Reporter
The Root Cellar Comes to Cook Street
271 COOK STREET
THEROOTCELLAR.CA
The local store is the natural successor to the Village’s long-time Oxford Street grocery.
Understanding this, it’s great news that The Root Cellar, one of the few stores in Victoria that is privately owned and still retains the feel and practices of grocers before they went big box, is opening its second location later this year in Cook Street Village.
JACQUELINE DOWNEY
FOR GENERATIONS, GROCERY STORES were the heartbeat of many communities—a place where people would go to gather the goods they needed to feed their families, where they would interact with other people in the area, and bump into old friends. People were often on a first-name basis with their butcher and produce manager, trusted in the quality of the food and other goods they were buying, and understood that their local grocer stood by the products they sold. It was a simpler time. Then, grocery went corporate. Conglomerates absorbed the smaller stores to create behemoth enterprises with countless employees, too big to know your name. Going shopping became less of a social experience than a necessity, something one did without expecting much more than to gather what was needed and head home.
Owners Daisy and Adam Orser in the new space. “It was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” says Daisy Orser, who co-owns The Root Cellar with her husband, Adam. Interestingly, they’d wanted to be in Cook Street Village when they first came to the city 13 years ago, but in the end opted to take on the location at the corner of McKenzie and Blenkinsop, essentially the bridge point between the city and the agricultural land that supplies a lot of their product.
Han dmade Eth i cal L o cal
FROM SEA TO TABLE
Tradi t i o n al
Locally sourced seafood and fresh seasonal ingredients are the culinary stars of our fall menu. Pair your coastal meal with an award-winning Q Bar cocktail and you have an unforgettable experience.
CURED AND SMOKED MEATS 2 0 3 2 O A K B AY A V E N U E , V I C T O R I A fairmont-empress.com
photo by damon eats
12 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
250.590.PORK
THEWHOLEBEAS T.CA C U RED@ T H EWH O LEB EA ST.C A
