North York Centre Went Almost a Year Without Its Empress Grocery Store. Then It Got Two in One Day.

The escalator down to the lower level of RioCan Empress at 5095 Yonge St. leads to a grocery store again. Since October 8, it has been T&T North York Centre. At 66,000 square feet, it's T&T's largest store in Ontario, and it has the province's first T&T Cafe. On that same day, a 30,000-square-foot Food Basics opened at 20 Church Ave.

That leaves the area around Yonge and Sheppard with something it didn't have before last fall. One supermarket used to cover everything. Now two stores split that work, each built for a different kind of trip.

The gap started last October

The store under the mall used to be a Loblaws. Loblaw confirmed to CTV News that its last day would be October 26, 2025. At the time, Loblaw said only that a T&T would move in "sometime in 2026." The company told CTV, "We believe that a T&T Supermarket will be a better fit for the Empress Market community," and said T&T offers "a broader range of Asian products and services that cater to the local community." Loblaw Companies Limited owns T&T, so this was one company swapping one of its banners for another.

By November 2025, blogTO reported that the City had issued permits to convert the space and that the store was expected in fall 2026. The opening came on October 8, just under a year after the Loblaws closed.

Long-time locals may still call the building Empress Walk. That name was already on its way out back in 2022, when blogTO reported a City signage application that would replace the jester logo with plain "RioCan Empress" branding. RioCan has owned the property since 2000. So the T&T opened under a new name in a building many people still call by its old one.

What's actually down there now

The T&T isn't a straight swap for the old store. Toronto.com's opening coverage describes a store that leans hard into prepared food and specialty sections:

• A self-serve hot bar with Peking duck and papa chicken, plus a barbecue station and a sushi counter.
• The largest T&T bakery in Ontario, with 150 kinds of baked goods, including Portuguese egg tarts, mango pomelo Swiss rolls and Hong Kong-style buns.
• More than 500 T&T private-label items, from pantry staples and dim sum to pork soup dumplings, Korean kalbi marinade, green onion pancakes and seaweed snacks.
• The chain's largest Japanese and Korean beauty selection.

Then there's the café, which is new for the whole province. The menu includes an ube latte, a black sesame latte and a protein latte, along with pastries and pressed sandwiches, and there's a seating area. Toronto.com reports the coffee is roasted from 100 per cent arabica beans from South America and served with bamboo straws.

The hours matter too. T&T's store locator lists the North York Centre store as open Monday to Sunday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. The phone number is 647-488-9113. Toronto.com notes the store is steps from North York Centre subway station. Upstairs, the same mall has a Cineplex, a Dollarama, an LCBO and a Shoppers Drug Mart.

Put together, a hot bar, a café with seating, a huge bakery and late closing hours make this a store built for people coming from the subway or stopping before or after a movie. It isn't only somewhere to pick up milk.

The other opening that day was on Church Avenue

The Food Basics at 20 Church Ave. covers the trip the T&T isn't built around. Metro's October 8, 2026 announcement describes fresh produce and meat, locally sourced items, fresh BBQ chicken, online ordering and Moi Rewards. The store also has a pharmacy that offers vaccinations, medication reviews and minor-ailment assessments. It's open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and employs more than 100 people.

Food Basics vice-president of operations John Manax said in the release, "We are excited to bring Food Basics to Toronto's North York community, offering more ways for residents to save." Lyman Kwok, vice-president of pharmacy operations, said, "Our team is here to support the health needs of the community with readily accessible care." Store manager John Cordeiro said he looks forward "to welcoming customers to our new store and serving the North York community for years to come."

The pharmacy counter makes a practical difference. Before, a grocery run and a pharmacy visit were usually two separate stops. At the Church Avenue store, you can do both in one visit.

Two stores, two different trips

Here's how the two October 8 openings compare, based on what each company has published:

The size difference tells most of the story. The T&T has more than twice the floor space of the Food Basics, and much of that space goes to things a basic weekly shop doesn't need: the bakery, the hot bar, the beauty aisles and the café. The Food Basics puts its space into staples, savings and the pharmacy. A household near Yonge and Sheppard now has a choice the old Loblaws never offered. You can do a quick, budget-minded weekly shop on Church Avenue, and save the bigger, browsing trip for the store under the mall.

The two stores also close at different times, which matters for weeknight errands. Food Basics closes at 9 p.m. The T&T stays open until 11 p.m., so it's the one open late for anyone getting off the subway after a long day or leaving a late show upstairs.

The rest of the season happens on the same block

The Empress store sits across Yonge Street from Mel Lastman Square, so a stop at the T&T fits easily around what's on at the square this month.

On Saturday, November 28, the Yonge North York BIA and NeighbourLink North York host the 4th annual Festive Tree Lighting and Christmas Market at Mel Lastman Square, 5100 Yonge St. The schedule:

1. Market, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
2. Festive tree lighting, 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
3. Community sing-along, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

More details are posted on NeighbourLink's Christmas page. The sing-along ends at 8 p.m., and the T&T is open for three more hours after that. That leaves plenty of time to cross Yonge for a black sesame latte or a box of egg tarts before heading home.

On weekdays, TO Live's free Sound Break lunchtime series runs on Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. at Meridian Arts Centre, 5040 Yonge St., through December 17. The Yonge North York BIA calendar lists the remaining performances for November 19, December 3 and December 17. An hour of live music plus a pressed sandwich from the T&T Cafe makes an easy Thursday lunch without leaving the Yonge corridor.

If you're watching the North York Centre area for your next move, Sam Galloway can set up listing alerts around Yonge and Sheppard. You'll see homes near the new T&T and the Church Avenue Food Basics as soon as they hit the market. Get the Latest Listings First.