This account of a first visit to Loblaws in MLG was published in The South Bayview Bulldog in January, 2012. The doors to the new store opened in November, 2011. Many hundreds of thousands must have already visited the new Loblaws in Maple Leaf Gardens. It is, as Loblaws says, Food’s Greatest Stage. And many millions more will soon attend this imaginative and storied place of business. You can be thrilled by the sheer volume of sports sagas that unfolded here over six decades. And then bask in the way it has been redefined with great love. It is a supermarket of course but it is also a food court. You can have a choice of cuisines (Japanese at the lower left). Some wish their local Loblaws were as well stocked with spiced sausages and such rare produce as Savoy cabbages and Pecans in the shell. The underground parking is connected to the store by an escalator. Actually there are two escalators — one for you and one for your shopping cart. Technologically speaking, it’s more fun than an iPhone. Near the main door, all the musty glory of the Gardens comes crashing back under a maple leaf constructed of chairs salvaged from the blue seating section (lower right). On the wall beside it are the original remaining marks of those brutal stairs that generations of hockey fans happily climbed.
