Canadian Retail Thread

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by esquire

Everyone always mentions the Zellers diner but I always remember them being completely empty save for a couple of seniors and maybe a worker on their break. I think once in my adult life did I ever eat there, and I don't remember it being impressive or even decent value for the money... I went back to eating in the mall food court after that.

As a teen, would eat at the Zellers restaurant when they would have their all you can eat Big Z burger and fries combo special! Some of the larger Sears stores also had sit-down restaurants. Can remember eating at the Sears restaurant at their store in the Village Mall in St. John's. And K-Mart stores had restaurants too.

[SpongeG]

I think people liked the Zellers restaurant cause it was pretty basic old school food and not many restaurants do that style now.

I went to the Zellers in Surrey yesterday, it was nice, decent selection of items, cheap and not bad, it definately brought a lot of foot traffic to the bay store.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I went to the Zellers in Surrey yesterday, it was nice, decent selection of items, cheap and not bad, it definately brought a lot of foot traffic to the bay store.

I think that will last about one month until everyone has had their fill of reliving the old days and posting it on instagram.

[urbandreamer]

Zellers always sucked. It was a place where BiWay shoppers went to buy crap they didn't need on credit. (Kind of like Costco ha.)

My parents mostly shopped for us kids at the local small town BiWay and Mark's and Spencer's and Robinson's at Conestoga Mall, which was replaced by the Bay. I remember getting these cheap Kmart shoes once and feeling poor. Now that I'm actually poor, I cringe whenever shopping at these colonial-style TFW-staffed discount stores. (I mostly shop for clothing online to avoid feeling like I'm in Rudyard Kipling's India.)

As for the LPC/CPC made up demographic crunch talking point: easily solved by giving $ to Canadian families able/willing to have 3+ kids. I'd suggest $75000/kid (paid monthly until the child turns 18), which is still cheaper than the average cost of immigration.

[jonny24]

I don't like self checkout because how many freaking menu buttons you have to click. Especially if you have to hit "start" or something instead of just scanning the first item. Fuck right off with that. Air Miles? No. Rewards card? No. Bags? No - who's being honest about this? Donate? No. Produce? Fuck off.

I use them if I have few enough items that I'm holding them in my hands. If I have a basket or cart - to the cashier. There isn't enough room to unload + stack your items for a full grocery shop at a self checkout!

I did have to use both the other day - my fault for not looking, but my cashier was for some reason the only line where beer sales weren't allowed. WTF? If you sell beer, every POS should be able to process that. I wasn't about to go stand in another cashier line after I'd unloaded my groceries on the belt, so I did self checkout with my beers after.

I used to go Walmart just for their chicken breast deal - now it's not worth their stupid maze of lines and checkout areas, if the price at metro is under $15 vs Walmart's $12 I just pay the extra to not have to make another stop.

On the flip side - I went to a Rexall that had no self checkouts. It was kind of a weird situation, they had closed early for a snowstorm the night before (there was a note on the door), but didn't lock up or turn the lights off. So when I was there before work I walked right in, but it was a ghost town with no employees anywhere. I wasn't about to go somewhere else, and I needed my damn cold medicine to get through the work day. No self checkout, I don't carry cash... so I hope they were happy with the random American $10 in my wallet that I left on the counter, lol.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Zellers always sucked. It was a place where BiWay shoppers went to buy crap they didn't need on credit. (Kind of like Costco ha.)

My parents mostly shopped for us kids at the local small town BiWay and Mark's and Spencer's and Robinson's at Conestoga Mall, which was replaced by the Bay. I remember getting these cheap Kmart shoes once and feeling poor. Now that I'm actually poor, I cringe whenever shopping at these colonial-style TFW-staffed discount stores. (I mostly shop for clothing online to avoid feeling like I'm in Rudyard Kipling's India.)

As for the LPC/CPC made up demographic crunch talking point: easily solved by giving $ to Canadian families able/willing to have 3+ kids. I'd suggest $75000/kid (paid monthly until the child turns 18), which is still cheaper than the average cost of immigration.

The demographic crunch (if it does indeed exist) isn't going to be solved by having a bunch of kids 9 months from now. They don't just pop out of mom ready to backfill an entry-level position at Zellers. If you have a time machine and can go back to 2003, sure maybe that works, but I'd like to think that people have kids for better reasons than having them be 'economic machines of the future'. The people having kids in 1960 probably weren't worrying about whether the 1980s would really need that labour.

Second, I don't see why Amazon or whatever online site is some mecca of ethically treating its employees. Mostly, it's out of sight, out of mind. Ironically, it's Costco that pays their employees middle-class wages, despite the pejorative attitude towards it. I mean, I've got my beefs with society's "Costco-mentality", but their employees are pretty well-treated.

There's also this weird colonial bit that keeps getting rehashed for some reason, with a side of sneering down at said people. It's almost like wandering around London, UK and having an old English guy make a snide comment as to 'how the colonies are doing', as if trying to twist the blade somehow at some random tourist from Canada will just bring the British Empire back. It's sour grapes, but a really sad English version of it.

[ConundrumNL]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

As a teen, would eat at the Zellers restaurant when they would have their all you can eat Big Z burger and fries combo special! Some of the larger Sears stores also had sit-down restaurants. Can remember eating at the Sears restaurant at their store in the Village Mall in St. John's. And K-Mart stores had restaurants too.

Attended many birthdays parties at the Zellers Restaurant as a child.

