Larger beer store coming

[attach]5558[/attach]Leaside residents can look forward to a refreshing new brew arriving in the neighbourhood this summer when The Beer Store at Thorncliffe Park Drive and Overlea Boulevard will move to a new location at Laird and Esander drives.

“We’re a few months away from August, and still currently under construction, and obviously things can happen,” said The Beer Store spokesperson Jeff Newton adding the old location won’t close until the new one has opened.

“The plan is to make sure the community is not without a (Beer) Store.”

The new store will be about 40 percent larger than the old location, at more than 630 square metres and will feature a completely redesigned empty container returns area.

Newton said The Beer Store is gradually making the switch from old stores to larger, more modern facilities.

“We’re trying to move some of the older stores into the new self-serve format that the consumers are actually saying they prefer,” he said.

The lease was close to expiring at the Thorncliffe location, which prompted a review of the site.

“Whenever leases expire we look at the potential to get new real estate,” Newton said. “It’s an opportunity to move to the newer, larger store formats.”

He said the location on Laird Drive is seen as an improvement, both location-wise and in terms of the actual facility.

“If the community has shifted in terms of where people live, and the retail environments have shifted around, when the leases come up we look at that as an opportunity to see if we should be in a better location,” he said. “And that’s effectively what’s happened with this one.”