Finishing touches are going into a $500,000 expansion of the Root Cellar Village Green Grocer in Saanich that will more than double its original footprint to bring in more products, including a larger organic section and a floral centre.
At the same time, the Root Cellar owners are buying a neighbourhood grocery at 1120 Hillside Ave., near Quadra Street, to expand their fresh produce footprint into Victoria. Two run-down adjacent houses will come down to create parking space. The sale closes this month and plans are to spend up to $500,000 on improvements there and open within six months.
When the Root Cellar opened just over five years ago at the corner of McKenzie Avenue and Blenkinsop Road, it was an immediate hit with shoppers. The brainchild of Daisy and Adam Orser and Phil Lafreniere, it flourished in the capital region where shoppers have plenty of choices within the competitive grocery sector.
Their goal was to run a store “that we want to shop in,” Adam Orser said.
On summer weekends, 5,000 shoppers come through, the partners said.
The Root Cellar started with eight employees. There are now 72 and 25 more will be added at the 4,700-square-foot store on Hillside, at Prior Street.
The Hillside property is being added because customers requested a second location, Daisy Orser said. Some were emailing listings of available properties.
Renos will start the date the sale closes, Adam Orser said. It must be open within six months because the use is grandfathered in zoning rules, he said.
The original Root Cellar covered 5,600 square feet and the space was rented. Today, the partners own the two-acre property. Expansion and renos started in October, creating a total space of 12,800 square feet.
A new, 2,700 square foot interior space will include flowers, indoor plants, pots, greeting cards and related products and an expanded organic section. The goal is to see it open next week.
This walls are lined with fir and pine panels salvaged from an old house. Chains, hammers and tire irons came out to bash the walls to create a distressed look. Panels were painted in earth colours.
Adam Orser likens the new space to a European railway station. The design aimed for a cozy ambiance with some industrial features, such as corrugated metal sheeting. Its heating and cooling system will cut fuel usage by 90 per cent, he said.
“All of our existing categories will grow,” Daisy Orser said. The fresh meat section offers grass-fed beef and lamb.
In the large produce section, Daisy Orser points to a $3.99 package of local wild stinging nettle leaves, and to heirloom red spinach, at the same price. “We want to expand people’s horizons,” she said. “We want people to leave here excited to go home and make dinner.”
A former plant nursery on the site closed last year and the Root Cellar launched its own nursery, selling vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and various plants, most from Island growers.
