T&T Supermarket to open its latest location in a Toronto mall

A long-standing Loblaws location inside a Toronto mall is due to close its doors this month, but it won't be long before another supermarket giant swoops in to replace it. 

The Loblaws store inside RioCan Empress at 5095 Yonge St. is preparing to shut down at the end of October, staff confirmed to blogTO via phone call last week. The grocery store, which sat below one of the longest freestanding escalators in North America for decades, will officially close on Saturday, Oct. 25. 

However, another Loblaw Companies-owned supermarket chain will soon take over the massive retail space. According to a building permit filed with the City, a request to renovate the retail space to accommodate a new T&T Supermarket was accepted back in July. 

The Vancouver-based Canadian Asian supermarket chain was acquired by Loblaw back in July 2009, and has drastically increased its footprint in Toronto over the past few years, with locations at College and Spadina and another near Yonge and Dundas on Edward Street. 

blogTO reached out to T&T Supermarket for more information regarding the store, but a spokesperson said that the company does not have "anything to share at the moment." 

This isn't the first example of a Loblaws grocery store transitioning into another company-owned chain over the past few years. Last year, the Loblaws at Broadview and Danforth transitioned into a No Frills, during a time when the company was facing accusations of price gouging. 

blogTO has also reached out to Loblaw to inquire about the reasoning behind the store's closure, but has not received a response at the time of this article's publication.