Downtown Grocery Store List (current + proposed)

[Northern Light]

City Market College & Spadina closed November 7. Rumours T&T will replace it.

"We made the difficult decision to close the City Market at College and Spadina, as the store had been underperforming for a number of years," said a PR rep for Loblaw

Controversial big box grocery store near Kensington Market abruptly shuts down

Once upon a time, back in 2013, the notoriously gentrification-averse Toronto community of Kensington Market was furious to learn that Loblaws was ...

www.blogto.com

Does anyone have anecdotal experience w/this store?

I think I was only in it the once, and it seemed to have good traffic.

At 20,000ft2 it would be, to my knowledge, the smallest T&T store in the country.

Typically their footprint is 35,000ft2 ++ ranging as high as 74000.

 

[afransen]

T&T would be good, since the Cherry St store closed. Might have to be a bit scaled back given the size

 

[Towered]

Does anyone have anecdotal experience w/this store?

I think I was only in it the once, and it seemed to have good traffic.

At 20,000ft2 it would be, to my knowledge, the smallest T&T store in the country.

Typically their footprint is 35,000ft2 ++ ranging as high as 74000.

Yes, I shopped there frequently.

 

[AlbertC]

T&T could be a good fit here to serve the student population in the area. Many of the suburban store locations have food court spaces which can be removed to fit here better. Maybe also condense the meat, seafood, produce and housewares sections, and feature more of a "on the go" model. Galleria (Korean) supermarket has a location at Bloor W & Huron which operates in a smaller format. But the space here should be a larger than that.

 

[Northern Light]

Rabba coming to the corner of River+Dundas in 2021.

Looks to also pioneer a new concept for their prepared foods, in cooperation with Paramount Fine Foods.

Home Page

www.canadiangrocer.com

 

[AlbertC]

More on the upcoming Rabba & Paramount collaboration, who will also look towards opening multiple locations in the future:

Toronto Grocer Rabba Partners with Paramount Fine Foods on New Regent Park Storefront

Rabba to open a pilot kitchen concept in Regent Park in partnership with Paramount Fine Foods featuring a Middle Eastern-inspired menu.

www.retail-insider.com

 

[JasonParis]

That's pretty great news for Regent Park and Corktown. I still find parts of Corktown, especially, a bit of a food desert.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Rabba coming to the corner of River+Dundas in 2021.

Looks to also pioneer a new concept for their prepared foods, in cooperation with Paramount Fine Foods.

Home Page

www.canadiangrocer.com

I swear the Port Credit location already had a Paramount corner in it.

They for sure had some sort of fresh shawarma corner the last time I was there.

 

[Northern Light]

New Downtown T&T confirmed at the former College Street City Market location.

 

[Jonny5]

Empire Company, which owns Sobey's, has bought a majority stake in Longo's. I expect this will cause both some expansion of the Longo's brand outside the GTA, and some consolidation within the GTA.

 

[Richard White]

Empire Company, which owns Sobey's, has bought a majority stake in Longo's. I expect this will cause both some expansion of the Longo's brand outside the GTA, and some consolidation within the GTA.

More than likely either the Queens Quay Terminal Sobeys or Maple Leaf Square Longos being closed. They are no more than a 2 minute walk from each other.

 

[daptive]

More than likely either the Queens Quay Terminal Sobeys or Maple Leaf Square Longos being closed. They are no more than a 2 minute walk from each other.

Queen Quay Terminal is being converted to a Farm Boy so I doubt that’s closing. And the Longos at Maple Leafs Square serves a huge group of residences north of Gardiner and it’s in the PATH so I doubt it’ll close either.

 

[Richard White]

Queen Quay Terminal is being converted to a Farm Boy so I doubt that’s closing. And the Longos at Maple Leafs Square serves a huge group of residences north of Gardiner and it’s in the PATH so I doubt it’ll close either.

I used to work at Maple Leaf Square, you would be surprised how many people would go to Loblaws or No Frills.

 

[PinkLucy]

I used to shop both stores when I lived in the area. Both were busy and will be again post COVID.

 

[Northern Light]

I don't expect you'll see much consolidation/closure here.
Though I would not be surprised to see a few name plates change.
(ie stores being re-bannered)

If you actually look at Sobeys footprint inside the City of Toronto, it's relatively small, under that name plate.
They have a fair number of Freshco stores; and a handful of the smaller 'urban fresh' stores.
But only half a dozen full-line Sobeys.

They've never been able to crack the Toronto market well under that banner.

That's what buying Farm Boy was about; and likely Longos too.

The Leaside Sobeys does decently. But Danforth has missed at least one if not two generations of renos; everyone expects that store to go Condo.
I expect Empire will have a store there when it's over, but which banner is an open question.

I think Broadview would also be tempting to re-think.
The challenge there is the small footprint of the current store and parking lot; again, I think a mid-rise condo, with an Empire banner at-grade, and parking underground is more likely than not.

I would also see at least one of the South Etobicoke stores getting a re-banner.

I don't know enough about all of the Freshcos, but most that I know of pull good numbers.

Though, the FarmBoy at Lake Shore/Leslie is seriously hampered by how small their footprint is; and the relative lack of parking, while being further from transit/cycling.......than is ideal.
I might be tempted to look at re-doing that Freshco, and shifting Farmboy across the Street.

That would also be a good market for Longo's; however, it's too small for a full-line Longos as is; this would require removing the Wendy's Tim's and re-thinking the entire site.