Hearts crack as store closes:
Only the shell of the egg shop remains
the National Post, November 10, 2007

After 47 years in business, during which three generations of egg vendors sold approximately 1.3 billion eggs, a Kensington Market institution is no more. Augusta Egg Market, established in 1960, shut its doors for the last time two weeks ago.

Founded by the Offman family, the small storefront on Augusta Avenue offered brown and white eggs of various sizes that were trucked in fresh from farms each day and sold to local residents and wholesale customers. The shop also stocked quail eggs (used in soups, salads and hors d'oeuvres), turkey eggs (for people allergic to chicken eggs) and double-yolked eggs (for those who enjoy hearty omelets and aren't scared of large doses of cholesterol).

"Anybody within two miles of our place knew where the egg store was," says owner Philip Offman, whose parents and grandparents founded the business. "For 40 years, it didn't even have sign at the front."

Historically, the business's main retail clients were the large Chinese and Portuguese families who lived around the market. Offman, 40, explains that as those groups moved to the suburbs and were replaced by students and single people, sales dropped. Another factor that pushed Offman to close the shop was his concern for his mother, Mary, known to locals as "the Egg Lady."

The 70-year-old was working six days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, and her son wanted her to be able to relax and spend time with her grandchildren. When Offman got an opportunity to buy an egg wholesale operation in North York, he decided it was time to shut the shop and focus on the new project.

The egg shop's storefront is currently being renovated, but Offman says it's unlikely he will rent it out to the type of small grocer that has traditionally operated in Kensington. "The way the market is moving, it will probably be some kind of eatery or upscale service shop," he says. "We will always have fond memories and stories, but for everything, there's a time to move on."