TO MARKET WE GO
RENOVATED GROCERY HAS SERVED NORTHEAST RESIDENTS SINCE 1912
RENOVATED, REFURBISHED AND READY TO GO. A CENTURY OLD MARKET GREETS THE NEXT GENERATION OF NEIGHBOURHOOD SHOPPERS
It’s been a full century since North East Grocery opened at 1104 1st Ave. N.E. in Bridgeland. The area was known as Riverside then and the store served working-class immigrant Germans and Italians and a new group of employees at the just-built Calgary General Hospital. On the eastern edge of the city, the little grocery was soon surrounded by houses and did a bustling business.
As the community matured, North East Grocery became a neighbourhood landmark. In 1981, it was purchased by Nawaf and Fatima Traya, recent arrivals from Lac La Biche. Nawaf had come from Lebanon at age nine and lived in the northern Alberta town where his father still runs a grocery store. He thought he’d continue the family tradition.
Business was good, so in 2003 the Trayas purchased the shop across 1st Avenue and opened a small bakery and cafe called Tazza. They also built an addition to the grocery.
Tazza grew in popularity and size, and North East Grocery maintained its pace as a busy store. But in recent years, Yousef Traya, Nawaf and Fatima’s son, saw the neighbourhood changing around him as young condo owners moved in. He thought it was time to give the old brick-andwood market a facelift.
So he pulled up the old floors, exposing the concrete. He cleaned the pounded-tin ceiling and found new tin tiles to replace damaged or missing ones. He opened the space and brought in new shelving and lighting and recycled some decades-old wooden apple boxes for vegetable display. And he changed the name to Bridgeland Market (403-269-2381).
He also expanded his product line to include Sidewalk Citizen breads, Spolumbo’s sausages, Hoven beef, Vital Greens dairy products, Paradise Mountain and Phil & Sebastian coffees and Prairie Roots poultry.
He’s maintained old connections with suppliers such as Byblos Bakery and offers Tazza’s popular hummus and tabbouleh, too. He’s even expanded his deli line to include a number of cured meats, including some of the best-priced Serrano ham in town. (Note: February is Spanish month, with Serrano and many Spanish products at 50 per cent off.) Come summer, Traya plans to invite fruit and vegetable producers to display their wares out front, like a mini farmers’ market.
Traya has also installed a small sandwich stand and ice cream business. And he’s open every day of the week, continuing a muchneeded service to the denizens of Calgary’s new Bridgeland.
Les Marmitons, the gentlemen’s cooking club, continues to do good work in our community. The group gets together regularly to cook and share meals with each other while learning about food. And they help the homeless, too.
Last Sunday, Les Marmitons, assisted by family and friends, served almost 2,500 meals at the Calgary Drop-in Centre, their eighth annual such event. They also whipped up more than a thousand muffins, fruit salad by the bucket, a couple thousand sandwiches and more than 900 pounds of vegetables to be used this week. To do that, the group raised more than $18,000 to purchase food through Sysco Canada and borrowed the banquet facilities at Heritage Park to prepare the food.
The Alberta Motor Association and the American Automobile Association recently announced their Five Diamond awards for restaurants and hotels across North America. There are only five, five-diamond restaurants in Canada, and Eden, in Banff’s Rimrock Resort Hotel, is the only one in the west. There are eight fourdiamond restaurants in Alberta: Le Beaujolais and the Banffshire Club in Banff; the Fairview Dining Room and the Post Hotel Dining Room in Lake Louise; and Catch, Chef’s Table, Il Sogno and La Chaumiere in Calgary.