Toronto-based Aisle 24, the 24-hour, cashier-less convenience store chain, is kicking off 2022 with serious expansion plans around the GTA – and the country.
If you try to imagine the offspring of a 7-11 and a Loblaws, it would probably look a lot like Aisle 24. Of course, being a highly-digitalized child of the 2010s, Aisle 24 considerably ups the convenience factor.
To start shopping, all you have to do is download the Aisle 24 app onto your phone and register. You can then immediately, and quite literally, unlock the door to your chosen store. After roaming the immaculately organized and fully stocked aisles of canned, fresh, frozen and deli items, you can self-check-out using the same app and a payment card.
It turns out that Aisle 24 is perfectly tailored to pandemic times. Stores are strategically located near high-density residential hubs, such as condos, apartment complexes and student residences. Being that they're open 24/7, 365 days a year, means no line ups––in fact, you’ll likely have the store to yourself if you go on a 3 a.m. munchies run.
Regardless of the hour, you'll always have the store to yourself since there are no actual flesh-and-blood employees working at Aisle 24 (aside from those who replenish the shelves three times a week). That said, don’t take the absence of humans as an invitation to shoplift; in lieu of security guards, stores are equipped with (very) smart cameras.
While it's fully in sync with the era of social distancing, Aisle 24 has actually been around since 2016, when the first location opened in a Centennial College student residence. According to co-founder and CEO John Douang, the concept of a grab-and-go market, stocked with millennial-friendly pizzas and ramen, was right for the times. At the outset, Aisle 24 targeted young urbanites whose MO is to pop into a store to pick up what they need at any given moment––and get out fast. The last thing such shoppers want is to waste time roaming endless aisles, or to interact with cashiers and sales staff.
It’s fitting, if ironic, that the idea for a fully automated market originated with a man whose parents toiled away 14 hours a day, seven days a week, at an old-school neighbourhood convenience store at Eglinton and Dufferin. Douang recalls being "forced" to work at the store as a youngster before he migrated into a career in tech and digital media. An interest in the untapped potential of vending machine food––a segment that was flourishing in Europe and Asia––led Douang and his wife, Marie, to invest in a customized vending machine business in Toronto, which organically morphed into Aisle 24.
Currently, there are nine locations of Aisle 24 throughout the GTA with six more under construction, including at 1 Yonge Street, East Liberty Village and Leslie and Sheppard (the company started franchising in 2020). In addition to those catering to students, there are larger, more supermarket-like stores in condo and apartment complexes, which offer family-sized prepared meals and a wide diversity of home and health care products.
The Toronto locations comprise only a handful of the 30 new stores set to open throughout Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia in coming months. Duoang envisions an Aisle 24 in every Canadian province by the end of 2022, after which he plans to branch out into the U.S.
As for those who feel intimidated by, or inimical to, such a homogeneously digital shopping experience, Aisle 24 gets it and has you covered. Although 98 per cent of all in-store items are labelled with barcodes, should you encounter any errors at checkout (i.e. a fistful of cilantro that refuses to scan), the Aisle 24 app can hook you up immediately with an actual support person via text and chat.
Moreover, you don't even need to have a smart phone to shop at Aisle 24. For those who reach out with an advance request, the company promises to send you your very own key fob to unlock the front door.
