Who would have ever thought that grocery shopping would become such a major effort, a strategically planned outing requiring laser-sharp focus, careful positioning, and just as much time to unload and sanitize goods as it does to get to the store and actually shop?

Pivot will turn out to be the word of the decade, with all sorts of businesses pivoting in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are a few places to find groceries that aren't your traditional shops. 

Caffe La Tana

Prior to the novel coronavirus coming along with its wrecking ball to the restaurant industry, Caffe La Tana (sister restaurant to Pepino’s Spaghetti House next door and Osteria Savio Volpe in Fraserhood) carried a small selection of pantry items; now, it’s a full-on online grocery store.

Available for pick up or delivery is a huge range of goods: marinated half chicken, amaretti cookies, Agostina Recca anchovies, Emerald Grasslands butter, spicy fennel sausage, Maple Hill organic free-range eggs, Lucifora cherry tomato sauce, all-purpose 00 chef’s flour, semolina flour, Mulino Caputo’s dry active yeast.

There are oils and vinegars, treats (including Pepino’s cheesecake), meal kits (Penne alla vodka and pizza among them), beverages, and household items like Nectrous soap and Nellie’s Dish Nuggets.

You can still  order dinners for takeaway or delivery at Pepino's and Savio Volpe. Both eateries have an option for people to purchase a Healthcare Hero Meal for $20: every meal goes to a health care worker at St. Paul's Hospital,. 

Check it out at Caffe La Tana.

Legends Haul

This is the name of a food-distribution service run by Jillian and Craig Sheridan, founders of Eastwood Cycle. In normal circumstances, it distributes “consciously sourced” ingredients to some of Vancouver’s top restaurants, including Chambar, Nightingale, and Kissa Tanto, Now, it’s making many of those same items available via delivery to home cooks.

Examples: fresh dry age striploin New York steak from a small, family-run farm in PEI; the Meatless Farm Co.’s Meat Free Ground; Nanuk albacore tuna; Birchwood Dairy milk and yogurt; Livia Bakery sourdough loaf; butter Baked Goods’ frozen Chocolate Cookie Dough with Butter Cream Icing; and Cowichan Pasta Company noodles. Then there are burgers, sausages, poultry, produce, bacon, frozen acai puree (for your morning smoothies), and more.

For more info, visit Legends Haul’s website.

Provence Marinaside

The popular seafood restaurant is innovating in a few ways, with French Food Made Easy Kits, cocktail kits, and chef de cuisine Sheldon Maloff’s online grocery store.

You’ll find produce, dairy (from Ile de France Camembert to Upper Bench Creamery Double Cream Brie), seafood (including steelhead trout and frozen Hokkaido scallops, meat, poultry, and dry goods (such as assorted snack nuts and all-purpose flour, the latter going for $3 per 1 kg), all available for pick-up. In the miscellaneous category are items like par-baked baguette, fresh yeast, coffee beans, herbes de Provence, tea, and toilet paper ($1.25 per roll).

See chef Sheldon Maloff’s grocery store online.

JOEY Restaurants

Besides meal kits for numbers such as steak dinner and chicken Parmesan, the chain is getting into groceries, too, with JOEY Market. Available for pick up or delivery are foods like produce, certified Angus beef prime sirloin, pork ribs, fresh Norwegian salmon fillet, brown basmati rice, Earth’s Own oat milk, molten chocolate cake, Mott’s Clamato, blackening spice, toilet paper ($1 per roll), and tons more. Pick-up or delivery.

Check out the JOEY Market order sheet here.

Beetbox

The plant-based restaurant in Davie Village has launched a grocery line of all-vegan condiments called Beetbox Basics. It consists of plant-based sauces like Miso “Mayo”, Tahini Dressing, “Bac-un” Slices, Mushroom XO, Miso Gravy. Prices start at $5 for 8-ounce jars. Spicy and sweet and sour pickles are also on the roster, as are new brown rice bowls, like Crispy Taco (with avocado, spicy black beans, cheezy corn and cashew sour cream Pico de Gallo and corn. tortilla). Pick up and delivery.

More deets are here.

SPUD

The online grocery-delivery service is busier than ever and has just launched its Stay Home box program. For every $65 box ordered, it’s donating $3 to an organization that supports at-risk community members and front-line workers. There will be several versions, the first one being the #WeApplaud Box; others will include a baby box, a vegetarian staples box, and a cleaning box. Exact brands will be determined based on what’s in stock, but here’s an idea of what’s in the first box: pasta, diced tomatoes, two cans of soup, 1 package of crackers, a small bag of potato chips, three pounds of organic apples, six organic oranges, two pounds of organic carrots, to name just some.

SPUD has recently deployed more than100 new delivery trucks in Calgary and Vancouver.

See here for more info.