Trader Joe’s vs shooting ranges and gun stores.

[elmwood]

Have a look at this thread I started several months ago. Here’s my typo-corrected OP …

I’ve noticed this everywhere I’ve lived; the occasional times I stop into an upscale, “natural” grocery store such a Wild Oats or Whole Foods, the customers seem … well, like the coldest, most unfriendly bunch of hippies and yuppies I’ve ever encountered. Customers seem to have a serious, studied look about them. Glance at someone in the aisles, and you’ll get the stink eye back … not just from hardened, stocky Subaru-driving wimmyn with short grey hair, but from everybody ranging from the dreadlocked vegan hippie to the cell-phone carrying twentysomething Trixie in a power suit. What’s the deal?

The checkout people in natural grocery stores are friendly as can be, but the customers … gawd, what are they angry about?

[RTFirefly]

I guess they’re just not that angry at the Annapolis TJ’s. I’m far more likely to get into conversations with both the workers and the other customers there than at any other store I frequent, of any sort. “Have you tried this one before? How did you like it?” “Well, it was good, but the one I really liked was…” and the next thing you know, you’re off and running. Occasionally the Old Town Alexandria store can be a hassle, because it can get so overcrowded, but my trips to the Annapolis store are always an upper.

[UrbanChic]

The Trader Joe’s in Towson seems to have polite clientele. Then again, I’ve talked on my mobile phone a few times while shopping and I drive an SUV so maybe I’m the rude person to whom the OP is referring…