Anna Family Store is a hidden gem

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/01/2022 (1610 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hello, East Winnipeg!

While there is sadness at seeing our small papers go, I couldn’t be more excited to be sharing stories of our corner in East Kildonan to a wider audience. There are some hidden gems where we live and admittedly sometimes there’s a reluctance to divulge their whereabouts for fear of losing charm.

However, you should all know about Anna Family Store, located at 755 Henderson Hwy.

I interrupted Anna Nabrzeska during a busy time a couple of days before Christmas. Some customers were asking for uszka, a Polish perogy typically filled with wild mushroom.

“We like to eat them with red borscht,” Anna said, “that is our tradition.”

This winter, stop in to Anna warm up with homemade stews, borscht, meats, and cheeses.

“We always have something different,” Anna said. “We have lots of capers, mushrooms, sausages… we are a small store with lots of stuff.”

Since opening in October 2018, Anna has been growing her store’s stock and it now boasts over 7,000 items from Winnipeg, Toronto, and Europe.

“I have many Russian, Ukrainian, German, and Polish customers, I have customers who come from Slovenia, Croatia, Czech Republic; there are many different nationalities come here,” Anna said.

“They come here because they can find different stuff, and everything looks different here than the big stores.”

“I have a very good feeling that my store is more popular than last year,” she said. “It’s hard to bring everything because lots of products are from another continent and 8,000 kilometres from here.  I want to invite everyone, and say thank you to all of my customers, for supporting our small business.”

Evan Comstock is a community correspondent for East Kildonan.