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Zellers is Bringing Back Their Restaurant as a Food Truck

Zellers is Bringing Back Their Restaurant as a Food Truck

By Simon Hung

After Zellers announced the inaugural locations for their revival last week, one of the most frequent questions among fans was the status of the Zellers Family Restaurant – the diner-style eatery found inside some original Zellers stores.

There is good news and bad news for restaurant fans – the Zellers Restaurant will be part of the revival experience, but Zellers will be operating a fleet of food trucks instead of sit-down restaurants.

The Zellers Family Restaurant originally launched in 1960 as The Skillet. (HBC Corporate Collection)

Hudson's Bay Company officially announced the news on January 27, noting that opening an in-store restaurant is not feasible with the new Zellers 2.0 store format. Instead, food trucks will be deployed and serve a selection of classic menu items from the original Zellers Family Restaurant.

From January 27 to February 2, fans can visit @zellersofficial on Instagram to vote on the new menu – 10 menu items will battle head-to-head and the five winning picks will be served in the Zellers Diner on Wheels.

  • Big Z Burger vs. Hot Dog
  • Hot Chicken Sandwich vs. Poutine
  • Fries and Gravy vs. Quesadilla
  • Veggie Burger vs. Grilled Cheese Sandwich
  • Chicken Fingers vs. Onion Rings

The Zellers Diner on Wheels will launch alongside their 25 new locations this spring (a date has not been finalized). In addition, the food truck will tour across Canada at a later date for fans looking to taste a piece of Canadian retail nostalgia.

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Source: Hudson's Bay Company

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  • Dhanushan
  • leeoku
    • It really had an Ikea feel. I wonder why Target failed so hard, it's the same company as HBC
    • Report Post
  • TorontoWest91
  • cslusarc
  • newfbc
  • Catnippy
    • Online site is quite sad at this time. Oh well, back to Amazon and Costco 😂
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
    • Did they also bring back the club Z card ?
      The Club Z rewards program never left — it just was renamed twice. First it became HBC Rewards; then after the original Zellers closed it became Hudson's Bay Rewards.
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
  • cheapmeister
    • Did they also bring back the club Z card ?
    • Report Post
  • TorontoWest91
    • The inperson store is better than expected. Reminds me of target.
    • Report Post
  • MarkaRagnos
    • You can now shop @ Zellers.thebay.com —

      Did you know that the Anko brand is also sold at Kmart stores Down Under?
      It is KMART's brand as that's almost 100% of what KMART in Australia sells. now pricing is a a bit of a rip off compared to what things sell in a KMART not even considering the exchange rate, but I'm excited as I miss KMART
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
    • You can now shop @ Zellers.thebay.com —

      Did you know that the Anko brand is also sold at Kmart stores Down Under?
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
  • U4IA
    • I can't imagine that they are planning to put a Zellers there. There will be a Zellers section in Kingsway.

      If the mall owners thought that that was a fashion centre, they sorely missed the mark.
      Kingsway construction seems to have started this week. Shelving going up and a lot of workers setting things up.

      The bay in Londonderry already downsized a while back and then shortened their hours. Was only a matter of time I guess.
    • Report Post
  • BaileySyd
    • @TravellingChris I struggle to think of a retailer to fill even one floor of The Bay's current space. I imagine that it will sit empty for a very long time. No-Frills will be moving (or has just recently) into the space vacated by Save-on-Foods.

      I'd be happy to get a Crate & Barrel but I know that's not going to happen.
    • Report Post
  • TravellingChris

    • If the mall owners thought that that was a fashion centre, they sorely missed the mark.
      That was the intention--that's why the landlord brought in H&M (among other tenants) and replaced Sport Chek on the upper floor and Army & Navy/Yuk Yuk's on the main floor with Simons.

      I wonder what HBC leaving means for Simons' tenancy. I recall Peter Simons saying in an interview a few years back that the company preferred to co-locate in centres that had a Hudson's Bay or Nordstrom in order to be part of a "fashion destination." If Hudson's Bay is replaced with a lower-grade tenant or (worse) the space remains empty for a long time, that could lead to the downgrade of the centre. Will Simons decide not to renew their lease?

