Toronto’s newest convenience store floats and doesn’t let you buy anything

There is another way to enjoy and admire a convenience store, without the need for you to buy anything.

You’ll find this in Toronto, Canada, where a convenience store is currently floating on Lake Ontario.

As the city gets ready to host FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, the convenience store art installation, titled Global Convenience, is a cheerful ode to a common sight.

The store is fully stocked with essentials one would usually find at a grocery store, such as potato chips, cereal, instant noodles and even rolls of tissue. Part of Waterfront Toronto’s 2026 Floating Public Art programme, the installation is the brainchild of Toronto artists Trevor Wheatley and Cosmo Dean and producers Rashad Maharaj and Spencer Cathcart.

‘It’s one of the most familiar and universally understood spaces in a city,” Wheatley says of a convenience store to magazine outlet Creative Boom. Moving it to the water and making it inaccessible, lets people “see something incredibly familiar with fresh eyes,” he said.

“When people are visiting Toronto for the World Cup, we want them to feel that familiarity,” said Maharaj. All items in the store, including the signages hail from all over the world, is an ode to the cultural exchange, connection, and identity that convenience stores evoke, said the organisers in a post on Instagram.

Toronto is set to host several World Cup matches from June 12 to July 2.

The quartet began works in February, and they quickly learned the ropes of keeping the installation afloat, taking into account weight, buoyancy, wind, and weather. They also took a “crash course in solar power” to keep the store lighted at all hours of the night, imitating the glow of a hole-in-the-wall bodega.

“There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and there’s something really special about watching people just light up and interact with it,” Maharaj said.

In 2025, the Waterfront Toronto’s Floating Public Art programme saw yellow letters that spell out “it comes in waves” floating on Lake Ontario.