February 9, 2026
Oak Bay Red Barn owners Melissa Hazenboom and Scott Travers
Happy 10th Anniversary Oak Bay!
Celebrate a decade of our Oak Bay store with us 
Our Oak Bay Store opened it’s doors on Febuary 4th, 2016. We can’t believe it’s already been 10 years!
Big thanks to the Oak Bay News for the interview and article featured in last week’s paper.
Oak Bay Red Barn celebrates 10 years stuffing pantries, fridges and freezers
Published 9:30 am Thursday, February 5, 2026 By Oak Bay Staff
On Feb. 4, Red Barn’s Oak Bay store will celebrate the day it slid its doors open for the very first time.
One of eight locations across Greater Victoria, the Oak Bay Avenue grocery, which sits tucked between Redfern and Davie streets, has offered locals easy access to produce, dairy, meat, seafood and hearty wraps and sandwiches since 2016.
For owners Melissa Hazenboom and Scott Travers, trips up and down the aisles lining the 6,000-square-foot store have produced more memories than they can count – and most of them about locals.
“I like chatting with people,” said Travers. “That’s been one of my favourite parts – just meeting so many great people.”
Those include the group who, during Covid-19, took it upon themselves to write a thank-you message in chalk outside the store’s front doors. Or the man who scrubs graffiti off the grocery’s walls out of the kindness of his heart. Or even the many brothers and sisters who, one after another, have grown up making sandwiches, scanning groceries and hauling boxes there.
“The relationships that have been formed from day one – it’s just amazing,” said Hazenboom.
That level of community connection means many have chosen to make Red Barn a regular part of their lives, and over the years, Red Barn has changed to meet the needs of those loyal customers.
“We set it up according to what all the other Red Barns were doing up until that point,” said Hazenboom. “And then we realized that wasn’t necessarily what was going to fit in this community.”
The owners opted instead to pack the store with what customers requested.
“We just started filling our shelves with what we were being asked to fill the shelves with,” said Hazenboom.
To celebrate the 10 years and the thousands of locals who have perused the shop’s shelves, Red Barn will offer $10 sandwiches for 10 days, starting on Feb. 4.
“We joke about it at times that we’re a deli with a grocery store on the side,” said Travers. “It’s our number one item, and that’s what people want.”
As for the next 10 years, Travers and Hazenboom don’t have huge plans to overhaul the store, expand it or move locations – just little tweaks and improvements here and there.
“We’ll continue to spend money on our store to make things better and cleaner, and I think it’s important that we continue to do that,” said Travers. “People like seeing change in their store, especially if it’s new cases and things like that where we can … make it as nice a shopping experience as possible.”
Red Barn started as a local farm stand at the site of the company’s current West Saanich location in 2002. Since that quiet opening, the store has grown across Greater Victoria and now employees over 450 people.
Source:
Read more at: https://oakbaynews.com/2026/02/05/oak-bay-red-barn-celebrates-10-years-stuffing-pantries-fridges-and-freezers/