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Shop Easy Grocery Store

2nd and 3rd Generation page

Shop Easy Food Fair: I have been detecting some internet chatter concerning Shop Easy Food Fair in the plaza and thought it was a good time to make a post about the establishment. I remember Shop Easy in the back end of the plaza. It was a quite busy there. Our family rarely shopped there. My mother was the manager of the Thompson Co-op Store and that is where we did most of our shopping. If we shopped anywhere else it was the Safeway store in City Center Mall. Safeway was a little more modern than Shop Easy. My impression of Shop Easy, as a youth, was that it was crowded. It seemed older and little more congested and cluttered and I remember boxes …lots of boxes. The grocery store took different forms over the years. It finally closed down in 2013. Thompson’s resident historian, John Barker, wrote an article about the end of Shop Easy and its affiliate company in Thompson and other areas in the North. I included some excerpts from his article. I also included a picture of the store when it closed. Apparently, the CEO of the company that founded Shop Easy was the one who had the original idea for the plaza back in 1961. Did anyone else make Shop Easy the go to place to shop? Did anyone work there? What is there now?

Shop Easy Foods Info

Like most Thompsonites probably, I divide my grocery shopping between Extra Foods in Thompson Plaza and Canada Safeway in City Centre Mall, supplemented by a few food items from Wal-Mart and Giant Tiger.

That will end when Extra Foods closes its doors in four days on June 23, 2012, right in the middle of Nickel Days, the first time Loblaw Companies Ltd., the corporate owner of Extra Foods, hasn’t operated in Thompson since the opening of Thompson Plaza on Nov. 2, 1961 with Shop Easy Foods, and less than eight months after the $185-million Inco smelter and refinery integrated surface operations opened. The very idea for Thompson Plaza, in fact, belonged to E.D. Cooper of Shop Easy Foods.

By John Barker 6-20-2012

Extra Foods is pulling out of another northern Manitoba market. The store in Thompson will close its doors June 23, becoming the fourth national chain to exit the mining city since last September. Mayor Tim Johnston said he learned of the ‘potential’ of Extra Foods closing early last week. ‘That did come as a surprise and I’m extremely concerned,’ he said. The news comes after Extra Foods closed its Flin Flon store last October, citing poor finances. That move cost the community 45 jobs, 17 of them full-time. Loblaw Companies Ltd., which owns the grocery chain, has denied rumours the store in The Pas is set for closure. In Thompson, Extra Foods is the anchor store of Thompson Plaza, western Canada’s oldest enclosed mall. The Thompson closure mark be the first time the Ontario-based Loblaw, a subsidiary of George Weston Ltd., has not operated in the city since the opening of Thompson Plaza in 1961. The very idea for Thompson Plaza, in fact, belonged to E.D. Cooper of Shop Easy Foods.

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For many years the Thompson Plaza grocery store operated as a Shop Easy Foods and OK Economy supermarket, two of Loblaw’s current and former regional and market segment banners in different areas across the country. Other Loblaw banners besides Extra Foods and Shop Easy Foods include No Frills, Valu-Mart, Real Canadian Superstore, Provigo, SaveEasy, Fortinos, Zehrs Markets, Dominion, Red & White Food Stores, Atlantic Superstore, SuperValu, Lucky Dollar Foods, Freshmart, Maxi and Your Independent Grocer.

Loblaw, the largest food retailer in Canada, was started in Toronto in June 1919 by Toronto grocers Theodore Pringle Loblaw and J. Milton Cork. Bread salesman George Weston started George Weston Limited, also in Toronto, in 1882.

The very idea for Thompson Plaza, in fact, belonged to E.D. Cooper of Shop Easy Foods, who had discussed it with Capital Developments Ltd. Marlowe-Yeoman of Vancouver, a company co-founded in 1963 by John B. Lansdell, of Lacombe, Alta., owns Thompson Plaza.

The first commercial tenants of Thompson Plaza included branches of the Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), a T. Eaton Co. or Eaton’s outlet, Simpson-Sears, CESM-TV, CHTM-Radio, Cochrane-Dunlop Hardware, Bata Shoes, F. W. Woolworth Company or Woolworth’s, Shop Easy Foods, Plaza Pharmacy, owned by Florian Soble, and McKinnon Jewellers.

John barker 4-24-2012






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