It sounds like the finest supermarket of all time, but we don’t have them in Florida. Some people describe it as a good place for fresh produce, organic and natural foods. Others have made it out to be a gourmet market with the finest meats, seafood, cheeses, prepared foods, and store-brands that put other stuff to shame. Are the stores large? Are they expensive? (It sure sounds like it.) We have Wild Oats down here–does that place even come close? What about Whole Foods (a store we don’t have)? In any case, I’d love to visit a Trader Joe’s some time when I’m in a city with one, as it sounds like the kind of store I could go shopping while hungry and completely run amok.
By the way, before anyone asks, I posted this in Cafe Society because this is where we talk about food.
I can only speak to size, but it seems to me it couldn’t be that big. They’re moving into the site of a former ZanyBrainy in a nearby shopping center. I don’t really see how you could fit a supermarket in there, and it’ll be interesting to see how it competes with World Market, Whole Foods and Wild Oats all within about a five-minute drive. Anyway, maybe someone else can talk about other stores, but the one they’re putting in here will be small.
They are most often small, they are expensive. I do not know about “finest quality”, they are more like “you won’t find this stuff anywhere else”. Tomorrow I will go check out the local one a little closer for you.
I love Trader Joe’s. You can’t beat them for fresh produce- I’ve found that you can get organic produce at prices that are comparable to Wally World Supercenters. Also, they have a lot of private label brands of many, many items that are comparable to supermarket private labels, but the quality is on a par with name brands. Natural/organic cereals are about the same or a bit lower than what you’d pay at a supermarket, and it’s very tasty.
Some of the speciality items and prepared foods are a bit pricey, but you’re talking about all-natural/organic ingredients, and though it is more than you’d pay at Smith’s or Albertson’s, it’s still a lot less than a place like Wild Oats.
On the whole, I find that it’s cheaper to shop at Trader Joe’s than it is at most supermarkets. The low prices on the produce and TJ’s private label items more than offsets the higher prices on the Name Brand Organic Chicken Pot Pie.
And they have a really good selection of really good wines, really cheap. And you can get real, honest-to=God ginger beer there, too!
To sum it up, Trader Joe’s is the crown of Western Civilization. I am proud to shop there.
Your experience may vary, but our Trader Joe’s is about the size of a small supermarket, and is insanely, almost incomprehensibly CHEAP. I love it!
We’ve started doing all of our grocery shopping there, and have literally cut our bill in half, while eating better (organic, no antibiotics, no articial junk, etc. etc. etc. hippie) stuff.
Simple things like soy milk are cheaper ($1.99 vs. $3.50 at the mainstream grocery store), and their mircrowaveable rice bowls (similar to Uncle Ben’s Rice Bowls) are ~$1.50, compared to Uncle Ben Rice Bowls at $4 each at the mainstream Safeway grocery store. Everything else there folows a similar pattern - it’s about half the price of its mainstream grocery store counterpart, and about twice as good.
It is similar to something like Whole Foods, but without the inflated prices and yuppie atmosphere.
Yes, think of a small Whole foods, with more “junkfood” and much lower prices. Not that some things aren’t pricey, mind you. But only rarely can you do your entire grocery shopping trip there.
Speaking for my immediate social circle, life is pointless without a Trader Joe’s. Here, the things that are insanely inexpensive are dairy - fancy cheese, milk, eggs. Also, really nice quality chocolates and unusual cookies. Let’s just say it’s a PMS mecca (especially if you throw in a bottle or two of wine). Or one-stop shopping for a party. I’m not crazy about the produce in ours because it’s wrapped and I like to squeeze and sniff, so I usually go to Wild Oats for that. Whole Foods has fruit priced to display as art in a foyer, not to eat :rolleyes: .
I usually still end up having to schlep to Ralph’s for diet soda, sweet 'n low, stuff like that.
You can barely get in a TJ’s on the weekend here. Whatever you want in there, you’d better want it bad.
If you’re picking up a few items for a fancy dinner or party, Trader Joe’s can’t be beat. They’re sort of a discount gourmet shop, with store brands whenever possible. And I never spend more than about three minutes in line.
On the downside, their produce and meat selections are pretty limited (unless a six-pack of organic oranges and some frozen ostrich meat are staples in your household).
All in all, Harris Teeter beats them at their game around here (DC area), with the nifty discount hard-to-find stuff side by side with normal groceries at normal prices. Trader Joe’s is kind of a boutique. I really like their slabs of broken chocolate, though.
No, it’s not a “supermarket” in the truest sense of the word. It’s more a “market” or “corner store” type of place.
We have a Whole Food here, but I’ve never been there. I do know it’s bigger and more supermarket-ish than TJ’s.
I buy some of their boxed cereals for my kids that I can’t get at Safeway (actually cheaper than Cheerios), and the fancy cottage cheese (a little more expensive, but soooo much tastier), TJ’s brand Earl Gray tea bags (cheaper than Twinings and just as good), and lots of frozen fish. Not breaded Mrs. Paul’s crap, but fresh cuts of fish, flash frozen in thick plastic wrap. That’s also cheaper or about the same as the regular grocery store. I’m doing the low-carb thing, and eat lots of fish and seafood. The selection at the regular supermarket isn’t always as good.
I still hit Safeway or Giant for regular stuff, since they’re closer, but TJ’s is great. The one I go to is sandwiched between a Barnes & Noble and a Pier One Imports - it’s a wonder I can get out of the parking lot with any money left at all!
Trader Joe’s has things you can’t get anywhere else. Sure, you can get chocolate covered almonds just about anywhere; but try to find choco-covered almonds rolled in cocoa!. They’re the best. I’ve never seen Triple Ginger Snaps (ginger snaps with three kinds of ginger) anywhere else.
