Deli Boys: Is DarCo a Real Company? Is Mega Glug a Real Thing?

‘Deli Boys’ is a sitcom in which two brothers find themselves diving headfirst into a widespread drug empire that they have been the unwitting heirs to their entire lives. Mir and Raj are the sons of Baba Dar, owner of the DarCo company, which has a chain of convenience stores all over Philadelphia. However, it isn’t until the patriarch’s unpredictable death that his sons truly get to learn how the sausage gets made. As it turns out, the brothers have DarCo, darker side—an underground cocaine distribution business—to thank for all their riches. From the company’s stores to their pickle brand and Mega Glug invention, everything has been a tool to build an intricate drug delivery system.

Naturally, now that a tumultuous power vacuum has opened up in the company, Mir and Raj must step up and take over all aspects of the business. The show charts a humorous and fairly grounded narrative that brings chaotic South Asian-American stories to the forefront. However, is there any truth behind its central plot device?

DarCo and Mega Glug Parallel Aspects of Actual Convenience Stores

A lot of the storytelling elements in ‘Deli Boys’ are fictionalized additions to an overarching fictitious story. As such, the instrumental DarCo company, which dabbles in various things from stores to pickle jars and even gold courses—all for the ulterior motive of drug distribution, of course—is unsurprisingly also limited to the show’s confines. The company doesn’t exist in real life, and neither does most of its inventions, including the Mega Glug, a beverage option with 124 ounces of product. The audience may be able to find similarly named businesses, such as DARCO International, a medical company specializing in podiatric care. Nonetheless, it’s evident that the real-life company has nothing to do with identically christened on-screen business.

Yet, outside of DarCo’s outlandish criminal plots of underground drug dealing, the convenience store company does sport a notable connection to reality. Over the years, there have been multiple cases of convenience stores being used for drug distribution. Recently, in February 2025, the authorities in Canton, Ohio, found large quantities of cannabis in Canton Convenience Store, leading to the arrest of Albaraa Muharram. However, even outside of its criminal connections, the on-screen store still has certain parallels to real life. DarCo is a successful business started by a Pakistani-American immigrant who started out as a clerk in the ABC Deli. In real life, there have been many reports of South Asian immigrants finding great success in delis, gas stations, and other convenience store options. As reported by The Juggernaut in 2023, 70% of 7-Elevens in the US are owned by immigrants, of which South Asians make up a significant portion.

Similarly, in the 2000s, the then chairman of the National Coalition of Associations of 7-Eleven Franchisees recognized that South Asians owned around 50% of their stores. Consequently, an association persists between the convenience store industry and the South Asian community that informs the realism behind Baba Dar’s DarCo business. Likewise, the Mega Glug, the company’s signature beverage option available across their stores, also offers another association with the familiar reality of Convenience Stores like 7-Eleven. The latter brand offers a line of fountain drinks called Big Gulp, known for its big serving sizes. As such, these real-life elements inform the reality behind the otherwise fictitious DarCo Company and their Mega Glug drinks.