Dumbest Flagship Winestore in the World.

[TheEngineer]

Sorry for the tough(?) title but I thought it appropriate when I got back....

I know I write a lot about LCBO's (liquor License board of Ontario wine stores) but the truth of the matter is I love them for the shear size and scope of them (and hate them for the flimsy attempts at German wine). And tonight I finally visited their Flagship Store (store #10) which is officially the largest in Canada. The store is a refurbished former main train station building from the late 1800's? It is a beautify building for when train travel was still a luxury. The LCBO must have spent a TON of money refurbishing it. The store scope is hugh. I would estimate that the retail space is about 40,000 to 50,000 SF with a complete working kitchen classroom, a separate formal tasting room and three additional tasting spaces, a vintage wine area, a high end spirit area and tons of other space.

As I was happily strolling the store, I noticed a strong vibration on the floor,..to the point where the bottles vibrated. Then again in about 15 minute,...then a really good long jolt where the bottles were now visibly vibrating and hitting each other....remember that there must be somewhere like 100,000 bottles in there...it makes quite the noise even if only a portion clang......

The store is located immediately beside STILL WORKING train tracks. The vibrations were from regional and intermodal train services....They have an entire wall of DRC's, first growths, Le Pin's, Gaia, and many other four-five figure wines and spirits, etc....from various vintages all in nice climate controlled cases, etc,....yet, they didn't think about all the vibration that they get from the trains...???????

Fortunately I don't have the money to buy the stuff above...but if I ever did, I'm going to their second largest store....... or third largest,....anywhere but there... Such a shame...what a beautiful wine store though....

[This message has been edited by TheEngineer (edited 07-11-2005).]