Who would have thought that Safeway would be selling siu mai and har gow?
But here we are.
The new Safeway in Oakridge Park officially opened on August 27th and you can say it is in a very ‘Asian time’ in its brand history.
It spans 50,000 square feet over two floors, groceries and bakery and hot food downstairs, pharmacy and a smaller floor above.
The last Safeway on this site closed in January 2020. Six and a half years is a long time to go without a grocery store in a neighbourhood.
We went to look at what a $6.49 sandwich is doing in the most expensive mall in the city, and left thinking about the steamers.
The company’s word for the difference is the Global Market.
In practice, in this location, that means putting a hella lot more Asian products on the shelves.
So essentially, you can expect the usual Safeway products PLUS fifty times more Asian products than you’d usually find there.
You see it before you see any product, because the aisle signs are bilingual.
SANDWICHES sits above 三明治. PACKAGED CHEESE and DELI carry their Chinese equivalents.
Customer Service is 顧客服務中心.
The hot kitchen runs under the Zenshi name and does the usual wings, nuggets and breakfast bites, then keeps going.
There is a sushi counter with a chef slicing salmon behind the glass and a case of rolls, bentos and poke.
There are entrée combos of fried rice, chow mein and sweet and sour pork.
And there is dim sum.
Har gow, siu mai, xiao long bao, sitting in real steamer stacks. I have never seen that in a Safeway and is a huge surprise.
The meat and seafood counter is the other giveaway.
Dry-aged beef sits behind glass, tanks of live lobster and fish run along the wall, and the staff will steam your lobster or fish for free before you take it home.
The fridges nearby carry thin-sliced hot pot packs, the kind you go to T&T or Price Smart for.
The bakery does egg tarts, pineapple buns and fresh mango cakes alongside the usual loaves.
The appearance of the pineapple buns and egg tarts does look a bit more suspect, though. They just look a bit off compared to what you’d find at T&T or Saint Germains.
The frozen aisles carry Japanese popsicles and frozen dumplings in volume.
Upstairs, past the pharmacy, there is even a small run of Asian skincare and haircare.
The Starbucks is back too, which finally gives that end of the mall somewhere to get a coffee.
That is the real story here.
Oakridge Park has taken a beating for having nowhere affordable to eat, and this fixes it by accident.
We went in the evening and the sandwich case was picked nearly clean, which tells you people had already worked it out.
Set your expectations, though.
Safeway is not Superstore and it is not Walmart, and the grocery bill will reflect that.
But a full-size grocery store that stocks har gow and hot pot beef and egg tarts, in a neighbourhood filling up with towers, is a genuinely useful thing.
Safeway Oakridge Park joins other recently opened Vancouver spots including Chef Hyve Commercial Drive, SUMU Burrard, and Mello Robson.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: Oakridge Park, 650 W 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC (south atrium)
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