B and K Grocery

A rare example of a two-story red brick building has been home to a number of different grocery stores for nearly 100 years, from 1920 until 2015. Now a rarity, these local corner stores and 'mom and pop' shops were not just an essential business but also a community meeting place.

It was originally owned and built by Harry Bridge, a bricklayer and storekeeper from Lancashire, England, and his wife Annie in 1918.

According to the City Directories, the first grocery store in the building opened in 1920 and continued with new grocers every few years until the 1950s. Art and Doris Washbern ran Washbern Grocery at E 34th and Nanaimo from 1951 to 1965.

Since 1968, it has been known as B. K. Grocery. The name comes from the owners, Bing Kuen (B.K.) and Mei Yiu Mah, who owned and operated the store from 1968-1986. Their oldest son, Roy, shared stories of his family's store and their experiences running it in his memoir Finding Memories, Tracing Routes: Chinese Canadian Family Stories.

While the Mah family stopped working in the grocery business in 1986, they continued to own the property and leased it to different operators until they sold the property in 2015 to a developer. The building is now part of a mixed-use heritage restoration project called Century House.

Note: When South Vancouver joined with the City of Vancouver and Point Grey in 1929 to create the City of Vancouver that we know today, many changes/adjustments were made in street names and house numbers and at this time, 1902 E 35th Ave became 2308 E 34th Ave.

Source

B.K. Grocery Historical Research Summary (Christine Hagemoen); Vancouver's History of Independent Grocery Stores (Scout Magazine)

More information

https://www.vmcdn.ca/files/via/files/b.k.groceryhistoricalsummary.pdf