Special preview: Trader Joe’s report

Posted by Steve on Monday, October 29th, 2007

Guess what, everybody? I wrote a column! Well, actually, I write a column every week in The Forum West (website still pending), but I’ve never posted them here. They’re usually not topical enough to pass blog muster–I tend to favor sweeping sociological observations over what happened at the latest community-board meeting. This week, however, I would have been remiss not to write about the phenomenon that is Trader Joe’s. I paid a little visit, as did many of you, and here’s my take, to be seen in bank vestibules everywhere this Thursday:

There’s something magical going on in Central Queens. Suddenly, Manhattan expats who used to all but lie to their friends about where they lived (“… but I have so much more space!”) are waving their outer-borough flags high. There’s an excitement in the air, an electricity palpable to people from Forest Hills to Richmond Hill and back up to Kew Gardens Hills. For months, wherever you went, everybody was talking about the big day—Oct. 26, the day their world would change forever.

“This is not a dream,” wrote the wonderful anonymous blogger who writes at foresthills72.blogspot.com when he received incontrovertible proof of the big event. “This is really happening.” One poster at my site, Queens Central, could barely contain her excitement in a series of posts, declaring herself “obsessed” and exclaiming that “I’ve been eagerly awaiting this event!”

I speak, of course, of the grand opening—and I do mean grand—of New York City’s second-ever Trader Joe’s. After doing boffo business and capturing the universal adulation of bargain-hunting gourmets in Union Square, the discount grocer has deigned to honor the intersection of Rego Park, Forest Hills and Glendale—not the Upper West Side, not Chelsea, not Park Slope—with a store.

Me? I don’t know if the arrival of Trader Joe’s is such a big deal. As someone who doesn’t own a car and lives two blocks from the express subway, I can be at the Union Square location just about as fast as I could walk to the suddenly hot intersection of Metropolitan and Woodhaven, and it’s certainly easier to get five or six bags of peanut-butter-filled pretzels home on the E train than it is to wheel them 1.8 miles in a rickety granny cart.

But I still had to investigate. The hypnotic lure of Joe was just too great.

I borrowed a car and my wife and I set out for TJ’s on the evening of its second day of operation, a Saturday. Even for an infrequent driver, getting there was easy—just follow the glowing aura. Parking, unfortunately, was a little more of a challenge. The lot was choked with parked cars, people waiting to park, and people who got tired of looking and ended up double parking, boxing in the fortunate few upon whom the parking gods had smiled, perhaps more for revenge than to get inside. I was having none of it and immediately pulled out, turned right, drove half a block and parked at the very end of the Sports Authority’s lot. Total walking time to TJ’s: about 60 seconds. Risk of towing: not zero, but significantly lower than the double-parking idea.

Inside, as expected, was a bit of a crush. The fire warden wouldn’t have handed out any citations, but the wide suburban-style aisles nonetheless felt more like a West Village D’Agostino than a South Shore Waldbaum’s. TJ’s did a respectable-if-labored job of adding some local flavor to the store through an assortment of murals, though somebody in the central office seems to have been under the impression that the World’s Fair packed up and left a couple of weeks ago, not in 1965.

“Dear Archie,” a giant postcard mounted on the wall read, “With my savings at TJ’s I can spend the rest ‘All on the Family!’” It was signed “Mrs. Bunker.” A silly touch, perhaps, but an appropriate one—Archie and Edith’s house, as seen on TV, was and is located just a couple of blocks away on Cooper Avenue. Despite TJ’s assumptions, I imagine the Bunkers would have been suspicious of anything labeled “organic” or imported from Thailand.

As I wandered the aisles, my skeptical mind couldn’t help but fall under the Trader Joe’s spell. Plenty of shelves were stripped bare by the opening-weekend rush, but lots of tempting food remained, and at prices generally lower than the suspicious-looking wares at the C-Town or Key Food of your choice. I came planning on picking up a few staples, but before long, I found myself stuffing my basket with chocolate-covered edamame and vacuum-packed “Just Bananas … Pressed.”

The checkout process was perhaps the best proof I got of the supernatural character of Trader Joe’s—somehow, despite the crowds, there was no wait whatsoever for a cashier. We had estimated we had about $100 worth of food. The actual bill turned out to be closer to $60. The food could have turned out to be trash, but as a consumer, the fastest way to my heart is ringing up $40 less than I expected.

As it happens, though, the food is pretty good. So as inconvenient as it is for me, I’ll be back, and I’m guessing a lot of other people will be, too. A lot of people scratched their heads when Trader Joe’s picked us for its second foray into the city. Well played, TJ’s, well played.

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