A makeshift mailbox at Vancouver’s funky Le Marché St. George café and grocery is full these days, stuffed with letters of support for the neighbourhood shop run out of an old green house at the corner of East 28th Avenue and St. George Street.

But even all those accolades, bolstered by 4,000 online signatures and an overflowing Facebook page, may not be enough to convince Vancouver City Hall to overlook its grocery store bylaw and allow the shop to stay open.

Indeed, co-owner Pascal Roy expects he will have to shutter the family-run business on Saturday, laying off 15 employees and giving up a long-held dream, following a city inspection on Friday.

“It’s so heartbreaking,” said Roy, who lives above the grocery with his wife Janaki Larsen, their five-year-old daughter and his sister-in-law, and has three chickens and some beehives in his backyard. “I can’t believe what’s going on in this city. They talk about creating communities and being green. We’re exactly what the city wants us to be and they’re shutting us down.”

Roy has been running a grocery and café on the site for the past five years, offering everything from artisanal products to baked goods, meat pies and fresh coffee, quiche and crepes to customers who can sit at the few tables inside or outside. But when a neighbour recently complained to the city that the sidewalks outside the shop were clogged with children’s toys and strollers, he said, the city inspector came calling — and the news wasn’t good.

Roy said the city told him he could run a grocery on the site, but the land was not zoned for a café, which meant he could no longer serve quiche and crepes or even have an outdoor patio. Part of the problem, the city said, is that the grocery was run out of the bottom of the house, which has two residential units upstairs and one downstairs, which is zoned as a residential rental suite.

In order to use the downstairs suite to prepare and serve food in the café, Roy would have to seek rezoning of the property, chief licence inspector Andreea Toma said in a statement emailed to the media.

“The city is committed to ensuring housing stock is available for residential use and has required the business to fall into compliance,” Toma said.

Roy said he can’t afford to keep the business running if he’s not allowed to serve crepes and quiche, the main items on the café’s menu, or a cup of coffee to a customer. At the moment, the café can seat 10 people inside but that would be reduced under the bylaw.

“Economically it’s not viable to not serve food and not have outdoor seating. We would have to close. There’s no way we can stay alive.”

The city maintains the property-use inspection will focus on the approved land use and business license, including patio seating, but notes it “does not pre-judge the compliance issues until a full inspection is conducted.” Tomas added in the email that the city also encourages Roy to bring forward his plans and staff will “guide them through our processes for business licensing requirements” as well as addressing the compliance issues.

Roy insists he’s not going down without a fight, saying the past five years has been “the best experience of our lives” and has allowed his daughter to grow up in a “wonderful environment.” He says he’s overwhelmed by the support from the community, which is planning a rally this Saturday at 11 a.m. and continues to write letters and sign an online petition.