Organic Garage locations have always been great supermarkets to shop at in the GTA, but until recently, their only locations were in Thornhill and Etobicoke, which made it too far for my family to shop there regularly. When I heard that Organic Garage was opening a location in the Junction, I was VERY excited, to say the least. It’s not close enough to home, but I proved tonight that it’s worth the drive. Organic Garage has a commitment to “Healthier Food for Less”, and proudly displays it everywhere at their new location.
As soon as you pull into the parking lot, you will be greeted by the low brick building with the Organic Garage logo proudly displayed on the wall. It is quite beautifully designed, especially for a grocery store! There is a small patio with metal picnic benches where you can enjoy snacks or meal that you have purchased inside in the nice weather (my family did tonight!), as well as lights strung across the walkway to illuminate the whole area in a very pleasant way. Upon walking in, the store hits you with a blaze of light and colour, with instagram-worthy signage all over the walls and above each section of the store. Each aisle, instead of the traditional sign hanging from above to tell you what is on shelf, Organic Garage has a small placard at each end, announcing what is featured on either side of the endcap. For example, there are different terms and their definition, like “free-run” versus “free-range” in terms of eggs (neither are necessarily good enough!), but I found what they are sharing is VERY informative – it can really help you make us learn before making your choices. Even if we think we know, we always need a reminder!
As we walked through the aisles, one thing in particular caught my eye – the store’s “teaBot”. It likely attracted my attention at first because there was a large screen involved. The “teaBot” is a small station that allows you to craft your own loose-leaf tea – you can select up to three different flavours to mix (I picked peppermint and ginger), adjust what percentage of the drink you want each flavour to be, as well as the strength of the flavour, and watch as the leaves and hot water are poured into a cup! To prevent you from swallowing the leaves, there is a “Filter Cap”, which is a generic coffee cup lid, but with a filter to make sure you only get the tea and not tea leaves. My tea was delicious, and I’m sure it will be even more amazing once the weather gets cold! It would be great if we could use a reusable cup!
Directly across from the teaBot was a kombucha station, offering of three different flavours of Tonica kombucha on tap. Choose your size glass bottle (500mL or 1L) and fill it up! Refill prices are less expensive to encourage reuse, which is awesmazing. My brother raced over and immediately proclaimed that he was going to mix peach and blueberry. He and my sister shared a 1L bottle (which did not last very long!), all the while praising how good it was. You’ll see in a photo below how I captured their excitement.
For our eats, we tried Vegan Rob’s chips (we had previously tried their Brussel Sprout puffs – SO GOOD!) with hummus, salsa, and romaine, and went back into the store to shop and grab Tubify’s Chocolate Café Latte freezies for dessert!
As we were sitting on the patio, we ran into Randee, who works for Organic Garage and is THE BIGGEST cheerleader for the store at every trade show I go to! Her enthusiasm is contagious!
Organic Garage is a great spot to grab whatever groceries you need at a great price, or a quick meal for on-the-go – they carry lots of premade meals from Live and BioRaw (have you tried their version of a caesar salad?) and have their own prepared foods sold by weight. I definitely recommend checking out their new location – you’ll be supporting an independently owned business and buying organic!
