Quote:
Originally Posted by officedweller
The Meinhardt's at Pacific Centre is a glorified high end convenience store / cafe for downtown office workers.
I couldn't see that working at Ambleside with low foot traffic.
Not sure if it would work at Burrard Place either, though there are some offices nearby (and more with the Burrard Place office building).
It seems that in each case they are attaching themsleves to the cache of a high end residential building without realizing that they'd need to draw from a much larger customer base than one high end building.
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It's got a pretty neat deli though. PC mall needs something like that: there isn't one close by if you don't want to consider the coffee shops. We need better bakeries and delis around town.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
But in the case of Burrard Place, Pattison is the co-developer as well as the operator of the store. I was surprised when Farm to Table opened up on Richards, only a block from Choices, butt they seem to be surviving, so another store located in a cluster of towers a bit further west might do fine. If/when Anchor Point gets redeveloped it will add even more customers.
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One way to survive is to have a competitive edge over nearby peers, such as having longer opening hours. For instance, Farm to Table closes at midnight: quite a bit later than Choices that shuts their door at around 10pm (I think), which is ideal for the night owls, or many of the young lazy students and residents living in the Wall rental building next door. Many of their items aren't cheap, but I suppose they do sell when people nearby want convenience. Hence although tiny, Farm to Table also has in stock quite a few pre-packaged healthy foods, cheesecakes, small-tub gourmet ice cream, etc. You just need to be different and offer stuff that people want in order to survive.