A-1 Cycle on Main Street

What can you say about A-1 Cycle? It was truly a Main Street institution. From what I've been able to figure out the shop had been around at 3743 Main Street since the 1980's. With its old school storefront the business was unpretentious both inside and out. Kind of unusual when bike shops have become a hip kind of deal. Here's a photo of the storefront taken in the fall of 2017.

The shop was run by a father and son team. John Quon and his son Rob. The Vancouver Sun did a story about the shop back in 2016. Check out the piece here. At that time the elder Mr.Quon was 85 years old and seemed to be showing no signs of slowing down. But a recent walk up Main Street revealed the shop has closed up and all the windows are covered from the inside. Times are changing on Main Street and maybe Mr.Quon decided to ride into the sunset so to speak and enjoy some retirement. The bike business seems to be very competitive and I'm sure with City taxes profits might have been getting slim. But the store's closing is just one of many on Main Street in 2019 where a long established business suddenly shutters its operations. Other closures further North on Main Street include Bill's Glass, Kea Foods, Kam's Bakery and Restaurant, and the Nice Cafe in the heart of Mount Pleasant. Here's a shot of the empty storefront in Decemeber of 2019.

Whatever business takes over A-1's old space I'm sure it will be a bit more upscale (ie paying more rent) to fit in with the boutiques, cafe's, and eateries that make up today's Main Street.

Kea Foods on Main Street

Kea Foods was one of those unassuming stores that seems like it had always been part of the neighbourhood. One of those places that's always just there. So familiar in fact that I actually have very few photographs of the place at Main and East 10th. It was probably one of the oldest independent businesses in Mount Pleasant that had been going for 25 years! But that all came to an abrupt end at the beginning of May when the store suddenly closed its doors.

The store's closure is probably yet another case of the fact that in Vancouver businesses pay a much higher rate of tax than residential owners. Over the last few years land values have been skyrocketing in Mount Pleasant and there has been quite a turnover of small businesses around the neighbourhood. If you take into consideration triple net leases where taxes on the property are passed onto tenants it's no surprise that many small shops just can't make a go of it. With Kea Foods their tax bill to the City in 2018 was in the order of $60,000.00 according to a report by CTV News.

But I don't think taxes were Kea Foods only problem. I stopped shopping there years ago as I noticed much of their produce was pretty poor quality. I saw too many wilted lettuces, sagging carrots, and sad looking celeries. Plus the inside of the store just looked plain grubby. Recently I checked on Yelp and the reviews of the store were not kind! Many complained of outdated products being sold as well as goods that were obviously stale. Not to mention surly staff!

In many ways Kea Foods doesn't fit the narrative for today's Mount Pleasant (and Main Street). With all the upscaling going on in the neighbourhood a slightly rough around the edges organic-bulk foods-produce shop would be more at home on East Hastings Street or maybe Victoria Drive. Compared to some of the newer businesses in the neighbourhood you could say that Kea was in desperate need of an update! If you look back 5 years or so there were plenty more funky little shops around. Before Denman Bikes moved in just across the street Royal Furniture had occupied that space for decades. But it had devolved into a bit of a junk store before it finally closed in 2014. Down on Broadway the VGH Thrift store as well as Reno's Restaurant are another couple of examples of the "old" Mount Pleasant that are now gone.

So what does the future hold for 2600 Main Street? Only time will tell but I'm guessing the building will need a considerable makeover before someone else takes it over.