I am grateful for everyone who gave me encouragement & suggestions in my hunt for a new location 🥰.

With all of your kind words, it reminded me of my mission to serve everyone. All of you have chosen to shop with Everyday Vegan Grocer and in many ways, you are all investors in my shop’s success. For that, I am forever grateful. 

More than that, I owe it to you to push on 💪. 

One good thing that has come out of this stumbling block is that it has given me the chance to return to my goals and strengthen the vision for Everyday Vegan Grocer. 

I have mentioned before that Everyday Vegan Grocer is about making a wide variety of vegan groceries affordable and accessible to everyone, so that we can all choose kindness, everyday. I mean this, and I serve all of you from my heart 💚.

While I will continue to improve and enhance your online shopping experience, another important part of the Everyday Vegan journey is to also build a physical store. 

A physical store will allow me to share with you the joy of being able to browse store aisles filled with an abundance of vegan selections.

I want to build a physical space where we can hold events like charity drives, cooking & fitness classes, and build a community to foster ever more vegan interactions. 

At first, I wanted to set up in a shophouse in the trendy district of Joo Chiat. (It was also an affordable place to get started!). 

With that door closed (for now!), I have to look for other open doors. 

A friend mentioned Grandstand to me a few months ago, even before I was thinking of opening a physical store.

For those of you that don’t know, Grandstand is a family lifestyle mall located in Bukit Timah. The building was converted from an actual grandstand overlooking the race course of the old turf club. 

Once upon a time, it was a destination mall for eco-conscious shoppers, and was in fact home to one of the first all-vegan restaurants in Singapore, VeganBurg. I also remember being there when I was a blogger attending a tasting event during Mekhala’s early days. 

Nowadays it’s not as popular of a destination any more.

But in the spirit of keeping my mind open, I thought I would check it out anyway! Luckily I did because I was pleasantly surprised. While the eco-conscious shops have all left the building, there were other good parts. The mall is still lively with plenty of recreation & fitness centres for the whole family. The building is surrounded by lush greenery. It is also relatively centrally located and accessible, with a shuttle bus that services the mall from Sixth Avenue and Botanic Gardens MRT.

In a recent Instagram survey, the results were 60/40 in favour of Joo Chiat, so I owe it to you to explain why I am still considering Grandstand.

First, Joo Chiat is not out of the picture. One day, I hope to open a store at Joo Chiat when I find a good unit.

The unit at Grandstand on the other hand, is available, it is a lot bigger than the shophouses in Joo Chiat, and it is located in a central location. There is ample space for a small café and event area (which would not have been possible in Joo Chiat), and a nice packing & storage station in the back where I can continue to pack & deliver groceries to you.

The other great thing about this space is I can repurpose or reuse a lot of the existing flooring, cabinetry and interiors, which will help minimise wastage during the fit-out too.

I have looked at a few other places, but this unit at the Grandstand is first choice at the moment!

I would be grateful to hear your opinion. Tell me what you think in the comments below. If you think this is a fantastic idea, or maybe you think I should hold off on this and wait for a unit at Joo Chiat to show up? I would love to hear from you.

Thank you for being part of the Everyday Vegan Journey. 

Love,

Amanda