Grocery Stores
A family-run butcher in Seafair Centre, trading since the early 1980s and one of very few shops in the area that dry-ages its own beef. European-style cuts, house sausage, cured meats, local poultry and lamb, and custom orders taken over the phone.
Buying meat from a counter rather than a chiller changes what you can cook, and it changes it most for people who are not confident cooks. The trick is to treat the counter as advice rather than as a display case. Say what you are making and how many people are eating, then let somebody who does this all day decide what you take home. That conversation is the actual product. The meat is what you carry out afterwards.
Seafair is west Richmond, on the No. 1 Road stretch around Francis Road, in one of the flatter and quieter residential parts of the city. Seafair Centre is a neighborhood plaza rather than a mall, the sort of place with a grocery store, a few services and a surface lot, serving the blocks around it and not much beyond. The area runs west toward Terra Nova and the West Dyke Trail, which is where a good part of the neighborhood spends its mornings.
Specialist food shops survive in settings like this because their customers live within a few minutes and come back weekly. That is a different business from a destination butcher in a city center, and it shows in how the counter works: fewer strangers, more repeat conversations, and a fair amount of holding things back for people who asked in advance. Anyone planning around a holiday should get in touch well before the week itself, because that is when a small counter runs short of the things everybody wants at once.
In the Seafair neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other grocery stores and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
A long-running Eastern and Central European grocer in Steveston, entered from the back of the building on Second Avenue. Imported sausage and smoked meats, rye breads, pickles, preserves and the candy people grew up with in Poland and Ukraine.
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Off-the-boat seafood sold at Steveston's Fisherman's Wharf, open Thursday to Sunday mornings only and often sold out before closing time. Spot prawns in season plus whatever landed that day. Bring cash, or pre-order online and collect at the dock.
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An older, no-frills Park Road supermarket that has outlasted flashier neighbors. Free parking, narrow aisles, and a genuinely pan-Asian shelf mix, with Chinese, Filipino, Malaysian and Indonesian pantry items sitting side by side at fair prices.
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The Vancouver chain's largest store, about 19,000 square feet on Garden City Road and open 8:30am to 10pm daily. Straightforward Chinese-Canadian grocery shopping: fresh meat and seafood counters, stacked produce, bulk dry goods and sauces.
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Over 10,000 square feet of Japanese goods on Alderbridge Way, most of it imported directly. Bento, sushi and hot food made in-house each morning, plus frozen fish, seasonings, cosmetics and kitchenware. It closes at 6pm, so go earlier than you think.
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A busy Chinese supermarket in the plaza on No. 3 Road, popular for a well-stocked produce floor, a barbecue counter locals rate for leaner char siu, and bulk dace fish paste. Cashiers work fast; finding a parking spot is the only hard part.
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From the blog
Longer reads from the editor, with the places worth a detour linked inside them.
The Night Market's final season is the loud story. The quieter one: free admission at the Cannery ends Monday, Britannia keeps summer hours through Sunday, and Steveston does sunsets better than anyone.
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Nothing on Alexandra Road is a secret. It is just in a strip mall with bad signage and no patio, which is why visitors never find it. Here is how I actually use Richmond's plazas and food courts, which specialists are worth the drive, and when not to bother.
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The West Dyke Trail is about five and a half kilometres of flat gravel between Terra Nova Rural Park and Garry Point, and I ride it most mornings. Here is what is actually at the north end, which way to walk so the wind is on your side, and why winter is the better season for it.
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