Go Auto ventures into food business in Edmonton

Go Auto has been involved in the auto retail industry for more than 30 years and has established itself as one of the major retail groups in Canada. Now it has ventured into the food business.

Earlier this year, the Alberta-based group opened L’OCA Quality Market in a suburb of Edmonton, retailing produce and also featuring two restaurants — all under one roof. L’OCA translates to “goose” in Italian and “crazy” in Spanish.

“Everybody told us we were crazy for trying to start a concept with two full restaurants, a grocery store, a giant whole animal butcher, a huge bakery, plus a café and pizzeria,” said Go Auto Principal Jared Priestner in an interview with Canadian auto dealer. “We loved the Canada Goose as a mascot, as it felt great from day one and customers loved it.”

The company has plans to open another location in another area in Edmonton sometime in the next few months, and eventually expand into other Canadian provinces and the United States.

“It’s a pretty innovative concept that lots of people (in Edmonton) are excited about,” said Priestner. He added that he loves food and grew up in a “foodie family,” indicating his grandmother took him grocery shopping as a kid.

“I always thought if there’s a market where you could get the best beef, the best produce, the best baking and had a couple of restaurants, it would be a hit — and it was,” said Priestner. “People lined up around the block for the opening and it’s been really busy ever since. There’s people who want a high quality, non-big grocery type of experience, and it’s something we’re hoping to build into a national and maybe an international chain of operations once we get our first few in Edmonton off the ground.”

He said the idea grew over the course of three years and took about a year and half of having a group test every recipe. He added it has a large selection of grab-and-go meals that are prepared every day. The business includes 75 full-time chefs on staff. Following Edmonton, Priestner said the plan is to expand to Calgary and then east to Saskatoon, or west to Kelowna or Langley, followed by western United States and then Ontario.

There are no signs in the restaurant business to connect Go Auto with it, though he said a lot of people know about the connection.

“I don’t think the two concepts really benefit each other,” said Priestner. “It’s not called Go Food. It’s a totally different brand. The food business is more of an interest. It would take quite an effort for us to build up the brand to be a rival to our car company. We’ve been a car company for 30-plus years and this is new. It would take quite a while for us to make a meaningful dent in our automotive earnings, but hopefully it will eventually. But we’re probably a decade away from that being a reality.”