Vince's Market unveils new Sharon store

Despite the chilly temperature outside, the grand re-opening of Vince's Market's Sharon, Ont. location on Saturday morning drew dozens of local residents eager to get a glimpse of the new store.

The old store, located just steps away in the same plaza on Leslie St., was shuttered about a week ago and the Vince's team had been working around the clock to have the new store ready for Saturday's opening.

"We've got a really cool new offering for you," Giancarlo Trimarchi, one of Vince's Market's partners, told customers at the opening.

At 14,700 sq. ft., the bright and carefully curated new store has a larger footprint than its former location and boasts a number of new features including a stone-hearth pizza oven, a made fresh in-store sushi bar and a walk-in refrigerated beer department. Another soon-to-come feature of the store (scheduled to open in 2020) will be Vince's Community Kitchen. Located in the mezzanine, the community room will provide a place for customers to eat the prepared meals they've purchased downstairs. Programs such as cooking classes will also be offered in the space and the room will be available to rent out for parties or events.

Vince's Market has been a fixture in the Sharon community in the town of East Gwillimbury, about an hour north of Toronto,  since 1956. Back then, the it took the form of an open-air fruit market. Trimarchi's father Carmen purchased the business in 1986 and over the years it has expanded to five grocery stores (others are in nearby Newmarket, Uxbridge, Tottenham, and a smaller location at the Market & Co food hall at Upper Canada Mall in Newmarket) as well as a commissary to serve all of the  Vince's locations.

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"I think this location here in Sharon is just really special," said Trimarchi at the store's re-opening. "There's something about a small independent that knows who  are by name. You see those same faces over and over again every week and really, our customers become like family ... I'm lucky to be here today in the same town, on the same piece of land doing what we do."

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Trimarchi took the time to recognize the efforts of a number of Vince's team members for helping ensure the new store came together. "I'd like to thank them for all their dedication and all of the hard work they've put in, particularly this past week," said Trimarchi.