Hellooooooooooo, Trader Joe's

What a landing! What a welcome!

09/09/2011 3:42 PM

By Bonnie McGrath

2 Comments - Add Your Comment


Neighborhood Stalwart Jaqi Green, arriving at the opening of Trader Joe's



My (first) $93.74 TJ stash (photos by Bonnie McGrath)

What a feeling, all the new customers said. Wide aisles. Good prices. Clean. New. Bright. Everyone so friendly. The employees stood in a huge receiving line when we came in and they clapped. It was downright embarrassing they were so nice.


What an opening! Despite the fact there were no freebies to speak of this morning. Just crumpets and fig butter (the freebie preparer was quick to point out there was not really butter in the fig butter).

Before 8 AM, Alderman Fioretti used a huge pair of ceremonial scissors and cut a huge red lei. The lei is the Trader Joe's version of the ribbon. Lots of people standing around had cards for a free Trader Joe's shopping bag. Cars in the lot were few and far between. Most people walked over.

There were some VIPs already in the store when I arrived a little after 7:30--the alderman; his significant other Nicki Pecori; board members of community organizations; Steve Reginald--a pal and fellow South Loop blogger, who later pointed out to me several products he loves from Trader Joe's--like their olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which he mixes together for a salad every day.

But the rest of us had to stay outside until the store officially opened. We stood with a group protesting the fact that Trader Joe's pays a penny less per pound for tomatoes from Florida. "[Traitor] Joe's could help dramatically improve wages for farmworkers," said their literature. "Yet despite $8+billion in sales last year (and being owned by a multi-billionaire family in Germany), they refuse."

(The Sun-Times reports, however, that Trader Joe's pays above-union wages and provides a number of benefits to its employees.)

The neighbors were visiting in the aisles like mad. I never saw so many friends from the neighborhood before 9 AM. I had no idea so many could get up and out and to a grocery store so early. I must have spun around each aisle 50 times, talking to my friends and people-watching and putting things in my basket.

I finally checked out and came home and stacked everything up to snap the picture at right so I would have a memory of my first visit to the newest South Loop icon at Wabash and Roosevelt. My late aunt used to wait for buses there when it was a bus station back in the day. And in modern times, I used to go in there to Sam's until Binny's bought them out a couple of years ago and closed it down.

No sooner did I get home with my stuff than I had to go back. The oh-so-friendly check out girls charged me for three cans of white albacore tuna in water with half-the-salt. And I only bought two.


2 Comments - Add Your Comment



By Bonnie McGrath from South Loop
Posted: 09/11/2011 11:26 PM

I am hearing from Trader Joe's veterans that most things are cheaper than Jewel--but a few things are a little higher.


By Grandma from Douglas
Posted: 09/11/2011 9:52 PM

Is Trader Joe's less expensive than Jewel's?? How much would bananas or grapes cost per pound? Not that I would travel to your community, I'm just curious. I prefer to walk to the store as too!