The Woolco on Water Street also had a restaurant. I'm too young to remember, but my parents said they had the best cupcakes.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by ConundrumNL

Attended many birthdays parties at the Zellers Restaurant as a child.

The Woolco on Water Street also had a restaurant. I'm too young to remember, but my parents said they had the best cupcakes.

It was actually Woolworth's. They had an excellent bakery and as a kid shopping with my mother, we would always pick-up some of their Orange Twist doughnuts. They were so-ooo good! Further down Water St. was Bowering's. They had two full-service restaurants in their store. One on the top level and one on the ground level (Captain's Cabin). Really good food.

[MolsonExport]

Loblaws gave Galen Weston a $3M raise last year, filings show

Galen Weston got a 55 per cent raise for running Loblaws last year, after management consultants hired by the company his family controls determined he was underpaid.

Weston also earns compensation from his role as the head of George Weston Ltd., the holding company that controls most of the family's wealth via voting control of Loblaws, the real estate arm, Choice Properties, and other assets.

"The results of the 2022 review provided that Mr. Weston's total direct compensation was below the market median and Loblaw's compensation policy objective," the company's management proxy circular for last year said.

With a net worth of US$8.7 billion

[MolsonExport]

when was the last time they opened a new Hudson's Bay?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

when was the last time they opened a new Hudson's Bay?

Good question. I think a few may have opened across Canada in the wake of Eaton's final closure (when it was owned by Sears). I know HBC opened a Bay store at Winnipeg's largest mall, Polo Park, sometime around 2005. At that point it supplanted the old downtown flagship as the main Bay store in the city. That was probably the last hurrah.

[urbandreamer]

Picture this scenario: Every retail/service/delivery/restaurant worker in India is white, mostly from a rural farming community in North America. How do locals feel about this situation?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Picture this scenario: Every retail/service/delivery/restaurant worker in India is white, mostly from a rural farming community in North America. How do locals feel about this situation?

Well, until about 75 years ago in India they had a situation where just about anyone with any power was white and British...

[canucklehead2]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

when was the last time they opened a new Hudson's Bay?

The 1980's most likely. It's a retail jewel that fell into the wrong hands and is now basically being stripped for its real estate assets like Sears was... And K-Mart was... I have no doubt we are in the "sad final days" of HBC as we know it. The last item I bought from them was on vacation in Vancouver in 2014 at the flagship downtown location which is being scaled back as we speak.

[urbandreamer]

Google "what happened to the English and their mixed-race offspring in India." Fascinating how after living in India for 200 years, locals rejected them, forcing most to leave. Some of my English ancestors were Anglo Indian. There's a graveyard in Calcutta I want to visit someday.

Anyway, look at what's happening today as reverse Colonialism. I expect a similar outcome c.2300.

If the English and French couldn't get along in Quebec, and arguably many upper class Colonial Anglos had French Norman roots similar to majority Quebecois roots in Northern France, then I'm betting Canada breaks up into ethno city states within 200 years.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Picture this scenario: Every retail/service/delivery/restaurant worker in India is white, mostly from a rural farming community in North America. How do locals feel about this situation?

Can you tell me what this has to do with the price of beans in Peru?

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Picture this scenario: Every retail/service/delivery/restaurant worker in India is white, mostly from a rural farming community in North America. How do locals feel about this situation?

Take away the very skin colour aspect, and you've described most of the waves of immigration to Canada. Examples: Irish, Italian, or Eastern European waves. The locals got all in a tizzy briefly as a new "peril" arrives, taking up roles the locals aren't really interested in.

It seems to have worked out. Their kids ended up ordinary Canadians. Hell, even factor in skin tone, if that's the great marker. Russell Peters, Michelle Jean or PK Subban as accepted as locals today.

Should we be doing this to to extent we are, given some other problems? Debate away in another thread.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by canucklehead2

The 1980's most likely. It's a retail jewel that fell into the wrong hands and is now basically being stripped for its real estate assets like Sears was... And K-Mart was... I have no doubt we are in the "sad final days" of HBC as we know it. The last item I bought from them was on vacation in Vancouver in 2014 at the flagship downtown location which is being scaled back as we speak.

Urbandreamer's childhood mall opened a brand new Bay as part of an expansion a few years ago (although it was a relocation from elsewhere in the mall).

[esquire]

Originally Posted by canucklehead2

The 1980's most likely. It's a retail jewel that fell into the wrong hands and is now basically being stripped for its real estate assets like Sears was... And K-Mart was... I have no doubt we are in the "sad final days" of HBC as we know it. The last item I bought from them was on vacation in Vancouver in 2014 at the flagship downtown location which is being scaled back as we speak.

My post 3 posts before yours identified a new Bay that opened up in the mid 2000s

[urbandreamer]

Re: Conestoga Mall. Iirc Zehrs opened c.1999, possibly taking over the old HBC space, which possibly was originally Kmart. (I seem to remember a Kmart where the Valumart is now in the early 1980s at Uptown Waterloo Square.) HBC had moved to the old Robinson's space soon after they went under mid 1990s. M&S must've closed around the same time: I miss their pork pies. (1995-2002 a bit sketchy memory, as I'd moved to Toronto for school.)

Re: Westons. It's upper/middle management that should be blamed for the majority of corporate bs. They're the actual brains/assholes calling the shots.

Re: Peru. Let's replace all those white service workers with beautiful Peruvian women, like the girl I dated 12 year's ago. She wondered why there weren't any Peruvian restaurants in Toronto - well today there's one 10 minute's walk from me at Bloor and Kennedy Park Road.