Bute Street outlet opening Sunday slightly smaller than Yaletown original
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
Steve van der Leest, president of Overwaitea Food Group, is shown in the Urban Fare opening Sunday at 305 Bute
The wait will soon be over for Coal Harbour food lovers anxious to sample Texas rattlesnake meat or fresh Poilane bread imported from France.
Vancouver gourmet grocer Urban Fare opens its second store Sunday at 305 Bute St. to complement its popular Yaletown outlet that opened on Davie Street eight years ago.
It’s the start of a multi-store expansion that will see four Urban Fare food stores operating in the city by 2011.
A third store is planned late next year in the Shangri-La development near Georgia and Thurlow while a fourth will be built on the Olympic Village site near False Creek after the games.
“Vancouver has become a world city and has the kind of customer base where Urban Fare is going to shine,” Overwaitea Food Group president Steve van der Leest said in an interview.
” . . . If Vancouver continues to grow as a world city, you’d think there will be other opportunities for us here.”
The new 21,500-square-foot Coal Harbour store is slightly smaller than the Yaletown outlet and located at the street level of a major highrise condominium building near the intersection of Bute and Cordoba streets.
Mushrooming high-end condo projects in the area have clearly created a strong market for the store as fascinated passersby are already trying to get in to shop.
But van der Leest stressed the new Urban Fare isn’t just about ultra-extravagant items like $150-a-snake rattlesnakes or $100-a-loaf Poilane bread. If you want Kraft dinner, it’ll be there.
“There is assisted housing in this neighbourhood and a lot of office workers, along with the high-end condos,” van der Leest said. “We realize people will be counting on us to be their grocery store so we have to have regular items as well as gourmet.”
But the list of non-regular items is impressive. There’s a deli with more than 200 international cheeses, along with a wide selection of pates and fresh stuffed pastas.
A gourmet bakery features dozens of fresh artisan-style breads and a Belgian chocolate bar with items created by local chocolatier Wim Tas. The meat and seafood department has unique items like bison, shark and yellow fin tuna.
The store decor itself has a strong West Coast theme, with muted tones that showcase the food.
The exterior landing at the store entrance is stoned aggregate concrete shaped like Stanley Park and a water feature inside features wood from cedar trees in the park that were downed during last year’s powerful storms.
Interior lighting has been designed to resemble birds in flight, ceiling fans are made from fishing rods, vintage postal carts display products and a large table in the restaurant has been made from Stanley Park timber.
The ever-popular sustainability factor has not been forgotten, with heat from the store’s refrigeration equipment circulated through the entire building.
Van der Leest said he has no current plans to open new Urban Fare stores outside Vancouver, although he has been asked to do so several times. An Edmonton Urban Fare store operated from 2001 until 2004, but without generating the sales of its Vancouver counterpart.
“It was a trial on our part to see if we could make it work in a less densely-populated setting,” van der Leest said. “We just didn’t have enough people there to really keep it going the way we wanted.”
He also doubts the Vancouver Urban Fare stores will take business away from each other because he expects they will draw from their own distinct markets.
“When we opened the Yaletown store, we thought there’d be a lot of drivers going there (from other parts of Vancouver) but the parking lot is often quite empty,” van der Leest said. “Most of our traffic is local, walk-in traffic and that’s what we expect to happen with the Coal Harbour store.”
Overwaitea Food Group vice-president Tom Munro said the Coal Harbour market is probably a little older and a little wealthier than the Yaletown market.
“Yaletown is a little more of a neighbourhood now but Coal Harbour is growing into a neighbourhood,” he said. “We think this [Coal Harbour] store will have a lot more catering sales and probably more gift basket sales. The yacht trade in the area and the office traffic will also be important factors.”
The new store will employ 185 workers and will be open daily from 6 a.m. until midnight.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007