Canadian Retail Thread

[esquire]

I didn't know White Spot/Triple O's had made it to Ontario. Farthest east I'd seen them before was Edmonton.

[cslusarc]

My local Safeway @ River East Plaza (in Winnipeg) lost its Starbuck this spring about 10 years after they enlarged the store and redeveloped the micro-mall.

[SpongeG]

All the Safeways here in BC have Starbucks inside them, a few Save-On-Foods also have Starbucks inside them. Most of them do not work for pre-ordering with the ap.

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

All the Safeways here in BC have Starbucks inside them, a few Save-On-Foods also have Starbucks inside them. Most of them do not work for pre-ordering with the ap.

Most Safeways here have Starbucks but the Saveons do not have any coffee place.

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by Airboy

Most Safeways here have Starbucks but the Saveons do not have any coffee place.

So an update, Starbucks are clearing out of the Safeways here now.

[SpongeG]

Location, location: Why Edmonton is preferred by U.S. chains making their Canadian debut

Dickey's Barbecue Pit opened its first Canadian location in Edmonton on Thursday
Kashmala Fida Mohatarem, Ariel Fournier · CBC · Posted: May 01, 2022


Dickey's Barbecue Pit, a restaurant chain based in Dallas, opened its first Canadian location in Edmonton on Thursday. (Trevor Wilson/ CBC Edmonton)

188 comments

Alberta's capital city is known for many things — a giant mall, a gorgeous river valley and a pretty successful NHL franchise.

You can add to that list Edmonton's appeal as a testing ground for U.S. chain stores and restaurants looking to expand into the Canadian market.

Dickey's Barbecue Pit, a popular Texas-based chain restaurant that opened its first Canadian location in Edmonton on Thursday, is one of a few major American chains that have eyed the Alberta city for expansion.

In December, American convenience store chain 7-Eleven opened a licenced location in north Edmonton that includes a dining area for liquor consumption on the premises.

California Pizza Kitchen, meanwhile, has said it will open its first Canadian location in south Edmonton sometime this year.

Industry experts say the city's population demographics, eating habits, affordability and even the presence of a giant mall are factors in attracting businesses keen to test the taste buds of Canadians.

"Edmonton is a very good place to start because you limit your risk and you get a good market test," Ziad Kaddoura, a franchise consultant based in Edmonton, told CBC's Edmonton AM.

He said the city is a great place to figure out whether companies are up to the challenge of introducing a franchise in Canada with the least amount of damage in case their venture fails.

"And it's not as saturated as other markets," he said. "So I think it ticks all the right boxes."

...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...ebut-1.6432465

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Location, location: Why Edmonton is preferred by U.S. chains making their Canadian debut

Will remember this the next time someone wants to claim Toronto is filled with wannabe Americans.

[WhipperSnapper]

mmm ... Texas barbeque

[Coldrsx]

IKEA Announces Toronto Downtown Store Opening Date

The Swedish home furnishings retailer will open its 66,000 sq. ft. downtown location, a first to Canada concept with a new food concept added as well.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ret...TNmSTJxQ%3D%3D

[MonctonRad]

Also, Simons has officially announced their 17th store at the Halifax Shopping Centre in Halifax. It will be part of a $57M reconstruction of the former Eatons/Sears store at the mall. Opening will be in spring 2024.

I'm surprised q12 has not announced it here. He has already posted in the Halifax subforum about it.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Also, Simons has officially announced their 17th store at the Halifax Shopping Centre in Halifax. It will be part of a $57M reconstruction of the former Eatons/Sears store at the mall. Opening will be in spring 2024.

Simons is a nice store, it kind of reminds me a bit of department stores in Europe and Asia where they still actually try. Unlike the The Bay which threw in the towel a decade ago, and Eaton's which pretty much gave up when Mulroney was Prime Minister.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

IKEA Announces Toronto Downtown Store Opening Date

The Swedish home furnishings retailer will open its 66,000 sq. ft. downtown location, a first to Canada concept with a new food concept added as well.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ret...TNmSTJxQ%3D%3D

Disappointed the article does not answer the critical question everyone has. Will it have hot food. Ikea meatballs in downtown Toronto would be ideal. If they do a campaign needs to be organized to bring the concept to Vancouver. No meatballs, then it is ok if Toronto is the only location.