      Look how long it took to replace Sears at Southgate, and that's the top-producing mall in Edmonton in terms of sales per square foot. Even Southgate couldn't get a quality upscale tenant for the space and had to chop it up.
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
  • Pdone49
    • Pretty sure everything will be torn down. So it took how many years to do the crosstown with all the construction now it will be like downtown and they will have cranes 🏗️ everywhere on Eglinton Ave E and no where to shop.
    • Report Post
  • BaileySyd
    • This is really bad news for the mall--they were positioning it as a fashion centre with both Hudson's Bay and Simons. Even if HBC decides to open a Zellers in the former Hudson's Bay space, that's a downgrade from what the mall ownership was intending for the centre.
      I can't imagine that they are planning to put a Zellers there. There will be a Zellers section in Kingsway.

      If the mall owners thought that that was a fashion centre, they sorely missed the mark.
    • Report Post
  • TravellingChris
    • Interesting. Londonderry is a pretty lacklustre mall but it is nice having a Bay there for any online returns. I imagine that Simons has taken a chunk of business away from the Bay.
      This is really bad news for the mall--they were positioning it as a fashion centre with both Hudson's Bay and Simons. Even if HBC decides to open a Zellers in the former Hudson's Bay space, that's a downgrade from what the mall ownership was intending for the centre.
    • Report Post
  • TravellingChris
    • I think HBC is attempting what Sobeys has recently done in Western Canada. Over the last few years, Sobeys has converted a bunch of full-service Safeway and Sobeys stores which apparently had weak(er) same-store sales, to FreshCo in order to both respond to consumer demand for value as well as try to squeeze better performance out of a given location.

      This appears to be what HBC has done in choosing certain Hudson's Bay locations whose performance is evidently poor, with the idea that the company has little to lose in experimenting with an alternative format in those places. If the experiment succeeds in a given location, they could convert more space or even that entire store to Zellers. If the experiment fails, well the Bay store at that site was struggling anyway. In Edmonton Zellers is planned for a portion of Hudson's Bay in Kingsway Mall (a shopping centre in which Zellers previously operated quite successfully but where Walmart has now taken over the former Sears).

      It's interesting because there were recent rumours in Edmonton that HBC was considering exiting Kingsway, Londonderry and St. Albert Centre and just keeping its Southgate and West Edmonton Mall locations.


      The fly in the ointment is going to be the landlords. The owners of the mall may start to object if HBC changes more than a small portion of a given Hudson's Bay store. A Zellers will attract a different type of customer than a Hudson's Bay and the landlord (as well as other mall tenants) may view it as a downgrade. It's ancient history now, but when HBC bought Woodward's department stores in 1993 a lot of malls objected to HBC's plans to replace a given Woodward's with a Zellers store instead of The Bay.
      Hudson's Bay has announced that they are closing their store in Edmonton's Londonderry Mall after 51 years. I do wonder about the duration and terms of their lease--if they are still locked into their lease for some time yet, would they replace the Hudson's Bay store with a Zellers?
    • Report Post
  • BaileySyd
    • Retail Insider reports that Hudson’s Bay To Shut Londonderry Mall Store In Edmonton in August. It was estimated that they do the same annual sales as the Shoppers' Drug Mart in the same mall.
      Interesting. Londonderry is a pretty lacklustre mall but it is nice having a Bay there for any online returns. I imagine that Simons has taken a chunk of business away from the Bay.
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
  • apnayloags
    • Pretty sure the Bay at Eglinton Square will be closing as there is a proposal for condo’s on the property. The is proposal on both north and south side from Victoria Park to Birchmount. There will be no stores to shop around as they will tear them all down. Not sure how the metro link will work as there will be more people then trains to support the volume.
      So the entire mall will be gone ? Or just the bay?
      Well that would suck if the mall closed down as its a good place sometimes if u need stuff in a jiffy
    • Report Post
  • elec0T3
    • The Bay at Eglinton Square is 2 levels (it used to have a third level but that was removed in renovations in the late 90s, early 2000s). The store is currently oddly configured - almost all regular Bay departments are on the first floor, only small and major appliances, furniture are on the second floor. The rest of the second floor is a Bay Clearance Centre. Thought moving everything to the first floor was a way of getting ready for Zellers on the second floor but Eglinton Square wasn't on the initial list.
    • Report Post
  • cathyjohnson
    • Can't Wait for Zellers TO Reopen,ALWAYS loved it💓💓💓
    • Report Post
  • cslusarc
    • The Bay store at Eglinton Square is about 115,000 sq ft from the mall's site plan and categorized in 2020 as a "Silver" tier store based on sales. I've seen photos on Google showing an escalator, does the store have 2 or 3 levels?
    • Report Post
  • Pdone49
    • Pretty sure the Bay at Eglinton Square will be closing as there is a proposal for condo’s on the property. The is proposal on both north and south side from Victoria Park to Birchmount. There will be no stores to shop around as they will tear them all down. Not sure how the metro link will work as there will be more people then trains to support the volume.
    • Report Post
  • caiphn
    • No 3D clubhouse?! Sadness.
    • Report Post
  • CannonFodder
    • Oh man that clubhouse was my goto
    • Report Post
  • apnayloags
    • Will we see zellers stuff @ eglinton square mall ??
      The Bay there is really needing some old touches lol
    • Report Post
  • ToolTimer999
    • My big Zeller's memory was buying the 89c metal cans of Allen's apple juice and having to wait till I got home to open it up with a can opener.

