Canadian Retail Thread

[esquire]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I remember SAAN from visits to see family in Drumheller. It was the main clothing store. It was like a shittier K-mart but only selling clothes. In hindsight the store was kind of laid out like Winners is.

I hated going to SAAN when I was a kid because there was no toy department to amuse myself in while my mom looked at her boring stuff

Originally Posted by Acajack

Does anyone remember Kresge?

I do, but only the location at Polo Park Mall in Winnipeg that lasted until the late 80s. As I vaguely recall it was just like K-Mart except smaller. In much the same way that Woolworth stores were like Woolco, but smaller.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by esquire

I hated going to SAAN when I was a kid because there was no toy department to amuse myself in while my mom looked at her boring stuff

Yeah at least the others had toy departments or at the very least those gumball machines which also sold sticky hands and other fun stuff.

[O-tacular]

Drove past this company with an unfortunate name the other day. Apparently they are Canada's oldest bakery. The sign used to just say Bread Canada. Now it's Bimbo Canada.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9815...7i16384!8i8192

[esquire]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

Yeah at least the others had toy departments or at the very least those gumball machines which also sold sticky hands and other fun stuff.

Ha!

My kids never set foot in stores for a good two years of the pandemic... they have grown up without the knowledge of combatting boredom while their parents poke around whatever retailer.

Originally Posted by O-tacular

Drove past this company with an unfortunate name the other day. Apparently they are Canada's oldest bakery. The sign used to just say Bread Canada. Now it's Bimbo Canada.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9815...7i16384!8i8192

They even sponsor soccer teams... how would you like to throw down a couple hundred bucks on a sweet jersey with BIMBO splashed on the front?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

I hated going to SAAN when I was a kid because there was no toy department to amuse myself in while my mom looked at her boring stuff



I do, but only the location at Polo Park Mall in Winnipeg that lasted until the late 80s. As I vaguely recall it was just like K-Mart except smaller. In much the same way that Woolworth stores were like Woolco, but smaller.

I believe that Kresge and K-Mart may have been part of the same corporate family.

[Wigs]

I'm liking the stories of the past couple of years of Indigenous working with provincial or Federal governments to get their own grocery stores up and running to really cater to the needs of the specific community they are in.

Employ locals in as many positions as possible and recirculate as much money back through the local community instead of funneling it back to some corporate office in say Winnipeg, Edmonton, or Toronto.

Pukatawagan residents celebrate opening of First Nation's new community-owned grocery store
'The people have waited for a very long time to have a store to call … their own,' says Chief Lorna Bighetty
Austin Grabish - CBC Manitoba News
Posted: October 02, 2022

She said most people in Pukatawagan get their groceries shipped in on a train from The Pas — more than 200 kilometres to the south — or buy them locally from the more expensive Northern Store.

Inside that store, owned by the North West Company, a box of frozen Delissio pizza sells for $16.49, a bag of white bread is $6.59 and a large tub of Becel margarine is $14.49.

"Last week we picked up four bags of groceries [at the Northern Store] and it was a little bit over $400, " said Ralph Caribou, who is in charge of special projects in the community.

"We pick up a cart full today [at the new store] and it's just a little over $200 — huge difference, and we're still making money at these prices."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...tore-1.6601153

[WhipperSnapper]

Reminds when my buddies and I started sponsoring a local kids league. We starting think about funny names or logos after a few pitchers of beer.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by esquire

Ha!

My kids never set foot in stores for a good two years of the pandemic... they have grown up without the knowledge of combatting boredom while their parents poke around whatever retailer.



They even sponsor soccer teams... how would you like to throw down a couple hundred bucks on a sweet jersey with BIMBO splashed on the front?

I would love them as a sponsor, lol.

[Acajack]

I think it's slang for "baby" in Italian. Derived from "bambino".

[urbandreamer]

Used to be Canada Bread, maker of those Swiss Chalet rolls and Tim Hortons bagels, buns etc.

I remember my parents shopping at SAAN a few times in small town Ontario, but mostly Robinson's, M&S and Kmart at Conestoga Mall and the local Biway, which I always found embarrassing to be seen in.

