T&T Supermarket Books Nov. 5 Opening for San Francisco Store, Its Fourth in the U.S.

T&T Supermarket will open its fourth U.S. store on Nov. 5, at San Francisco's City Center shopping complex on Geary Boulevard, parent company Loblaw confirmed this week, Chain Store Age reported. The roughly 50,000-square-foot store takes over a space at 2675 Geary Blvd. that's sat empty since Best Buy closed it in September 2017. A long-rumored Whole Foods project meant to fill that same space quietly died somewhere along the way. T&T will anchor the center next to Target, joining tenants that include Chipotle, Subway and European Wax Center. The store will also house the first T&T Café in the U.S., serving made-to-order lattes and Asian-inspired drinks next to the chain's usual lineup of fresh Asian produce, prepared foods, bakery items and more than 300 private-label products.

T&T built its following in Canada long before it crossed the border. Cindy and Jack Lee founded the chain in Vancouver in 1993. Loblaw bought it in 2009, and current CEO Tina Lee now runs it as Canada's largest Asian grocery retailer, with more than 35 stores across British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. The brand didn't open a U.S. store until December 2024, in a former Walmart in Bellevue, Washington (about 76,000 square feet), followed by a second Washington store in Lynnwood a year later, in a former Sprouts Farmers Market space of roughly 30,000 square feet. Then came San Jose. A 55,000-square-foot store at Westgate Center opened June 18 as T&T's first California location, and it didn't just do well. It became the chain's best-performing U.S. debut yet.

On Loblaw's second-quarter earnings call, president and CEO Per Bank told investors the San Jose store delivered "the highest first-week sales of any Loblaw location" in company history. He pointed to pent-up demand in a market with deep roots in Asian cuisine and shopping habits. San Jose's population is approaching a million, with about 39.5% of residents identifying as Asian and roughly 42% born outside the U.S., according to figures cited in trade coverage of the opening. Bank called T&T "one of the most exciting growth opportunities that we have in the company" and said customer response "continues to be strong, both in Canada and in the U.S."

Loblaw's overall retail sales climbed 4.1% to roughly $10.7 billion for the quarter, and retail operating income rose 2.9% to $855.3 million. Executives singled out T&T and the Fortinos banner as leading the company's same-store sales growth. Off the strength of San Jose, Loblaw told investors it plans to open two more California T&T stores by year's end, on top of San Francisco, and it's still scouting sites beyond those. The pipeline already on the books: roughly 52,000 square feet at Friendship Plaza in Millbrae, 34,000 square feet at The Canopy at Great Park in Irvine, and about 61,000 square feet at Crossroads Marketplace in Chino Hills. Further out, T&T has targeted late 2027 for a roughly 72,600-square-foot store on the ground floor of a former Macy's at NewPark Mall in Newark, which the company says would rank among its largest U.S. locations. Tina Lee has also talked about how hard it is to find large-format space in the Bay Area, describing Millbrae's spot between San Francisco and San Jose as a strategic fill-in while the chain works through a backlog of tougher urban sites.

The San Francisco store carries its own backstory. City Center's property manager, Acadia Realty Trust, had courted a Whole Foods for that same Geary Boulevard space for years after Best Buy's 2017 exit, only to watch the deal go quiet. Acadia CEO Kenneth Bernstein has pointed to the trust's "ongoing commitment" to bringing "diverse, high-quality retail" to the corridor. T&T has said the new store will serve "surrounding neighborhoods from Pacific Heights to the Richmond District," and expects to pull customers from nearby Kaiser Permanente Medical Center and the University of San Francisco too.

A few things here are worth tracking if you lease grocery-anchored centers on the West Coast. T&T keeps backfilling large, awkward boxes that sat dark for years: a former Walmart in Bellevue, a former Sprouts in Lynnwood, another former Walmart in San Jose. That's useful to know if you're holding a vacant big box that outgrew its last tenant. The chain also moves fast once it commits. One California debut in June turned into five more announced or confirmed stores within months. The co-tenancy pattern is consistent too. T&T keeps landing next to Target rather than going it alone, which points to a company chasing proven foot traffic over untested corridors. And Loblaw's earnings language backs all of it up. Executives are talking about T&T the way they'd talk about a flagship banner, not a side experiment.