The Root Cellar Comes to Cook Street

Reporter

The Root Cellar Comes to Cook Street

271 COOK STREETTHEROOTCELLAR.CA

The local store is the natural successor to the Village’s long-time Oxford Street grocery.

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.

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.

Owners Daisy and Adam Orser in the new space.

Photo: Jacqueline Downey

“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.

“We had made the decision to become a destination store,” says Orser. “But when this location came available we couldn’t say no. It has been pulling at our heart strings.”

Rendering of The Root Cellar Cook Street Village exterior.

Located in the heart of Cook Street Village in what was formerly Oxford Foods, the new space will have a very similar design to the first location, with a “Chop

Shop,” deli, and a ready supply of their famous green sauce. It won’t have a coffee shop or potting shed (yet), but for those of us who go out of our way to shop at The Root Cellar, it is welcome news—and it carries on the legacy of that corner of the village, which has been a grocer for seven decades.

Easily accessible by foot for those in the neighbourhood, it also has ample parking for bigger shopping days. The interior has been completely stripped of its previous design and will be bright, open, and pleasantly navigable, with lots of fresh air and natural light, much like the McKenzie Street store. Open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., The Root Cellar Cook Street Village is a welcomed addition to a thriving community that loves supporting local. ADRIEN SALA