Hero Sandwich Bar opens in Quadra Village after years of successful pop-ups

Victoria’s most popular sandwich pop-up finally has a permanent home in Quadra Village.

Last Friday, October 2nd, Hero Sandwich Bar quietly opened its doors to the public after months of preparing its new brick-and-mortar location at 1002 Hillside Avenue, the former home of Gigi’s Cafe.

Julie Gauthier, owner and operator of Hero, says the support she received during her opening weekend was nerve-racking but also exciting, as she sold out on both Saturday and Sunday.

The origins of Hero Sandwich Bar

Gauthier says that Hero began because she missed some of the Italian delis and sandwich shops from her hometown of Ottawa.

“I first started thinking about the pop-ups in summer of 2022, and I guess at that point I had lived here for about six years,” Gauthier told Victoria Buzz.

“I remember talking to my friend Laura, who’s also originally from Ottawa, about how much I missed the Italian sandwiches from back home, a couple of the delis I used to go to and how I couldn’t find those sandwiches here.”

Gauthier bonded with her friend over their love of good food and their nostalgia for things they couldn’t find locally, which eventually led to the two of them picking up all the ingredients to make the sandwiches at home.

“I don’t even remember how I went from that day to then being like, ‘I’m going to do a pop-up,’ but it really was that quick and insane because I had really never done anything professionally in a kitchen before,” she explained.

“I just said to Laura, ‘I think I’m going to do a sandwich pop-up,’ and she was like, ‘okay, fun.’”

Her first official pop-up took place in September 2022 at Standard Pizza on the corner of Pandora Avenue and Quadra Street. She was blown away at its success, with a lineup around the corner and down the block of people who had caught wind of it.

From then on Gauthier tried to do a monthly pop-up, which eventually became semi-monthly, until she took all of 2024 off. While doing all these pop-ups, She was also working a full-time job and considering if and how she could go about making Hero her main gig.

She started again with the pop-ups in 2025 on a semi-monthly basis, carried that over into 2026 when she really seriously started to look for a brick-and-mortar location for Hero.

“I’ve been always on the lookout, honestly since the first couple of pop-ups, because people just seemed so crazy about the sandwiches,” said Gauthier.

“I’ve just been keeping my eyes out for the right space and then this one kind of fell into my lap.”

She was sent the listing for the former Gigi’s location in early 2026, viewed the space when the time was right and after thinking about it for a short time, decided it would be perfect for Hero with a little tender love and care.

“Quadra Village was always on my list of neighbourhoods I wanted to be in,” she noted.

“I kept thinking about the space and I came back to look at it a couple more times and was like, ‘okay, yeah, we’re doing this.’”

Once Gauthier had acquired the space on June 1st, she had several months of work to do and was for the most part doing all of the cleaning, painting and everything else on her own—aside from the help she received from her loyal friends.

Her vision was for the space to become a neighbourhood hub, cafe, Italian deli stocked with some of her favourite retail and non-perishable goods and, of course, a sandwich shop with a more fulsome menu than she was able to offer at her pop-ups.

Slowly but surely, the space came together and opened to the public on October 2nd.

On the menu, there are 14 sandwiches to choose from—a significant increase from the two sandwiches available during Hero’s pop-up days.

The two mainstays of the pop-ups, the Classic Hero and the Spicy Hero, are the first two options on the menu, then there are smaller “panino” versions of both for those looking for a lighter, slightly smaller version of their Hero favourite.

The paninos are on a ciabatta bun rather than a continental semolina roll that the heroes are on.

There are three newer options for paninos as well. One highlight of the new menu is the ‘Mort Pesto Panino,’ which features mortadella, stracciatella (a soft Italian cheese), Castelvetrano olives and peperoncini.

The other seven sandwiches Hero offers are all melts, served after being finished on a panini press.

These include the Spicy Salami Melt, Spicy Turkey Melt, Morty Melt, Hot Capi Melt, Pesto Turkey Melt, Artichoke Pesto Melt and the Hot Honey Salami Melt.

(More below)

Julie Gauthier with two of her melts at the new Hero Sandwich Bar location (Hero)

Some retail offerings at Hero (Victoria Buzz)

For beverages, Hero has some canned Italian sodas, along with some North American sodas and Zamalek options. They also have a classic cafe espresso menu and source their beans from Oughtred’s Tug 6 Coffee Roasters.

As for the deli, once Gauthier has had a few weeks open to get comfortable in the new shop with her staff, she wants to also be able to serve mortadella and other meats by the pound, along with different types of olives and Italian cheeses such as fior de latte and burrata.

Hero is already stocked with loads of different dried pastas, tomatoes, olive oils, olives and other preserves that could be used by customers who want to get creative making their own Italian dishes at home.

Opening week

Hero Sandwich Bar is still in its first full week of being open, and is ironing out the wrinkles as they go.

Their opening hours will be from Wednesdays to Sundays, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

However, Gauthier’s vision for hours is that the shop opens at 9 a.m. and serves melts, cannoli and coffee, then brings the full menu online at 10:30 a.m. for the lunch rush. From there, they will sell sandwiches until they sell out.

She wants to use fresh buns that are baked and delivered daily with little-to-no food waste, and if one sandwich sells out, there will hopefully be others customers can choose from.

“I want to set myself up where we do the maximum sandwiches that we can while still selling out without leftover buns,” she explained.

In this, she is prioritizing quality over quantity.

Thus far, Gauthier says that everyone who has come in has been patient, kind and grateful to have a Hero Sandwich.

“Friday, Saturday and Sunday are all a blur, but I think we mostly sold out,” said Gauthier.

“The waits were long on Saturday and we know that—we’re working on our processes, changed some things for Sunday and sold out just as fast, but people had less of a wait.”

Heading into the long weekend, Gauthier is expecting Hero to be no less busy, but is excited to meet the challenge head-on.

“Realizing that day one is not where you end up, it’s where you start, and if that’s the baseline, then as long as I can do a little bit better every day, then that’s good enough for me,” she added.

Check out Hero Sandwich Bar in Quadra Village next time you’re in the neighbourhood!