Longos - Dundas
I gave the new Sobey's Spadina its own thread cause its such a departure from their previous stores and might merit further discussion.
But I will comment on the new Longo's here.
I was in on Sunday.
Busy, but not packed.
As always from Longo's, a good prepared foods section, this one may be their best or most gourmet yet.
However, the rest of the store is nice, but nothing ground-breaking.
Very awkwardly laid out, the store wraps around the corner, one wing going east, the other south. The connection is a bit bottlenecked, I'm sure they did what they could with the building being the shape it is; but its an impediment.
Spoke to a staff person; their observations:
- Far from empty, not nearly as busy as Longo's hoped in the first week; they're being told it may be the City worker's strike.....
- More price-sensitive customers than expected. They've been raked over the coals by customers who don't like their prices, apparently many comparisons to Chinatown are being made, not what Longo's anticipated.
- For some reason they can't sell banana's!
Apparently they are a big seller at most stores and in this one they can't quite give them away.
Finally, he offered notes on other Longo's
- New Locations @ HBC Bloor to open soon; and in Richmond Hill and Aurora before year's end.
- New Location beside ACC is stucturally complete, but they won't finish/open it till work on the towers are done, opening expected first quarter 2010 or thereabouts.
- The ACC location to be 2 floors, possibly larger than originally anticipated, will very much be a full sized store, maybe even Longo's biggest.
