T&T Supermarket will open its first California store at Westgate Center in San Jose on June 18, 2026, the company announced Monday, extending the Asian grocery chain's footprint into the United States' most populous state for the first time.
The location, situated at 1600 Saratoga Avenue at the intersection of Saratoga Avenue and Prospect Road, will open to customers at 9:00 a.m., with public celebrations beginning an hour earlier at 8:00 a.m. The site sits within Westgate Mall, one of Silicon Valley's established retail corridors.
The San Jose store represents a meaningful step in T&T's broader U.S. strategy. The company, which operates dozens of stores across Canada and is a subsidiary of Loblaw Companies, has positioned California — home to one of the largest Asian-American populations in North America — as a priority growth market. The retailer characterised the new unit as the first of multiple planned California locations, signalling a phased rollout rather than a single-store test.
T&T has built its brand around a specialised Asian grocery format that combines fresh produce, prepared foods, and imported pantry staples in a full-service supermarket environment. That proposition faces a competitive field in the Bay Area, where established regional players such as 99 Ranch Market and H Mart already operate multiple units, alongside independent Asian specialty grocers serving the region's dense immigrant communities.
The California entry comes as grocery retailers broadly reassess their real estate pipelines following a period of elevated construction and occupancy costs. For T&T, securing a prominent mall anchor in San Jose provides both foot-traffic exposure and a visible brand statement ahead of any subsequent California openings. The company has not disclosed lease terms, capital expenditure for the buildout, or a timeline for additional locations.
Food & Beverage Magazine (https://fb101.com/?utm_source=fbindustrynews&utm_campaign=powered_by) has tracked growing investor interest in the ethnic grocery segment, which has outpaced conventional supermarket traffic growth in several U.S. metro markets over the past two years. T&T's California move adds a well-capitalised national operator to that competitive set, raising the stakes for regional incumbents and drawing attention from commercial landlords seeking grocery anchors with differentiated formats. Observers of retail grocery expansion and Asian-format supermarket growth will be watching whether the San Jose opening translates into an accelerated multi-unit rollout across the state.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
