First timer's experience: Running/maintaining a small Filipino store in Toronto

It's already the 4th of September,2021 and we're 2 months away from our first anniversary of having/running a Filipino retail store here in Toronto. 

Although we've been experienced business owners since 1985 back in the Philippines and even here in Canada, it's our first time owning a grocery store. For a very long time in the past, my wife has been asking me to open a store like this to complement her travel agency business but I always declined support. 

We've already run a retail business for 12 years back in the Philippines and I know from experience that having another one will prevent me from going on extended stays outside of Canada - which is what my original plan is. But the pandemic changed everything. All travel activities all over the world were suspended for an unknown length of time. Thus, when the travel business we were in was also affected, we had to find other options in order to be able to pay bills. 

 This store was a God-given opportunity simply because we were not originally looking to run a store like this. We just want to make a few dollars here and there to get-by through the pandemic. 

During the pandemic, we involved ourselves in food delivery service (the only pandemic job that time) and it so happen that the store was one of our regular bakery product deliveries. And if it's not really meant to be, we already know the owner of the store from our past transactions with her and her husband a long time ago. They're our customers back then - probably more than 10 years ago. 

And so, when we first saw the owner during our first pandesal delivery to the store, we were a bit surprised. 

Long story short, after several deliveries with the store and a few talks, we learned that she wanted to retire and was thinking of selling the rights to the store. 

Long story short, after several talks, our son decided that he wanted to try running the store while the pandemic was on-going making it impossible for him to find a regular job. 

So, we took the bite and now we're owners of a Filipino store in Toronto. We intend to keep the store until things go back to what it was before the pandemic, so we can at least have some income while things were tough. 

Goodluck to us!!