Convenience Stores
Mediterranean Market
About Mediterranean Market
Some shopping lists cannot be finished at a supermarket. Olive oil bought by the tin rather than the bottle, olives and cheeses that never make the big chain shelves, spices in useful quantities, dried pulses, grains and pastas, preserved lemons, tahini, filo and the flatbreads that come from a bakery rather than a plant. Those are the things that send people looking for a specialty grocer, and Mediterranean Market is at 3115 48th Avenue in downtown Vernon.
Shops of this kind serve two crowds at once. There are households that grew up cooking this way and want ingredients they recognise, and there are cooks who found a recipe and cannot source half of it locally. Small importers and specialty food stores work on a different rhythm from a supermarket. Stock arrives when it arrives, some items are seasonal, and a shelf that is full one week can be thin the next, which is why regulars tend to buy when they see something rather than when they finally need it.
Two habits make the trip worthwhile. First, phone ahead if you are driving in for one specific ingredient, because the point of a small shop is a curated range rather than an exhaustive one. Second, ask questions at the counter, since people who work in a shop like this usually know what is comparable when the exact thing has run out. Vernon draws shoppers from across the North Okanagan, from Coldstream and Armstrong and the rural roads north toward Swan Lake, so a stop here folds easily into a trip already being made into town.
Visiting Mediterranean Market
Getting there
In the Downtown Vernon neighbourhood of Vernon.
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