1. You mothers with your strollers and your delicate little babies -- WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Do you want your child to lose a limb or two while you dilly dally in the dried fruits and nuts aisle? New Yorkers with shopping carts and credit cards are not creatures to be toyed with, especially when they're fighting each other for the last bag of avocados. Do us all a favor and leave your babies at home. At least until the initial crush is over.
2. Trader Joe's -- WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? You have obviously underestimated New Yorkers' rabid desire for bargain priced hippie food. Didn't you send any recon to Whole Foods? And their shit is twice the price. You see how today's line wrapped around the entire store and then snaked through the produce section? The line will not always be that way. It will only be that way during lunchtime (11:30-2:30), after work (4:30-closing), and all day Saturday and Sunday. Especially Sunday.
3. I flew home on Wednesday night, completely starving, and found an open bag of Trader Joe's dark chocolate covered pretzels. Doug claims he didn't buy them, houseguest Justin claims he didn't buy them, and I certainly haven't been near a Trader Joe's in years (until today). So we finished the bag off and still haven't figured out where it came from. Was this some kind of guerrilla marketing tactic? Some hippie temptress fairy leaving innocuous opened bags of Trader Joe's wares in people's pantries? And did I really go to Trader Joe's today just to get more dark chocolate covered pretzels? (I think I got the last bag.)
4. A pound of penne pasta is 69 cents. A large can of plum tomatoes is 99 cents. A bottle of balsamic vinegar is $1.69. Six english muffins are $1.49. The grand total for my groceries on this initial outing was $30 -- I would have easily spent $60 on the same stuff from Whole Foods.
5. Yes the store is small but the variety offered is impressive.
6. The fish is all frozen, but that means it may make it all the way to Sunset Park intact.
7. The line was all the way around the store but we only waited about 20 minutes from the end of the line to the end of the transaction.
8. If none of this is exciting to you, I'm glad. That means more room for me in the aisles.
9. Wine store not open yet. Does Two Buck Chuck come in a sparkling variety?
10. Trader Joe's, please open in Brooklyn. Preferably in Sunset Park. Thank you, I love you, I miss you already.
I stuck my head in on Saturday and must admit that I was too much of a coward to go inside.
The main problem was that, when I looked in the window, I literally couldn't see a square foot of open floor space.
There seemed to be as many aggressively consuming NYers in the aisles as there were food items on the shelves.
I guess I'll have to swing by on Tuesday mornings at 10:45am. Sigh.
ganda, next time you go to trader ho's see if they have Papadum's in their snack/chips aisle. delish. tandoori flavor kicks ass!
It's so exciting to see new yorkers excited about trader joes! I'm an excited new yorker but I'm lucky because I'm in California.
I am a fan of the fact that they have real Irish butter and their own line of Greek yogurt.
But you know these people are not hippies, the owners are German. It's like a poast modern americana joke, the marketing.
And I do hope they give WF a run for their money! It's about time someone did.