![]() | |
Industry | Retail Optical and Manufacturing |
---|---|
Founded | 1967 Toronto, Ontario |
Founder | Karim Hakimi |
Headquarters | , Canada |
Number of locations | 161 |
Area served |
|
Products |
|
Owner | Karim Hakimi |
Number of employees | 650 |
Website | hakimoptical |
Hakim Optical Lab Ltd. is a Canadian optical chain, the largest privately owned optical chain in Canada. In 2016 it had about 160 stores.
Karim Hakimi, a native of Iran, learned to make lenses from old window glass as a child. After a stint in the navy, Hakimi worked in the optical industry in Switzerland. [1] He then migrated to Canada and opened an optical laboratory in the former Elmwood Hotel (now the Elmwood Spa) in downtown Toronto, Ontario. [2] He bought and rebuilt old equipment from a closed-down lab in Chicago. After making a variety of lenses, he began selling them to local optometrists. [3] He soon began selling lenses directly from the Elmwood location. [4]
The company has sold over 40 million pairs of glasses. Karim Hakimi remains CEO, and runs the day-to-day operations at Hakim head office located at 128 Hazelton Avenue in Toronto. [5]
On October 18, 2008, the City of Toronto government renamed Lebovic Avenue in the Scarborough district to Hakimi Avenue. The City of Toronto does not normally name streets after living persons but made an exception in recognition of Hakimi's contributions. [6] [7] A documentary about Hakim Optical and its founder, titled Hakim: A Vision of Success, was made for Omni Television with Persian subtitles. [8]
As the business grew, he opened a small storefront near his home at Highway 10 and Dundas Street in 1967, enabling him to both manufacture and retail glasses. The next store was at Yonge Street and Finch Avenue, near the current Finch subway station. [3] [9]
By 1985, Hakimi had opened 27 stores, 25 in Ontario and 2 in Nova Scotia. Many of these offered on-site, one-hour service. [10] The chain had 200 employees, many of them newcomers to Canada. [11]
Hakim Optical has promoted its optical chain with its trademark jingle "Your Eyes Can Have it All at Hakim Optical" since 2003, which has been named by Huffington Post Canada as one of Canada's most memorable jingles and is still used. [12]
On May 1, 2011, Hakim Optical opened its new flagship location at Yonge–Dundas Square in Toronto which is two blocks away from the original 1967 location.
In November 2017, Hakim Optical partnered with virtual reality and augmented reality agency VusionVR Inc. to expand the in-store service by offering an app that would take a customer's selfie and apply a Snapchat-like filter of the eyewear being considered for purchase. [13]
As of June 2020, Hakim Optical had 161 retail locations (including 140 one-hour factory outlets) across Canada and also operates six lens factories. [4] [14]
Yonge Street is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. Ontario's first colonial administrator, John Graves Simcoe, named the street for his friend Sir George Yonge, an expert on ancient Roman roads.
Yonge–Dundas Square, or Dundas Square, is a public square at the southeast corner of the intersection of Yonge Street and Dundas Street East in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Designed by Brown and Storey Architects, the square was conceived in 1997 as part of revitalizing the intersection. Since its completion in 2002, the square has hosted many public events, performances and art displays, establishing itself as a prominent landmark in Toronto and one of the city's prime tourist attractions. Central to the Downtown Yonge entertainment and shopping district, the square is owned by the city and is the first public square in Canada to be maintained through a public-private partnership. The intersection is one of the busiest in Canada, with over 100,000 people crossing the city's first pedestrian scramble daily.
Koreatown is an ethnic enclave within Seaton Village, a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located along Bloor Street between Christie and Bathurst Streets, the area is known for its Korean business and restaurants. The ethnic enclave developed during the 1970s, as the city experienced an influx of Korean immigrants settling in Toronto. Toronto has the largest single concentration of Koreans in Canada with 53,940 living in the city, according to the Canada 2016 Census.
The Toronto Eaton Centre is a shopping mall and office complex in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned and managed by Cadillac Fairview (CF). It was named after the Eaton's department store chain that once anchored it before the chain went defunct in the late 1990s.
Toronto Chinatowns are ethnic enclaves in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with a high concentration of ethnic Chinese residents and businesses. These neighbourhoods are major cultural, social and economic hubs for the Chinese-Canadian communities of the region. In addition to Toronto, several areas in the Greater Toronto Area also hold a high concentration of Chinese residents and businesses.
Queen Street is a major east–west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline for the original east–west avenues of Toronto's and York County's grid pattern of major roads. The western section of Queen is a centre for Canadian broadcasting, music, fashion, performance, and the visual arts. Over the past twenty-five years, Queen West has become an international arts centre and a tourist attraction in Toronto.
Luxottica Group S.p.A. is an Italian eyewear conglomerate based in Milan which is the world's largest eyewear company. As a vertically integrated company, Luxottica designs, manufactures, distributes, and retails its eyewear brands all through its own subsidiaries.
North York City Centre is a central business district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the administrative district of North York. It is located along Yonge Street, between just south of Sheppard Avenue northward to Finch Avenue with its focus around Mel Lastman Square, a civic square, and spreads eastwards and westwards a few blocks, generally as far as Doris Avenue and Beecroft Road. The district is a high-density district of condominium and office towers with ground-floor commercial uses along the wide six lanes of Yonge Street.
Willowdale is a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. It developed from three postal villages: Newtonbrook, Willowdale and Lansing.
Lansing is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It originated as a minor settlement of a store, other services and a post office at the corner of Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue and later got consolidated with Toronto as sprawling development took place. A larger area was designated as the postal village of Lansing. The City of Toronto labels it as Lansing-Westgate for neighbourhood planning purposes with the boundaries Yonge Street to the east, Highway 401 to the south, Bathurst Street to the west and Burnett Avenue to the north.
Eyewear is a term used to refer to all devices worn over both of a person's eyes, or occasionally a single eye, for one or more of a variety of purposes. Though historically used for vision improvement and correction, eyewear has also evolved into eye protection, for fashion and aesthetic purposes, and starting in the late 20th century, computers and virtual reality.
A&A Records was a Canadian record store chain.
MOSCOT is a five-generation, family-owned, American luxury eyewear brand, headquartered in New York City, specializing in optical frames and sunglasses. It was founded in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in 1915 by Hyman Moscot, which is one of the oldest local businesses in New York City, as well as the 21st oldest eyewear company in the world still operating today.
Cohen's Fashion Optical is an optical retailer headquartered in New York City featuring fashion products such as eyeglasses, frames and sunglasses, lenses, contact lenses, and accessories. Professional eye exams are usually available with on-site Doctors of Optometry.
Warby Parker Inc. is an American retailer of prescription glasses, contact lenses, and sunglasses, based in New York City. Founded in 2010, it was initially an online only retailer. It now sells primarily through more than 200 physical retail store locations across the U.S. and Canada.
Karim Hakimi is an Iranian-Canadian entrepreneur and optician, known for founding Hakim Optical, a large chain of eyeglass stores across Canada.
Dundas Street is a major historic arterial road in Ontario, Canada. The road connects the city of Toronto with its western suburbs and several cities in southwestern Ontario. Three provincial highways—2, 5, and 99—followed long sections of its course, although these highway segments have since been downloaded to the municipalities they passed through. Originally intended as a military route to connect the shipping port of York to the envisioned future capital of London, Ontario, the street today connects Toronto landmarks such as Yonge–Dundas Square and the city's principal Chinatown to rural villages and the regional centres of Hamilton and London.
Bailey Nelson is an Australian multinational optical retail chain, which operates mainly in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK. Bailey Nelson is, as of 2021, a privately held company.