Their frozen fish is cheap and very good. They have an excellent selection of cheeses. As others have said, their dead-animal selection is a little sparse; but they do carry ground beef, grount turkey and ground salmon. They have chicken and seafoods. And I love their French Roast coffee (eight bucks for a 26oz can). If you like wine, this is the place to go. Charles Shaw (“Two Buck Chuck”) is quite tasty. You can get a variety of wines from France, California, Italy, Australia… all at very good prices. The frozen French Onion Soup is great. I really like their dolmas.
As I said elsewhere (MPSIMS) Shayna and Spiny Norman sent me a Trader Joe’s CARE package for my birthday. The Surry Simmer Sauce is an easy way to make Indian curry. (I throw some chicken thighs into it.) I made the Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce this weekend with beef. Quite good! I have two or three jars of muffuletta salad in the cupboard for whenever I want to make a New Orleans muffuletta sandwich. Much easier than making it myself!
Oh, how I wish the nearest TJ’s was less than 50 miles away!
Trader Joes is great for many things, and very cheap for a few items. They do suffer from inconsistant stock quantities (so you can never be sure that what you got last week will be in today), and they have a tendancy to bring out fantastic new items, and then over time modify their ingredients sometimes without changing the packaging very much to a much lesser item.
For Instance Traider Joe’s frozen French Onion soup was fantastic, with beef stock, and gruyere cheese: Later it became vegetarian without any change in price but a deteriation in quality: Now it is vegetarian with Swiss Cheese. Still a reasonable product, but it was originally better than you would get in most reasonale French restaurants, it now needs you to add garlic, beef stock and strong cheese to be really nice.
They must vary a LOT: I would never use the word “expensive” in conjunction with Trader Joe’s. Their stock is limited, but pretty carefully chosen. Few choices, but high quality and low prices. The two that I go to sometimes, though, have the suckiest produce departments. They’re good for frozen and dry goods.
So far the only items we’ve bought from TJ’s is a gallon of milk and a bag of veggie sticks. The big stores are more convenient for us right now because they’re right on the bus line that goes past our home and neither of us will be driving for quite a while.
My mom likes Trader Joes, but I wandered into the one at Bailey’s Crossroads out here just to see what the big fuss was about. Frankly, I walked around for about 25 minutes and failed to see a single thing I was interested in buying. They had an interesting country ham that I would think about buying if I had a lot of people coming over, but for the most part just stuff that I would never buy.
I go to the Harris Teeter and it has everything I want for a pretty good price. And it’s only about a half mile from my house so I can walk there and get some exercise.
Personally, I have absolutely no use for the place. I can’t think of a time that I have gone to one when I either had to compromise on what I came in to get, or couldn’t get everything on my list. Give me a co-op or even a PCC any day.
After much hoopla surounding the store (brought on by our friends who swear by it), we finally checked one out and were sorely disappointed. The produce was crap and the selection of everything else was so limited that between our regular produce market and our cheap supermarket, I would almost never go back there again. If I wanted to get a bunch of organic packaged foods, I suppose I would shop there, but I didn’t think they were much cheaper than Whole Foods and Whole Foods has a much better selection.
I still don’t understand the appeal of it, personally. And when we asked for plastic bags instead of paper, they gave me such a look that I actually almost felt the need to explain to them that since we have 2 dogs who go on three walks a day, we do in fact have a really good reason for our plastic preference.
I’ve had this debate already with jeevwoman and jeevmon, and tried to explain to them that TJ’s is just not somewhere one goes for one’s entire range of groceries, but certain things there are worth going out of the way for.
I would never buy produce there – I can get that much cheaper and fresher at the Mexican produce stand half a block from my house. But I am in love with their cheese section (goat’s-milk Brie! Yum!), their wine section, their coffee, their Vanana yogurt, and most of all, their fresh-squeezed orange and grapefruit juices (which cost less than regular Tropicana does at my local supermarket). I also go there for granola, nuts and dried fruit, canned refried black beans, peanut butter, and they have competitive prices on decent bread, milk, and eggs. Every once in a while I’ll pick up other stuff there: frozen fish (which I don’t use that often, but figure it’s better to use frozen fish than buy it fresh from the Chinese supermarket near my house but have it go bad before I get around to using it, and the fish and meat in my regular supermarket are disgusting and I never buy there), or cookies, or try out some random house-brand item (curry sauce, or pomegranate juice, or balsamic vinegar). The jarred salsa isn’t bad to have on hand if I’m not feeling motivated to make it myself.
But what I like most is that the packaged stuff is much less likely to have preservatives and other random crap in it than grocery-store brands. I’m a label-reading fanatic, and what I see in regular grocery stores terrifies me. If I can’t pronounce it (and I can pronounce a lot of stuff!), I certainly don’t want to eat it.
I’ve never been to a Trader Joe’s, but from the descriptions I’m reading, it sounds like what it wants to be is a Central Market. Perhaps we could have a comparison from someone who has been to both?
CM’s are best described as LARGE gourmet grocery stores. They have the most fantastic produce section I’ve ever seen, for real. Even in the winter they fly stuff in from all over so they have fresh produce. For a price, of course.
The meat section is amazing. Always a half-dozen varieties of freshly made sausages. Fresh cuts of beef, chicken, pork, lamb, turkey, and occasionally other critters. Oh and the seafood. Living in Dallas, I’ve never been too fond of the seafood available here until CM came along. It’s so fresh and there is so much variety.
Then there’s the bakery. Again, astounding variety. Then there’s the cheeses. My god, the cheeses. They must have fourty varieties of blue cheese alone, and that’s just one example. Then there’s the deli. Oh and did I mention the bulk area? And the three (small) aisles of nothing but coffee beans? And the HUGE wine and beer section?
That’s not even everything but geez I’m starting to sound like a sales brochure …
