Shawn and Kelly Pisio love Spain so much that the B.C. couple got married in a Basque cider house. 

They went on to start a company called Txotx Imports, bringing in ciders, beer, and wines from the region.

Now, they’re heading Lola & Miguel, Vancouver’s first stand-alone specialty Spanish grocery store.

To launch their new venture at 345 West Pender Street, they teamed up with Toronto’s Serrano Imports—which was the first company to bring jamón to North America—to become Serrano Imports West, and online retailer Lola & Miguel.

Among the specialty products at Lola & Miguel is Iberico ham, the caviar of cured meat that comes from black-hooved pigs that graze freely in swaths of land in southern Spain dotted by holm-oak trees, feasting on acorns that fall to the ground.

Lola & Miguel carries other types of ham as well, including Serrano. Then there’s bomba rice; various types of chorizo, salami, and Spanish olives; and more.

Conservas are especially popular; tinned seafood preserved in brine, olive oil, or simple sauces is central to Spanish tapas. (This isn’t the canned tuna you grew up with.) Here, selections include mussels, hand-cleaned sardines, anchovies, razor clams, and squid in ink or olive oil.

The shop also sells equipment such as proper paella pans, glazed ceramic dishes for tapas, and small wooden plates that are traditionally used to serve octopus.

There’s another reason to visit this shop, even if you’re not in the market for Marcona almonds or a tin of anchovies: the Pisios uncovered a piece of Vancouver history when they were doing renovations.

The store is housed in a building that dates back to 1908. As the pair set about revamping the former home of Pender Grocery, which they also operated, layers of plaster and wallpaper began to peel away from one wall. Behind it all, they noticed different colours of paint on exposed brick. Once all of the decades-old wall coverings came down, there it was: an original advertisement for the Daily World, which was one of Vancouver’s first newspapers. The ad would have appeared on the exterior wall of the adjacent building, which was built in 1906; the Daily Mail was located across the street.

Check out some more photos of Lola & Miguel: