Canada’s largest Asian grocery chain opens in San Francisco

chain expanding to San Francisco and they have a menu that has proved to be very popular in the Bay Area. This is a big deal. We're talking about T&T Grocery. They're opening a new location on Geary Boulevard near Masonic and KTVU's Jesse Gary is there. You've been out there for a while there talking to people. Did you get any food yet? Dave, Pam, good morning to you. You know I don't like to eat early in the morning. I don't like to eat until like 11, 11 or 12. Oh, we're eating at 3 a.m., Jesse. That's breakfast time for me. No, no, I just have a protein shake and that's it. Okay, you know what? They're getting ready to open the doors. You can see they're setting up. Look at this. They're going to have a DJ out here. They're setting up some other stuff, probably lights. They have a table over there with champagne on it. They're putting everything out. We talked the last... hour, you had people out here lined up. The line has grown. How much so? Follow me. Come on, Chip. Follow me. This is where the line is now. Can you get through? No. There you go. Plenty of room. That's where the line is now. You can see the people have lined up, I guess, on the side of the parking lot because the crowd has gotten so big over the past hour and it continues to grow. People coming as far away as Concord, from as close as other parts of the city, all to get inside and enjoy the perks. I'm so excited to have a TNT Canadian store to come open here in San Francisco. What's so special about it that's going to get you out of bed at this time of day? They are famous for their fan tuan and their crepe, so it's definitely a must try. And crews are inside making sure everything will be ready for customers when the doors open at 9 this morning. One month ago, Tina Lee, the CEO of the store, took San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie for a tour of the site in advance of the scheduled opening today. She says the city provided the fastest permitting process in the U.S. of any of the U.S. locations. Now, once inside... Fresh produce, fish, lobster, crabs, all of that inside a 50,000 square foot location which had been vacant for years here in the city. So it's good to have a business inside and operating. Back in June, T&T opened a 5,500 square foot site in the South Bay. Today's opening marks the second supermarket in the Bay Area and fourth overall in the United States. I really like going to grand openings so there's a lot of great deals and TNT delivers a lot of fresh foods and all different sorts of things. Like this one has a cafe even. Oh, even the cafe, how about that? You see the balloons going up outside. The company has 38 stores in Canada from west to east, which was founded in Vancouver back in 1993. As I said, the doors open at 9 o'clock, and you can see them putting up balloons as part of the grand opening to make it look nice and festive. And the people will be walking through there in just a little bit, Dave and Pam. Hey, Jesse, before you go, so I guess this has been known, we have Jigalchi and Tokyo Central, like all these stores have done really well. This one is known as like the Asian Costco. Let's go. Is it where the Best Buy used to be, just so we familiarize ourselves with this? Yes, you know, it's so funny you said that, because I came over here and I was like, you know, I don't get up to the city all that often. I was like, boy, like. What was here? What I can, I was going doing this kind of thing. Yes, that's exactly where it is. Okay. Yes. Okay. Because I know a lot of us are like, okay, wait, where is that? But that's always nice. It's always nice to have something vibrant come into a building that's been sitting empty for the city. You don't want properties to sit empty. You don't, yeah, you don't want, yeah, you don't want properties to sit empty. I mean, this is, this is going to bring in, you know, tax revenue to the city and that money goes into general fund and it goes out and helps. programs and other things in the city. So yeah, this is great. Why don't I get out of the way so you can see what they're doing? Maybe I should help them. Yeah, what are you doing, Jesse? Yeah, put that mic down. I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I should help hold the balloons. No, you got it. My dad always said, make yourself useful. All right, Jesse, we'll check in with you throughout the morning. All right, Jesse, thank you.