The old Oakridge mall site has gone more than six years without anywhere to buy a carton of milk, and that streak ends on August 27.
Safeway makes its return and opens its new Oakridge Park store to the public at 10 a.m. that morning.
The store runs more than 50,000 square feet across two levels, sitting underground and reached from the mall’s south atrium.
BC Liquor is set to move into the unit beside the grocery store.
The old Safeway at Oakridge Centre closed in January 2020 as demolition work on the redevelopment moved ahead.
What replaced it opened in late May 2026 with a luxury tenant list and a 51,000 square foot Time Out Market food hall on the second level.
Plenty to eat, but nothing to cook with.
That gap is what closes at the end of the month.
Safeway is positioning this one as its flagship in the region and one of the largest stores it runs in the Vancouver market, and the fresh food side is where the ambition shows up.
There is an in-store sushi counter, Asian hot foods, dim sum, buffet-style offerings, and ready-to-eat meal solutions.
The seafood department runs three live tanks alongside a broader selection of fresh fish and shellfish.
Three live tanks is closer to what you would expect at a Richmond Asian supermarket than a Safeway on West 41st.
A dedicated Global Market anchors the international products, and the team says more of those items are worked through the rest of the store rather than parked in one aisle.
The second level is the part that is not really groceries at all.
That floor holds a pharmacy, the Rachelle Béry natural and organic line, general merchandise, and a baby boutique.
And of course, the Starbucks kiosk is making its return, adding another beverage option to the mall.
The store was designed to reflect the needs and diversity of the surrounding community, according to Safeway, which is corporate language for a Cambie corridor that shops very differently than it did in 2020.
The same 28 acre redevelopment is adding roughly 3,000 homes across more than a dozen towers, and those towers are still going up.
Everyone moving into them has been driving somewhere else for groceries.
A grand opening ceremony runs earlier that morning, so expect the space around the south atrium to be busy before the doors open to the public at 10 a.m.
The new Safeway joins a run of Oakridge Park arrivals we have tracked this summer, including the Delysees pastry boutique, the % Arabica kiosk, and the Chipotle going in across the street at Cambie and 41st.
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Address: Oakridge Park, 650 W 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC (south atrium)