north shore news

<3: BUSINESS

KAYSTYNA Wasiatyez and Dorota Jaraczewski offer
plenty of goodies at the Natura Health Food Deli.

NEWS photos Paul McGrath

AZIM Virani stands by the many products for sale at the West
Vancouver Home Hardware in the 1700 block of Marine Drive.

Bob Mackin
Contributing Writer

NATURA Health Food
Deli proprietor Krystyna
Wasiatycz wants cus-
tomers to be at home in
her business, which has
the feel of a dining room
and kitchen.

Wasiatyez opened the store in
the 1700-block of Marine Drive
in West Vancouver
16 months ago. It’s
tucked inside the
strip mall at the
west side of the | th
block and she likes © t
to think it’s West
Vancouver's — best :
kept secret.

Wasiatyez,
native of Poland,
came to Canada 17 vears ago.
She’s a computer systems ana-
lyst by trade.

But she decided to go into
business for herself, doing what
she likes the most: feeding peo-

le.

P “We believe in community,
person-to-person service,”
Wasaitvez says. “This is what's
missing from huge establish-
ments.

The carpeted cating area is
surrounded by shelves packed
with containers of imported
European food. A display case
has fresh delicacies, like blintzes,
cabbage rolls and cheesecake.
Everything contains natural,
organic ingredients, she says.

“It’s always homemade and
handmade,” she says.

“I believe that food is at its
best if it has heart in it. It’s nat-
ural for us to put a lot of atten-
tion to food preparation and
ingredients. It all has to be done
with love.”

Wasiatyez commutes daily
from her home in New
Westminster. Business partner
Dorota Jaraczewski, who lives on

LILY t.am, formerly from Hong Kong, offers fresh pro-
duce at Sun Jim on Marine Drive.

Wednesday, October 28, 1998 — North Snore News — 17

Travel Experts.

ELLIE Hender is president of West Vancouver-based

COMMERCIAL Avenues is a bi-monthly feature of the North Shore News
business section. While it is by no means a comprehensive quide to any of
the arens it focuses on, it secks to capture a snapshot of the day-to-day life
of businesses selected at random that call the street home. If vou have a
business that is part of a unique or otherwise worthwhile block or know of
any, shave it with us. Write to Commercial Avenues c/o Robert Galster at
the North Shore News, 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, V7M 2H4

or e-mail: robert@nsnews.com

the North Shore, recently joined.
Both women often enlist their
daughters’ help. It’s a real family
affair.

“We always say to our cus-
tomers, if you like our food,
please do come back and tell

your friends about it. So far,
so good. We are still
M . here.”
tags Fresh
; 7 conversation

fi. Lily Lam says it’s the
customers who make
owning Sun Jim pro-

duce such a pleasure.

Lam, who came to Canada

from Hong Kong 14 years

ago, has run the store for tive
years. Every morning, husband
Jim Lam wakes up and scouts for
the day's freshest truit and veg-
etables at local distributors.

“Ladies come to shop every
day, a lot of seniors,” Lily Lam
says. “People come here and talk
to yeu, it’s fun. They like to talk,
they have plenty of time, so they
like te come every day and pick
up groceries, get ouc the door
and see people.”

Lam says customers like to
talk about the weather or their
travels around = the world.
Regretfully, they'll soon be talk-
ing about higher prices because
of the Canadian dollar's poor
performance versus the American
dollar.

“This winter it’s going to be
very hard because of the high
dollar and the weather in the
U.S. I think a lot of people
bought more in the summer
time, buying a lot of local scuff

for canning.”
The store, originally called

Sun Sweet preduce, was renamed
for husband Jim. Sun, she says,
means “new” in Cantonese.

“There's so much competi-
tion around these days, big
stores, small stores, you have to
buy smart, you have to know
what kind of clientele you're
buving for.”

Being Halloween, pumpkins
of all shapes and sizes are the
hottest items right now. They're
all a nice hue of orange, and
looking for a home, says Lily
Lam.

Selection, selection,
selection
Thirteen thousand items.

That's Azim Virani’s estimate
for the size of the inventory at
Home Hardware.

Virani and his brothers Nawaz
and Zahir have operated the
store in West Vancouver for
almost 18 vears. It’s been at its
present location for 12 years,
though it was closed for a vear
after the 1993 fire.

“It took us a while to get back
where we were, bur it’s steady,”
Azim Virani says. “There are no
great ups or downs, it’s 4 steady
business.”

With so many items in the
store, he says it’s a challenge to
keep up with what’s new and
exciting.

“Every week we get a new
product listing and we've got to
pick and choose what we want to
bring in. You change the product
mix and it keeps it interesting for
the customers.”

With autumn in full swing
and winter around the corner,

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