      It was really nice apple juice and it was cheap.
    • Report Post
  • jacnel
    • Is there REALLY such fond memories of Zeller's out there? I just remember dreading every time my parents dragged me into one of those stores. Sears too, hated that store so much.
      I personally have a lot of fond memories of Zellers. Back when I was a child and my grandparents lived in Elora, we would often go out to the Zellers in Fergus for lunch. I have such fond memories of eating grilled cheese with my grandmother, which are so important to me since she would pass away a few years after that.

      Zellers for me was never a particularly great store by any retail metric. The stores were often understaffed and a big mess, however there was this humble, positive, feeling that I and I think many other Canadians got when they shopped there, which has since gone away with the demise of the chain. Back in 2011 when HBC announced it was selling its Zellers leases to Target I was really excited and didn't think I would miss Zellers, but now that Zellers is gone I've realized there was so much more to the chain that I never thought of. It was a humble store, a positive place to shop at, the staff were great, and overall Zellers provided a lot of good vibes. It's often that you don't know what you've lost until after you've lost it, and I think for many Canadians that's how we feel about Zellers.

      Will HBC's revival of the chain be exactly like its predecessor? Probably not. But if they can bring back at least some of the feeling that I and many other people got from Zellers when it was still around, then I think it's going to be successful.
    • Report Post
  • Quentin5
    • Yeah, I think they are missing the plot. Those may be common orders, or easy to do in a food truck, but they aren't the meals that drew people.
      Like BoatyMcBoatface, crowdsourcing is not always the best way to do things.
    • Report Post
  • lecale
    • Yeah this was on their Instagram where you could vote for the top 5 items they'll serve out of the food truck.

      When Zellers was around, I never had the Big Z Burger but their clubhouse sandwich and fries was the bomb!
      Yeah, I think they are missing the plot. Those may be common orders, or easy to do in a food truck, but they aren't the meals that drew people.
    • Report Post
  • mrweather
    • Or at least their canned gravy supplier!

      • Big Z Burger vs. Hot Dog
      • Hot Chicken Sandwich vs. Poutine
      • Fries and Gravy vs. Quesadilla
      • Veggie Burger vs. Grilled Cheese Sandwich
      • Chicken Fingers vs. Onion Rings
      Yeah this was on their Instagram where you could vote for the top 5 items they'll serve out of the food truck.

      When Zellers was around, I never had the Big Z Burger but their clubhouse sandwich and fries was the bomb!
    • Report Post
  • Quentin5
    • I remember doing the 2-4-1 coupons on battered fish with fries & tartar sauce lunches. That's the only time I went: not exactly for the food but the deal.

      The food trucks need to have 2-4-1 coupons to really evoke what eating at Zellers was like.
      With inflation they might bring it back as the 1-4-2 coupon :(
      I think my biggest Club Z purchase was a $100 CD tower lol. Certainly still do not have that!
      But CDs might come back someday 😄

      I still have an old cassette player, apparently they are coming back!
    • Report Post
  • lecale
    • Its weird that i don't remember the meals from the Zellers restaurant, just that they were good.

      But i do still have a director's chair purchased with Club Z points.
      I think my biggest Club Z purchase was a $100 CD tower lol. Certainly still do not have that!
    • Report Post
  • lecale
    • I remember doing the 2-4-1 coupons on battered fish with fries & tartar sauce lunches. That's the only time I went: not exactly for the food but the deal.

      The food trucks need to have 2-4-1 coupons to really evoke what eating at Zellers was like.
    • Report Post
  • BaileySyd
    • Its weird that i don't remember the meals from the Zellers restaurant, just that they were good.

      But i do still have a director's chair purchased with Club Z points.
      I can't recall ever eating there but imagine that I must have.

      I still have a lamp that I got with Club Z points. All other stuff has long since been donated.
    • Report Post