New Barrhaven beer store to quench community's thirst
Posted Jul 29, 2010 By Steph Willems
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EMC Business - Very few residents in Barrhaven have lived in the community long enough to remember the opening of the Larkin Dr. Beer Store, but given the lack of local amenities in Barrhaven's early days, it was likely a momentous occasion.
The new Barrhaven Beer Store, located at 3500 Fallowfield Rd., is nearing completion and is scheduled to open in mid-August. The new location will offer customers a different beer buying experience and better selection.
In the years following that special day, the community has grown in leaps and bounds, its population rising to that of a small city. However, the small beer store remained the same, albeit much busier than before.
That will all change next month, when a much larger, more modern Beer Store opens its doors at 3500 Fallowfield Rd., between Woodroffe Ave. and Greenbank Rd.
"We expect to open mid-August, subject to our construction schedule," said Beer Store real estate director Peter Koene last week. "This 5,800 sq. ft. store will feature a self-service format that will greatly enhance the customer shopping experience for our customers in Barrhaven."
The new, expanded store will bring the Barrhaven location in line with the new format that the Beer Store is implementing across the province. Consumers can expect this to become the norm in coming years.
"As we build new stores, the full serve shopping experience will definitely be the new format," said Sandra Ward, director of organizational effectiveness with the Beer Store. "In the past year we have put eight new stores on the ground in Ontario in this consumer preferred format."
Ms. Ward said that the change isn't based purely on efficiency and economics. Research and questionnaires led Beer Store brass to the conclusion that beer drinkers prefer a more up-close-and-personal shopping when it comes to selecting a brew.
"Customers tell us that they far prefer to shop the products in our stores and enjoy a tactile experience," said Ms. Ward. "One of the benefits of a full shopping experience beer store is that customers get to pursue all of the brands available in the store at their own pace. The Beer Store has over 350 brands from over 90 brewers which is a fantastic selection and this allows (store) to showcase everything."
Essentially, a bigger store will mean more choice for Barrhaven beer drinkers.
Barrhaven Business Improvement Area executive director Andrea Steenbakkers is among those who have witnessed Barrhaven evolve and grow over the years. In her view, a new Beer Store is "long overdue."
"The current location is very small to serve the population, it will be nice to have one of the new, modern-format locations," she said.
Besides offering a different type of beer shopping experience, the new format stores will also make returning empties for deposit faster, with dual return stations. An interesting fact is that the Beer Store refills or recycles 4,000 bottles every minute, which diverts almost half a billion metric tones of packaging away from landfills each year.
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