After seven years of selling groceries straight from Brazil out of their store on Kingsway, Oba Oba is closing its doors.
The only store in the city to exclusively focus on food from the South American country (other stores include Brazillian products along with Latin American products), Oba Oba opened up in 2017.
The last day to visit the store is Dec. 28, 2024, when Oba Oba will close at 6 p.m., but the business will remain open to people surfing the web.
"After seven incredible years, we’re saying goodbye to our physical store location and moving to an online-only model," reads a post on Oba Oba's Instagram account.
The store at 3665 Kingsway was the first and only to exclusively sell food from Brazil. The idea came when Viviane Reis's family moved from Toronto to Vancouver. Originally from Porto Alegre, Brazil, the family found that they had several options in Toronto for groceries from their home country.
In the city of Vancouver, there was nothing.
To fill that gap, they launched Oba Oba.
“The cuisine in Brazil is very diverse. We bring a little bit from each corner of Brazil," Reis told V.I.A. in 2021.
Oba Oba's online store is currently up and running, with everything from queijo coalho (a type of cheese) to paio sausage to Fandangos chips.
With files from Tanmay Ahluwalia.
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