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If you ring the bell at Tosi’s, and step inside the store, you will find yourself in an almost magical place filled with some of the best food, history and culture the city has to offer.
When people think of Main St between Keefer and Georgia, they usually think Chinatown. But eighty years ago, that stretch of downtown was actually Little Italy, and in the centre of it all was Tosi & Company, one of the oldest family owned businesses in Vancouver. By the 1950s the centre of gravity for the Italian community started to shift east towards Commercial Drive, but Tosi has continued, a bastion of quality Italian food for over a century in an area most people associate with Asian food.
Visiting Tosi’s today can be an unusual experience. Scratch that - it’s an understatement. There probably isn’t a store in Vancouver that comes anywhere near the experience of shopping at Tosi. The storefront is non-descript, with a few products stacked in the window. The door is almost always locked, and a small sign indicates a buzzer. Inside, the store looks dark.
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The first time we went last fall, we were, to be honest, a bit intimidated. Ringing a bell meant having to commit. What if we didn’t really want anything? There was suddenly a lot of pressure, but we forced ourselves to ring anyway. The door unlocked, and at first it seemed like no one was working there. But as we wound our way through the dimly lit piles of seemingly abandoned cash registers, Italian bed dolls, hoses and jars, we made out the form of Angelo Tosi, the son of the original owner.
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As our eyes adjusted to the lighting, we saw stacks of pasta, tiny bags of spices and herbs, a whole wall lined with olive oil, and a case of cheeses.
We picked up a package of figs and Angelo called out immediately in his raspy voice, “You soak one of those in water overnight in the fridge and the next day...Oh! It’s like a fresh fig from the tree. Nothing like it.” In the end, we weren’t sure what to buy and went with Mr. Tosi’s suggestions - some brined cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and pasta. While we paid, he shaved off pieces of cheese that he insisted we try. That first visit pretty much set the tone for all our other ones - we choose one or two things, and then Angelo recommends two or three more and we leave happy.
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Angelo has been running the store since 1973 when his father died at age 89 and has no plans to stop now. He specializes in several core brands of high quality Italian food products like Pagani pastas and Angelo brand canned tomatoes (packed specially for Tosi in Naples). Tosi & Company does a lot of wholesale business with Italian restaurants in the city. In fact, Mr. Tosi has been delivering in the same truck (still running from 1967!) for years. If you see an old green pick up that smells of parmesan, chances are it’s Angelo.
So, ring the bell - it’s worth it. Location: 624 Main St (just south of Keefer). And as the sign on the shelf behind the counter says, "In God We Trust - for the rest CASH". Bring plenty of cash; they don't take credit cards.
