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Cheap produce in Chinatown
If you're looking for the true Victoria-style grocery-shopping experience, you need to head over to Chinatown. It's the place to get both Western and Eastern produce at fantastic prices. These shops are also a great source of Asia's most fantastic export since cheap computer hardware and anime: the best junk food in the world!
The Market on Yates
Everyone loves the Market. It's open 'till 11. Everyone knows someone who works there. It's small but it has everything. It's well-lit. It's not totally ghetto. You'll run into Ocean Islander staff. Things to get: their starving student salad, cheap tofu, hemp hearts, kettle corn, great bread, organic Denman island chocolate bars, ancient-style greek soaps. Don't get: their awful brownies, packaged sushi, expensive meat, packaged chinese food. Don't leave without checking out: Their sweet bulk section.
903 Yates Street (map, 381-6000, Open 7am - 11pm 7days a week
Wellburn's Foods
About the same distance as the Market, but more ghetto. Which can be a relief. Market on Yates can be such a fashion show. Wellburn's has everything, except their selection of organic-non-sugar-grain-fed-local type stuff is limited. And it's cheap.
1058 Pandora Avenue (map) 384-3543, Monday-Friday 8:30am-10pm, Saturday & Sunday 9am-10pm
Grocery Plus
If you want to pick up some milk but don't want to brave 7-11, Grocery Plus is really just a corner store but they often have good deals on basics. They also have Chinese takeaway and their $5 combo will make you very, very happy.
1126 Quadra Street (map) 381-6522
Italian Food Imports
Need pesto? Got a craving for real spaghetti? Italian Food Imports is the solution to all your Italian culinary needs. They also sell great ready-made paninis for $5.
1114 Blanshard Street (map) 385-7923
Cheaper, Better Selection, Further Away
If you have a car or want to take the bus/a cab/your bike and do some hardcore grocery shopping, there are a few big, mindnumbing, chain supermarkets just outside the downtown core .
Oxford Foods
Discount discount discount! Pretty bloody cheap. Fruit cheaper than Chinatown, canned goods cheaper than Wellburn's, and they've always got "clearance" carts full of marked-down products. It's a bit of a walk, but it can be about 40% cheaper than the Market on Yates. And then you can go across the street for some $7 wine.
271 Cook Street (map)
Thrifty Foods
I love Thrifty Foods! It's big but not too big and brightly lit but not so much that your eyes burn and the aisles are wide but not too... oh nevermind. It's got a bulk section, an organic selection, you can pick up a pamphlet advertising all their deals and their deli salads rock. The two locations closest to the hostel are:
475 Simcoe Street (Corner of Simcoe and Menzies St in James Bay) (map)
3475 Quadra Street (corner of Quadra and Cloverdale) (map)
Save On Foods
It's huge. HUGE and fairly cheap. A great bulk food section; you can get a gallon of peanut butter should your heart desire. The two locations closest to the hostel are:
172 Wilson Street (just across the Johnson St bridge) (map)
3510 Blanshard Street (corner of Blanshard and Saanich Rd) (map)
www.saveonfoods.com
Fairway Market
Cheapest groceries, best selection, pretty ghetto, but hey it's got a great chinese section.
3555 Douglas Street, at Town & Country Shopping Centre (map)
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