Chino Hills’ growing status as an Asian American center is about to take a leap forward with the debut of a T & T Supermarket, the Canada-based Asian grocer’s first Southern California store.
At 61,000 square feet, T & T is about one-third larger than a typical supermarket. It’s so large, it’s replacing not one but two vacant big-box stores, a Best Buy and a Bed Bath & Beyond.
I happened to be in Chino Hills’ Crossroads Marketplace shopping center on Peyton Drive last week for lunch and noticed the T & T facade was complete. Butcher-block paper covered the windows and the doors were open slightly to allow contractors and authorized people in and out.
Over Thai food, I asked Peter Rogers, a Chino Hills council member, when the store is due to open.
“It’s closer than we thought. We were expecting them to open Dec. 27 or 28,” based on previous conversations, Rogers said. But construction went quicker than expected.
The opening date: Dec. 10. A ceremony kicks off at 8 a.m. and shoppers will be let inside at 9 a.m. Mark your calendar.
In San Jose, where T & T’s first California store debuted in June, shoppers lined up as early as 4:30 a.m., and the live entertainment included lion dancers and robot dancers. It was a similar scene last week when the doors opened in San Francisco.
Chino Hills’ store will be T & T’s third in California and the largest to date.
“It’s going to be big. Sixty thousand square feet, 300 employees,” Rogers marveled. “T & T has a great reputation.”
T & T’s main competitors are H Mart and 99 Ranch, both of which have stores in Chino Hills. Asian Americans comprise 40% of the 77,000-population city, which has a median household income of $135,115, tops in San Bernardino County.
(I’d better cut this out before someone mistakes me for Jonathan Lansner, our Business department’s “trusty spreadsheet” guy.)
The food site Eater LA says T & T has specialty Asian groceries, imported snacks, a sushi counter, a seafood section, a bakery section and a hot food bar with Beijing duck and crispy fried chicken.
Tina Lee, T & T’s CEO, did a video walk-through of the store last week for Instagram. “This is a big, big store. It feels huge,” Lee exclaims under the store’s high ceilings. She shows off what she calls the “extra-large, super-big, industrial-sized oven” and the “fancy” bathrooms.
“I’m really happy with the location. I’m super, super happy with the work in that store. It’s going to be worth the wait, Chino Hills,” Lee promises as she exits to the parking lot. “There is nothing like it in Southern California. This is going to be a flagship. This is going to shake the town.”
Brace yourselves, Chino Hills.
Where to shop(pe)
Elsewhere in town, the news recently was that the Shoppes at Chino Hills is now, under its new owners, named the Shops at Chino Hills. Stockdale Capital Partners, which bought the center for $157 million, decided a modest rebranding was in order.
It’s not the first two-letter change to a local shopping icon’s name. Montclair Plaza became Montclair Place in 2015 after its sale to CIM Group.
I’ve always thought the “Shoppes” name was too fussy. Since the opening in 2008, my Chino Hills friend Lisa has jokingly called it “the Shoppies,” pronouncing the silent E.
The city’s streets division has held fast so far. The street bisecting the center remains Shoppes Drive. (Or is that “Shoppies” Drive?)
My book tour
Monday saw my first-ever speaking engagement in Fontana. (Despite nearly 30 years in the area, I still have fresh earth to turn.) The host was the city’s AARP group, so attendees were primarily members of the club, but two couples who weren’t members came to hear me.
Gauging my audience, I read a couple of columns from my collection “Such Great Heights,” one about aging and another about my childhood fascination with TV’s “Soul Train.”
Will this be both my first and last speaking engagement in Fontana? Not if some other group invites me — hint.
Saturday, Nov. 14 will bring another first for me: a talk in Rialto as part of Rialto Heritage Day.
Heritage Day takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Rialto Historical Society Museum, 205 N. Riverside Ave., and marks 115 years of cityhood (but who’s counting?).
The free event, with family activities all day, is a way to show off the museum — housed in a 1907 Gothic Revival building that was originally a First Christian Church — and promote city and regional history.
One highlight will be a video based in part on a 1960s all-Rialto slide show that society member Gabriel Felton discovered in a filing cabinet. “The script and everything was already there,” Felton enthused. He digitized the slides and added photos from the 1970s onward.
Felton invited me to speak from noon to 12:30 p.m. and sell my books. I told him candidly that I know virtually nothing about Rialto, but he said: “History is history.” True.
So I accepted. Come see me — and come see Rialto.
Making tracks
At Los Angeles Union Station on Sunday, having missed a Metrolink train home, and with the next departure almost an hour off, I decided to kill time at Traxx, the 1938 station’s bar, with a book.
Ahead of me at the bar was a shapely young woman in shorts and a thin tank top. She ordered a pineapple margarita and, while she waited, arched her back.
“Your drink’s been paid for,” the bartender told her. A tipsy senior at the bar acknowledged that he was the donor. She said thanks and sat elsewhere.
I ordered an espresso martini. The bartender extended the card reader.
Preparing to tap my card, I deadpanned: “I guess nobody’s going to buy my drink.”
The bartender smiled, while continuing to hold out the card reader.
David Allen pays his own way Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.