What’s yellow and black and filled with hungry shoppers?
No Frills, of course.
Thunder Bay’s newest discount grocery store opened its doors Friday at Northwood Plaza, filling a vacancy left when mall owners did not renew Northwood Food’s lease earlier this year.
Franchisee Darcy Leduc said it’s been a busy couple of months getting the store in shape for its grand opening, but worth the wait.
“This has been a very exciting process for myself and my family,” said Leduc, who arrived in the city with his family from Oshawa, Ont.
Business was brisk on opening day, with customers hunting for bargains at the store.
“From what we’re watching we were extremely exciting how well the reception was for No Frills,” Leduc said.
“We’re the first store in Northwestern Ontario, the first store in Thunder Bay. There are going to be more coming up here and the success of this store will dictate bringing further stores up to Northwestern Ontario.”
No Frills is owned by Loblaw Canada Limited, a subsidiary of George Westin Limited.
The company operates more than 200 stores in eight provinces, the exceptions being Quebec and Manitoba.
Its first store opened in Toronto in 1978 and opened its first store outside of Ontario in 2007.
Leduc said the stores are all about simplistic shopping.
We offer the best prices we can. We won’t be beat. We’re a smaller format store. We have pre-packaged products. Customers can come in, grab the stuff they need and it’s a very quick shopping experience.”
A second Thunder Bay location, at County Fair Plaza, is scheduled to open on Nov. 29. Stores hours are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week.
