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Bulk Cheese Warehouse opening delayed until mid-summer

May 10, 2013 | 6:23 AM

The prolonged winter in Prince Albert has delayed the opening of the Bulk Cheese Warehouse on Second Avenue West.

The new specialty food store was originally slated to open the May long weekend, but a mid-summer opening is more likely now.

Owner Scott Bartlett said they hoped to start construction two months ago, “but winter was too ferocious for us to get going. So we postponed our start for probably 60 days.”

Bartlett said that after he announced the May long-weekend opening, Prince Albert was hit with successive snowstorms, coupled with cold weather.
Before the store opens, the existing building will have to undergo a significant renovation.

“This building that we're in … requires quite a bit of upgrades, obviously, it was a tire shop, [and] we`re going to turn it into a grocery store,” Bartlett said. “We'll just wait until the weather improves and we`ll get started.”
Renovations only recently started, and Bartlett said it will take about three months to complete.

The biggest job is to cut up the floor, lay down the plumbing and pour in the concrete, but Bartlett said that's something they couldn’t tackle when it was snowing out and -25 degrees C. He said they have the sinks and freezers that will be in the store.

When the store does open, it will employ 20 people – both full and part-time – and the store will be open seven days a week. The Bulk Cheese Warehouse will make a lot of the products it will sell in its Prince Albert store at its warehouse in Saskatoon.

“So we`re a little late getting started but absolutely committed,” Bartlett said. “We`ve got all of our equipment bought and … so many of the things done administratively that we have to do to open the store and now we just have to get the renovation finished.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames