New Longo's store serves the urban shopper

Longo’s opened the doors to a new Market by Longo’s location Wednesday morning.

The 8,500-sq.-ft. store is located in the historic Imperial Plaza building on St. Clair Avenue in Toronto. It shares the lobby of the building with a new LCBO liquor store. The building was originally Imperial Oil’s head office.

This is the fifth Market by Longo’s in downtown Toronto–a store concept that specializes in delivering fresh and prepared food and convenience in specialized urban concept stores.

It's not the only store in this neighbourhood targeting area shoppers. Just down the street, near Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue, Loblaw operates a store in a building that shares space with a gym, food court, pharmacy and subway stop. And just a little further west, a Sobeys Urban Fresh is located in the base of a large condo building. Sobeys’ urban-store concept is also geared towards city dwellers.

The new Market by Longo’s features a stone pizza oven, full-service deli with hundreds of cheese from Canada and around the world, and a Starbucks coffee shop.

The store’s produce section has extensive local and organic varieties. A sign above a display of tomatoes, for example, declares "we love Ontario's best." Elements of Longo's "Taste Ontario" program could also be seen throughout the department on opening day.

Unique to this store, curated food samplings will complement the features of the neighbouring LCBO. Retail design agency Ampersand Studio collaborated with Longo's on the rebrand of the The Market by Longo's and design of the new location at Imperial Plaza.

Ampersand Studio commissioned a local artist (Jeremy Kantor) to provide Illustrations at some of the service counters such as The Cheese Shop and Meat & Seafood.