Ottawa's downtown core has a grocery store that runs without a single employee on site. Aisle 24, a fully automated, cashier-less grocery market built for Canadian residential communities such as condos, apartments and campuses, operates a location at 256 Rideau Street in the heart of downtown.
How it works
There's no staff to greet you and no cashier to check you out. Customers unlock the store's doors using a smartphone app that communicates with Bluetooth-enabled intercoms, which display an "UNLOCK" message once the connection is made. Once inside, shoppers load their own carts and complete their purchases themselves at self-checkout kiosks, with no employees anywhere in the store.
Security instead of staff
Without anyone physically watching the aisles, Aisle 24 leans on technology to keep the stores secure. The company has installed an integrated security system that includes AI-enabled video surveillance and Bluetooth-capable 2N audio and video intercoms. Aisle 24 co-founder and CEO John Douang has said people appreciate having this kind of safe and secure convenience, framing the surveillance setup as central to how the concept earns customer trust rather than staff presence.
A small footprint by design
The Rideau Street location fits a format Aisle 24 has refined across the country. The company's typical store footprint targets 1,500 to 1,800 square feet, with existing locations ranging anywhere from 400 to 2,300 square feet. That's a fraction of the size of a conventional supermarket, built instead to slot into residential and campus settings where a full grocery store wouldn't otherwise fit.
Part of a bigger Canadian rollout
Ottawa's Rideau Street store isn't a one-off experiment. As of January 2024, Aisle 24 operated 28 locations across Canada, including stores in Ontario, Quebec, Edmonton and Nova Scotia. The concept has been expanding steadily as the company pitches cashier-less convenience as a fit for condos, apartment buildings and campuses, places where residents want grocery basics close by without the overhead of a full-service store.
Whether it becomes a regular stop or stays a novelty will likely come down to how comfortable shoppers get with unlocking a grocery store with their phone instead of walking through a staffed door.
Sources: Retail Insider, Western Grocer (Axis Communications press release), Downtown Rideau BIA directory
