to be better at my job, even if it was just out of spite half the time.

In 1995, I moved on, but I have carried that Dorchester Market work ethic with me wherever I went. Work harder. Work faster. Get the job done. After I left, I still stopped in to see Pete and Kev. And we’d always have a good laugh catching up on old times, Pete with his Patriots baseball cap and Kev with his bloodied butcher’s apron, standing behind the meat counter, keeping an eye on things.

Kev retired a few years ago, but Pete stayed on.

Last year, I learned that the old Dorchester Market building had been bought and will be razed, then replaced by a five-story behemoth of which the market will still, thankfully, be a part. It will continue to serve the neighborhood in a new capacity, but it won’t be the same.

Recently, I learned that Kevin DeMille had died, so I am sitting here typing with a heavy heart. I realize that I’m actually saying goodbye to two old friends. I’m gonna miss that old building, but I’m gonna miss that man even more.

Rest in Peace, Kev.

Bill Gould grew up in Dorchester and now lives in South Carolina.

Editor’s note: Kevin DeMille, a Dorchester native who lived in Weymouth, died on March 28. His funeral service was private, but donations in his memory may be made to Vietnam Veterans of Massachusetts, 27 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02133, or Habitat for Humanity Greater Boston, 240 Commercial St., 4th floor, Boston, MA 02109.