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It may not be the hallmark of a great supermarket, but the public washroom is just one of a dozen things that make Urban Fare -- Vancouver's latest grocery entrant -- radically different.
For one thing, the washroom is labelled and accessible. It comes with designer colours and prints, a diaper-changing table and bottles of hand cream, hair gel and hairspray. Oh, and it's spotless.
Urban Fare is an ultramodern, nontraditional experience squeezed into 25,000 sq. ft. in Vancouver's Yaletown district, a trendy area that's home to tony furniture stores, advertising agencies and new-media types. In this supermarket, shopping carts come with built-in coffee-holders and customers can pop in a latte from the in-store coffee bar. Wine is served at a bar behind the cash registers.
There's a full pharmacy, a magazine section with comfortable chairs for browsing and lounging, and everywhere there are preserved strawberries, vases, pottery and flowers displayed in raw recovered wood shelves.
What's also intriguing about Urban Fare is that it is owned by the Overwaitea Food Group, based in Langley, B.C., better known for big box, drive-to Save-On-Food stores.
Dan Hudson, store manager and longtime...