That weird, almost migraine-inducing smell in Hart, Giant Tiger, SAAN (also Honest Ed's) etc is from the cheap polyester clothes that come wrapped in plastic combined with cheap leather boots and vinyl running shoes. I came across this scent while working for several cheap schmatte manufacturers/distributors on rue Chabanel twenty years ago. The mostly Chinese and Orthodox owners are really nasty people to work for.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Does anyone remember Kresge?

Yes, we had an S S Kresge (AKA Kresge's) store downtown Timmins up until 1990. We had a K-mart as well located in the mall. ( The K comes from Kresge, and yes they were the same company) We also had two Woolco locations, one downtown and one in the mall. The first Woolco opened as Woolworth's and its named changed in the 1970s.

All of those stores had cool restaurants but the lunch counter in Kresge's looked amazing. I read that the store opened in 1937 and the lunch counter must have been from that era maybe with some updates over the years.

[SpongeG]

BIMBO is from Mexico, you see their products and signs and buildings a lot down there.

[quall]

We had a SAAN growing up in Valley East, ON, north of Sudbury, as well as a Stedman's V&S in the 90s/early '00s. They became a Rossy and Hart respectively.

Going to Sears or Walmart in Sudbury proper was like shopping at Holt Renfrew in comparison.

Originally Posted by Loco101

Yes, we had an S S Kresge (AKA Kresge's) store downtown Timmins up until 1990.

My mom's first job was at a Kresge's (so that's how it's spelled, huh). Not sure if it was the one in Timmins though. According to Google there was one in Rouyn-Noranda, which checks out as she went to high school there.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

BIMBO is from Mexico, you see their products and signs and buildings a lot down there.

A lot almost everywhere in LatAm - they are a huge conglomerate.

[SpongeG]

yea, looks like they started buying up some bakery companies in Canada around 2014, they must have only recently changed the names to Bimbo here. Langley has a few bakery factory places with Bimbo signage now. I really only noticed the change in the last two years but never really paid attention till my visit to Mexico last summer when I noticed Bimbo everywhere.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by quall

We had a SAAN growing up in Valley East, ON, north of Sudbury, as well as a Stedman's V&S in the 90s/early '00s. They became a Rossy and Hart respectively.

Going to Sears or Walmart in Sudbury proper was like shopping at Holt Renfrew in comparison.



My mom's first job was at a Kresge's (so that's how it's spelled, huh). Not sure if it was the one in Timmins though. According to Google there was one in Rouyn-Noranda, which checks out as she went to high school there.

That's really cool. Yep at one time there were locations in Timmins, Kapuskasing, Kirkland Lake and Rouyn-Noranda.

[SpongeG]

in Ft St John we had SAAN, Kresge, fields, Co-op, Stedmans/Macleods and a Hudsons Bay, all downtown. Then around 1980 a new shopping mall opened up and the mall was anchored by Safeway and Zellers. The Bay eventually shut down. Most of the other stores closed, SAAN moved to the mall in the mid to late 80's and Fields' old store was demolished but moved to a new location.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Yes, we had an S S Kresge (AKA Kresge's) store downtown Timmins up until 1990. We had a K-mart as well located in the mall. ( The K comes from Kresge, and yes they were the same company) We also had two Woolco locations, one downtown and one in the mall. The first Woolco opened as Woolworth's and its named changed in the 1970s.

All of those stores had cool restaurants but the lunch counter in Kresge's looked amazing. I read that the store opened in 1937 and the lunch counter must have been from that era maybe with some updates over the years.

Kresge was the company's original main street department store.

With auto dependent urbanisation taking root they later launched the K-Mart brand with larger discount stores surrounded by a sea of parking, often anchored to malls.

[softee]

North Bay had a Kresge's, A Woolworth's, a Simpson-Sears and an Eaton's on Main Street in the glory days of downtown shopping.

[esquire]

I've never been to North Bay so I have no frame of reference, but it looks like a pretty big city in that vintage postcard.