Coppa’s opens downtown Toronto store
Coppa’s Fresh Market opened up its newest location in downtown Toronto at the end of February.
Called Market 63 by Coppa’s, the 20,000-sq.-ft. store is housed on the second floor of One York Street, a trendy mixed residential and commercial building located near the Scotiabank Arena (home of the Toronto Raptors and Maple Leafs).
“The concept we wanted to go with was to have a really downtown feel and to serve the community that’s in the south core of the downtown area, and I think we’ve really done that; but we also have not strayed away from our traditional offerings, which is our fresh meat, our bakery, the abundance of fresh produce, that sort of thing,” says John Louie Coppa, president of Coppa’s.
One of the new store’s highlights is its full-service, sit-down restaurant. “It’s attached to the store, but also has its own entrance,” says Coppa of the upscale 66-seat licensed eatery called Nonna Francesca’s Ristorante. The restaurant’s executive chef, Roberto Granata, describes the menu as “South Italian cuisine.”
Other highlights of the store include its premium dry-aged beef cooler, extensive selection of cheeses, and the bakery where 90% of the product is made in-house, says Coppa.
The store has a strong focus on high-quality grab-and-go foods and home meal replacement (HMR) items, partnering with celebrity chef Claudio Aprile (of MasterChef Canada fame) to oversee the kitchen. “I’m here to assist them in their creativity, and kind of really motivate the team, inspire them to reach as high as they can,” says Aprile.
“There’s a great focus on creativity and producing dishes that you typically don’t see in grocery stores. That’s the plan here—really having a restaurant-style approach to all of our HMR,” he adds. “With the new demographic, they’re looking for something that is experiential ... they want something that’s handmade and delicious, so that’s our goal.”
This new location brings the total number of Coppa’s stores to five. The other four locations are spread out around the Greater Toronto Area, in North York, Scarborough, Vaughan and King City.