Asian grocer T&T Supermarkets plans to open a location north of Seattle that is set to be the Canadian chain’s second store in the United States when it opens next year, the company announced Wednesday.
Slated to begin serving customers during the summer of 2025, the new T&T store will occupy a 30,000-square-foot site at the Lynnwood Crossroads Shopping Center in Lynwood, Washington.
T&T is also developing a store in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, Washington. That store, announced last year as the company’s first U.S. location, had been scheduled to open this summer, but the grocery chain said Wednesday that the 76,000-square-foot project is delayed because an electrical panel is on backorder. T&T said it has not determined when the Bellevue store will debut, but hopes to open it later in 2024.
The latest store announcement is a sign of T&T’s optimism that its brand will resonate with U.S. shoppers. The company, a division of Canadian retailer Loblaw, said it had intended to hold off on locking in plans for a second U.S. store until its first location begins operations but later concluded that it did not need to wait.
“There’s excellent growth potential here, and although we originally planned on only committing to a second location after Bellevue opens, we just couldn’t resist this opportunity,” Tina Lee, CEO of T&T Supermarkets, said in a statement.
T&T described the site it has selected for the Lynwood store, at 6218 196th St. SW, as “one of the busiest intersections in the area.”
In its announcement last year about the Bellevue store, T&T indicated that its decision to expand into the U.S. reflects the strong interest it has seen from U.S. shoppers in its stores north of the Canadian border. Founded in 1993, T&T runs about 30 locations in British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta and Ontario.
“After 30 successful years in Canada, we couldn’t be more excited to bring our unique offering closer to home for customers in the United States,” Lee said in a statement at the time.
The Bellevue store will include a sushi counter, hot food bar and noodle station, as well as an in-store kitchen and bakery for items like steam buns and pork belly bao, according to T&T. It will also carry hundreds of private label products.
