Easy Supermarket:
23/03/2020 to October 2020
Peter Nguyen, along with his brother Kendall and their mum and dad, have run Easy Supermarket for two years now. Open every single day of the year from around 6:30am to 7pm, Easy Supermarket is a one stop shop for all your fruit, vegetable and groceries needs, even the hard to find ones. They also have a range of continental and international products. “We just took over before COVID really hit. We didn’t shut down as we were an essential business,” explains Peter.
During the two lockdowns, they of course ran out of stock of toilet paper. They overcompensated and now they’ve got too much, as can be seen in the front of the shop and the packed-to-the-brim storeroom. “We sold out of everything, all the canned stuff,” says Kendall, to Peter’s response: “Our supply chain is pretty good, and because we’re small we’re not like the big supermarkets so it wasn’t an issue.”
With much of the suburb around Easy Supermarket being home to older residents and young families, Peter noticed that during the lockdowns they had to stay home and look after their kids more. “A lot of our business here is dependent on the bus stops and the train stations, and with the CBD closed down, we lost a lot of our walking traffic. It’s been a struggle, but it’s okay. Everyone is being more conscious about pricing – the fruit and vegies, they’re happy to go down lower in quality if it’s cheaper, so that’s affected us a little bit.”
When asked about what he likes about Brunswick, Peter grins. “Everyone’s friendly with each other and everyone walks around, they don’t really take cars and that. We’re all friendly. That’s the best thing about here. It’s multicultural.”
Photos and interview by Anne Moffat