Winnipeg | Retail

[BAKGUY]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Popeyes gives me tummy troubles.. must be either the breading or the sauces.

Sauces. I can't eat stuff like that as extras be it for pizzas or chicken etc....., those type of sauces or spicy chicken, but the regular Popeyes chicken there is fine. Just had it today. Delicious.
Tough to believe, but KFC, yes, their extra crispy can be good if fresh and made properly.Their original is gross.

[cheswick]

London Drugs opens today and Polo Park

[cllew]

Originally Posted by cheswick

London Drugs opens today and Polo Park

Must be a soft opening as the LD web site still shows St. Vital as the only open store in Winnipeg

[trebor204]

It look London Drugs 22 years to open a second location in Winnipeg. I found an old savings card to had May 10/2004 as opening.

I notice today that security let someone in the old Hudson's Bay @ St Vital.

[dennis]

Originally Posted by CoryB

Sadly the conversations David Asper has with Maison Simons around 2010 have likely permanently poisoned them on ever opening here. As they are privately owned and self fund their expansion it will be very difficult to get them to change their opinion.

Why would that sour them? Why would one soured situation with one developer ruin it for the city? Would Asper be involved with CF Polo Park? There are probably other reasons.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by dennis

Why would that sour them? Why would one soured situation with one developer ruin it for the city? Would Asper be involved with CF Polo Park? There are probably other reasons.

Not sure what soured Simons on Winnipeg. Asper did an excellent job selling them that the ONLY place they wanted to be was in the Polo Park area. Simons has even stated that publicly long ago. Since then Sears, Zellers and Hudson Bay have all left CF Polo Park. Any one of those spaces could have worked for Simons. That it has not happened yet, especially when parts of the Sears space for about six years, I feel it is fairly obvious the time for Simons coming to Winnipeg has passed and now it will just not happen.

[cheswick]

Primos toys in Kildonan Place is closing at the end of December. Says the mall is demolishing that area (which I believe is where the old theatre is).

[trueviking]

Simons is extremely cautious in its expansion plans. I bet they will come to Winnipeg eventually. There is a hole to be filled.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by cheswick

Primos toys in Kildonan Place is closing at the end of December. Says the mall is demolishing that area (which I believe is where the old theatre is).

That whole side is emptying out. Some stores are relocating, others closing outright in the mall.

There is some construction activity at the mall adjacent to the movie theatre. They've added what looks to be space for new cru's along that big blank corridor.

[bomberjet]

I've seen an article that Toys R Us is in trouble and is actively closing stores. The parent company is bleeding money.

[Glenn99]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

I've seen an article that Toys R Us is in trouble and is actively closing stores. The parent company is bleeding money.

Location on Plaza Dr/Pembina is already closed. Was expanded just a few years ago.

[Sheepish]

its Small Business Saturday on the 29th, as sponsored by the CFIB. I encourage all to get out and support local businesses/retail/restaurants etc.

[trebor204]

Originally Posted by Glenn99

Location on Plaza Dr/Pembina is already closed. Was expanded just a few years ago.

I was there a weeks ago and notice it was closed. But I found out it was closed for quite sometime just after Christmas. That location also had a HMV inside the store.

[rebl]

Originally Posted by Glenn99

Location on Plaza Dr/Pembina is already closed. Was expanded just a few years ago.

Interesting...I was at the location on Regent a couple weeks back and there were indications that they were expanding and constructing a indoor playground at the back of the store meant to be rented out for parties. They must be getting desperate and trying whatever they can to get people to choose them over amazon.

[bomberjet]

I'll find the news article. The Pembina location has been closed for a long while now. Coworker lives out that way and had thought they all closed when the US ops shut down.

The article said the addition of the playground place inside the stores was already happening before to yes draw people into the stores. The Regent ave location has been doing that update in the back for a while now. Im not sure what state its at since I haven't been there in a while. But it was like an ampty space wiht a skeleton of a play space.

[CoryB]

I think the current iteration of Toys R Us (Canada) essentially came out of the original Toys R Us (global) bankruptcy. A Canadian supplied to Toys R Us bought out their Canadian rights to keep in running as a going concern when most other locations were closed. I think the issue might have been that they had a large volume of product that could not be cancelled and no viable sales channel outside of Toys R Us. The best way to clear their inventory was to attempt to run the stores as a going concern and they had some track record doing similar with other chains, see Sunrise/HMV.

Somewhat interesting is when Bed, Bath and Beyond and sister chain Buy Buy Baby went bankrupt the same company behind Toys R Us and Sunrise started up nearly identical chains to replace those two stores. Lots of landlords signed on to the plan but the two Winnipeg stores were excluded. Perhaps there were already signs of trouble back then.

[bomberjet]

heres a Sun article about it:
https://winnipegsun.com/news/mass-closures-leave-workers-scrambling-across-canada

Putman expanded the Canadian chain to more than 100 stores in 2023 and introduced experimental “Playlab” formats with indoor play areas.

[cheswick]

FWIW last Christmas season I was told the Polo Park location was the highest volume Toys R Us in the country.

Have noticed in that location in addition to the HMV they've started selling more housewares stuff, linens and what not.

[lbnevs]

the way retail used to work:

make money by buying things from wholesalers and marking them up to sell to retail customers

the way retail now works:

make money by buying retailers, gutting them, piling on debt, scaling fast, and flipping to the next PE firm

[AccordTR]

Uniqlo is official at St Vital mall. Work orders are out, units 9-14.