At the end they mentioned that Ikea had a deal with Penguin Pickup. Interesting concept. I wonder how well the Penguin locations do give the relative large size of many of the Ikea products.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by casper

Disappointed the article does not answer the critical question everyone has. Will it have hot food. Ikea meatballs in downtown Toronto would be ideal. If they do a campaign needs to be organized to bring the concept to Vancouver. No meatballs, then it is ok if Toronto is the only location.

At the end they mentioned that Ikea had a deal with Penguin Pickup. Interesting concept. I wonder how well the Penguin locations do give the relative large size of many of the Ikea products.

I ordered a couple tables from IKEA last year and had them held for pickup at a company called "Custom Delivery" in London. That location was just a few blocks away from where the IKEA Pick-Up Point store was before they closed them all, in a plaza that has a Brick and a Bad Boy and a few other large stores. I can't imagine rent was cheap there. Now they have moved to the former Sears warehouse in the south London industrial park, so not sure how well that location would do for IKEA now (although it is only about a mile away from where the full scale IKEA store was supposed to be built). If they are offering Penguin Pickup (as well as, or instead of), I think they have a location in the Walmart Supercentre big box plaza in north London, closer to the university.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

I ordered a couple tables from IKEA last year and had them held for pickup at a company called "Custom Delivery" in London. That location was just a few blocks away from where the IKEA Pick-Up Point store was before they closed them all, in a plaza that has a Brick and a Bad Boy and a few other large stores. I can't imagine rent was cheap there. Now they have moved to the former Sears warehouse in the south London industrial park, so not sure how well that location would do for IKEA now (although it is only about a mile away from where the full scale IKEA store was supposed to be built). If they are offering Penguin Pickup (as well as, or instead of), I think they have a location in the Walmart Supercentre big box plaza in north London, closer to the university.

Penguin Pickup is owned by Smart REIT. When your parent company owns the shopping complex and your building on a pad in the parking lot, rent is less of an issue.

There more recent concept locations have been co-branded with Walmart complete with Walmart kiosks going into downtown Toronto. Most of their locations are setup for average size e-commerce packages. I don't think they can handle a large volume of furniture.

[manny_santos]

Some Zellers nostalgia, courtesy of Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/londonontar...unt_mall_2007/

[urbandreamer]

I noticed Odds & Ends on Queen St W of Bathurst has closed. I used to live a few doors down the street and never figured out how that old man made a living.

[WhipperSnapper]

SmartREIT never own the shops at Aura (assuming opening a new location here) and i'm pretty sure some of the strategic pick up locations aren't in smartreit properties.. Anyways, This was owned by Kingsett Capital which sold it to Ikea's parent company. It will be renamed the Ingka Centre at Aura. Maybe an opportunity for the floundering retail condo in the basement to cut their losses.

[casper]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

SmartREIT never own the shops at Aura (assuming opening a new location here) and i'm pretty sure some of the strategic pick up locations aren't in smartreit properties.. Anyways, This was owned by Kingsett Capital which sold it to Ikea's parent company. It will be renamed the Ingka Centre at Aura. Maybe an opportunity for the floundering retail condo in the basement to cut their losses.

The more recent Penguin Pickups have ventured off SmartREIT properties. Especially the downtown Toronto ones.

Co-branding the downtown Toronto Penguin Pickup with Walmart was driven by Walmart wanting to gain a stronger presence in the urban core.

[Coldrsx]

^Agreed. Simons is a great store that can cater to a wide demographic and is destination store for many. A coup.

[davidivivid]

In september, The Bay will close its 150 000 sq ft Laurier store in Quebec City, which means it will only have one store left in Quebec, the one at Galeries de la Capitale, which it revamped a few years ago.

In a very related news, a company based in the city just agreed to buy 50% of the Laurier mall from Ivanoe Cambridge for $309M. The plan is to invest a Billion dollars over the next 10 years to triple the surface area of the property to integrate up to 2000 new housing units for families, seniors and students as well as hotels and office space.

The first tower to go up will be on the parking lot on the corner of Hochelaga and Jean-De Quen. The Bay store, which is the building covered in brown bricks, will be demolished next.

The empty lots situated on the upper left belong to the Federal government. It used to house military families. The city is hungrily eying these lots since it would be perfect for dense housing.



https://www.journaldequebec.com/2022...-sa-superficie