Jack Thalen and Trevor Thalen

Upper James Street Hamilton: It was started by his grandfather Jack Thalen, who came to Canada from the Netherlands in 1950, with his wife Joanne and six children, and settled in Freelton. "He worked on a farm and in construction for about five years and then he broke his leg," Thalen said. "Injured and unable to work he started selling vegetables door to door to other Dutch immigrants in the community." He also started importing and selling Dutch products and in 1959 opened the first Dutch Toko deli and gift shop on Macdonell Street, according to Guelph Mercury. His son Harry started working at the store in 1964 at the age of 16 and in 1966 they opened a second shop on Upper James Street in Hamilton. "My dad has been working in the business for 51 years now," Thalen said. "He is starting to slow down a little bit, but he is still very involved. It was an important celebration for many Canadians of Dutch descent, including Trevor Thalen who manages a little slice of Dutch culture in the heart of downtown Guelph. "I would say a good 90 to 95 per cent of our products are from the Netherlands," said Thalen, co-owner and manager of Dutch Toko, on Wyndham Street. "We have different distributors and there are certain things we bring in ourselves direct." Thalen is the third generation to run the family-owned European delicatessen and gift shop. He is the owner and manager and I am working myself into that with buying him out and things like that. He first worked at the store when he was a teenager in the mid to late '80s. "I did some landscaping work for about three years," he said. "It was one of those things where you get laid off because winter slow and Dad had a talk with me and asked if I would be interested in coming back. We are both part owners right now." In the early 1980s they were forced to relocate the store to make way for construction of the Eaton Centre, which is now the Old Quebec Street Mall. "We had no choice but to move and then we were up the street on Wyndham in the old Sears building right beside the old Odeon Theatre ," he said. "We wanted to move a little closer to the centre of town so we moved this way and we have been in this location now for 28 years." Thalen lives in Guelph with his wife Michele and their young daughter. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.