Beer Store at Kingston and Victoria Park reopens after closing doors last August
By JULIA SAWICKI
East Toronto residents will once again be able to return empties and visit The Beer Store’s reopened location on the southeast corner of Kingston Road and Victoria Park Avenue.
The reopening of the 1089 Kingston Rd. store, in the Henley Gardens plaza, was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Beer Store executives, employees, brew partners, and community stakeholders on the morning of Monday, June 22.
Along with the celebration, a variety of changes were announced to ensure that the store operates at a level that maintains an easy and positive shopping experience, through better training, a wider selection and more space for customers.
“We’re proud to be back in this neighbourhood,” said Ozzie Ahmed, Vice President of Retail at The Beer Store.
“While we’re back in the same location, customers will notice some changes, and over the coming months, even more improvements as we continue to bring new technology and innovation to the store.”
The Beer Store in the Henley Gardens plaza had closed its doors on Aug. 25 of last year.
Ahmed emphasized that the reopening project was a collaborative effort involving teams across retail operations, supply chains, logistics, information technology, communications, brand and field operations.
“This reopening truly took a village,” he added.
The redesigned store features a more efficient layout for customers and improvements aimed at streamlining can and bottle returns.
The Beer Store also plans to introduce new technology in the coming months, including a recycling app that will simplify bottle return transactions. The app is expected to support a “bag drop” program, allowing customers to leave containers for processing and receive deposit refunds directly and efficiently.
For Beer Store President and CEO Roy Benin, the reopening represents more than just the return of a familiar storefront.
“This is a very big deal,” Benin said. “It’s not often that The Beer Store reopens a store and adds a store to our network. In fact, we haven’t done it in years.”
The Beer Store, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year, is Ontario’s largest beer retailer despite the expansion of alcohol sales into grocery and convenience stores. The company’s reputation also extends into environmentalism.
“What we’re known for internationally and globally is our recycling program,” said Benin.
In 2025 alone, The Beer Store recovered approximately 1.6 billion alcohol containers through its return network.
According to Benin, the company accepted more containers than it sold because consumers return bottles, cans, and other alcohol containers purchased through LCBO stores, grocery stores, and convenience retailers. He anticipated four million cans and bottles dropped off at the Kingston Road location alone. The Beer Store’s environmental efforts earned recognition as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 2025 and 2026.
Still, Benin says there is room for improvement.
“Three out of every four containers come back to us,” he said. “We’re going after that last one out of four.”
Despite potential concerns over reopening in the same location, Benin is confident that the neighbourhood will support them and appreciate the familiarity.
“The markets change so often, and we have a really good read on the market,” he explained. “We realized that this area was being really underserviced, and we were fortunate to already have the location and infrastructure. I’ve had so many people talk to me today and say, ‘Oh my God, you’ve reopened. This is easy, it’s automatic, I know where to park, I know where you are.’ So we think that’s great.”
“If you live in this community, recycling just got more convenient,” added Benin.
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