Burnaby just lost the only place in the mall selling a croissant shaped like a fish.
During our stroll through Metropolis at Metrotown, we spotted that Stuffies Pastries has quietly shut down.
The shutdown happened quietly in mid August, with no notice on the glass and no post announcing it.
Google now lists the location as permanently closed as well.
The shop was located near the food court, which is heavy foot traffic by any measure, and it ran for almost five years there.
What it sold was hard to mistake for anything else in the building.
The pastries came out of a machine in the shape of bears and fish, filled with custard, and the counter line under the logo read “They’re ALMOST too cute to eat.”
The rest of the board was built off the same mould.
There was the Cro-Tai, a fish-shaped compressed croissant that came sweet with Nutella or red bean and savoury with spinach and feta or bacon and egg, plus soft serve piped into a taiyaki waffle cone with a skewer of fruit or caramel stuck in the top.
The format was never a local invention.
Stuffies first started back in 2017 in North Vancouver, after securing North American rights from DeliManjoo, the South Korean company that has been building automatic animal-shaped pastry machines since 1988.
At the time, it was the only shop of its kind in Western Canada.
Then it franchised, and it went east.
There are now Stuffies counters in Calgary, at West Edmonton Mall, in Scarborough, in Vaughan and on Yonge Street in Toronto.
British Columbia is where it has been shrinking.
The Guildford Town Centre store in Surrey went first this summer. It is tagged permanently closed and has been dropped from the mall’s own store directory.
That leaves the 2017 North Vancouver original as the last one standing in the province.
A brand that started at a bus loop in North Vancouver has pulled out of both of its BC malls in one summer while opening in three other provinces.
The Metrotown unit is still fitted out, glass counter and all, waiting on whoever takes it.
Stuffies Metrotown joins other recent Burnaby closures including Porker Face, Isami, and Little Billy’s.
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Address: 4820 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC
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