Trader Joes KC
 

Anyone been yet? Whats the fuss? Its just a grocery store right?



http://www.kcconfidential.com/full_c...full=yes&pbr=1



Fast forward to this week's hot July weekend in Kansas City and Friday's grand opening of not just one, but two TRADER JOE'S grocery stores---the upscale sister business of German owned ALDI stores.

A grand opening without any advertising no less!

(Note: TJ's takes all credit cards. Aldi doesn't take any. And the second TJ location is at 119th and Roe in Leawood.)

Barricades at Ward Parkway Center, security officers, long lines, humanity in mass. You'd think these people had never been to a modern supermarket. Or God forbid, a WHOLE FOODS.

As I was driving past the new Trader Joe's off State Line Friday morning, I swore to stay away from the place for at least a month before checking it out. But curiosity got the best of me Sunday afternoon and off to Ward Parkway Center it was.

Trying to find a parking spot anywhere close was a major challenge. But I lucked out with a spot on the far north side of Target's parking area.

What did I find inside the new store?

Massive crowds, many semi-empty shelves that couldn't be restocked fast enough and some pretty tasty looking goodies. Pricing at first glance seemed to be good to average. A six pack of Beck's beer $6.99, while a gallon of milk sold for $2.99---good prices.

Did I stock up?

No way! Eight checkout lanes. Each with lines at least 20 shoppers deep.

Will I go back? Sure, why not---when things have settled down a bit that is. Until then, it's HyVee, Price Chopper---and dare I suggest--Whole Foods for me.

I shop at Trader Joe's when I'm in California once or twice a year, and it kind of freaks me out that there are no brands that I recognize. It's a fine store, but it's odd to go into a grocery store and see nothing from Minute Maid, Nabisco, et al.

I went and it was beyond packed. I do like that it's taking people away from Whole Foods. The one on 119th is always nuts to butts and yesterday was a little more laid back.

"I only shop there. I live in LA. I've never even heard of Nabisco."

- Dane

I had sex with Angelina Jolie on the checkout belt last week. It's no biggie. That happens all the time here in LA. She's a cool girl. I'm so awesome. QUIT STEALING MP3s and ILLEGALLY DOWNLOADING MOVIES!

-Dane

I went to the ward parkway location Saturday afternoon 4 pm and it was a mad house. People were shoving past everyone. I did not last long. I returned Sunday morning at 8 am and there were maybe 20 people waiting to get inside. I had more time to shop and picked up an assortment of there goods. What I have tried has been quite good.

Pear sauce (think apple sauce) it was really nice.
Triple ginger snaps. Excellent ginger bite and flavor.
Pineapple juice. Very Good (not from concentrate)
Orange Juice. good but seemed to lack flavor (not from concentrate)
Organic eggs. Very good flavor and dark orange yolk
Trader Jo's Root Beer. Ok it is no IBC rootbeer.

They will be definitely competing with the Market in Brookside. Their price seem good.

I like the fact that they carry some different produce and different meats.

Ang

I've been to one in DC a couple times. The entire place is pretty much house brands, but the quality level is certainly much higher than "Great Value" and that type of thing. People who do a lot of shopping there swear it's less expensive than about any other grocery store out there, but the quality is just as good. I couldn't really judge from my limited experience, though.

They also have a pretty good selection of "hippy" food (as I affectionately call it), such as organic foods, gluten free stuff, and a plethora of stuff that vegetarians would like.

I went last night. The prices are good and the employees were very friendly.

Seems like most of the larger grocery chains have quite a bit of this kind of stuff now, too.

Not that I' saying Trader Joe's doesn't have more or better, just that a lot of grocery chains have added a lot of that.

Hippy food? That is an interesting way of putting it. :)


I have been to Trader Joes here in Vegas and Henderson many different times for many different reasons but most of it boils down to getting organic foods for me. They are a fresh alternative to the regular grocery store and they don't really carry much that isn't organic here. It is nice to read a lable and know what is in my food that doesn't have a name that I need google to find out what it is.

Trader Joes is far enough away for me that I only go there once or twice a month.

Trade Joe's kicks ass.

No brand names that you would know, but good quality and prices.

I first started going to Trader Joes 20 years ago and considered it a great place for wine, cheese, nuts, and trail mix. Since then it has really grown on me as a complete grocery store, and yes the quality is very high for the price. I eat out of a microwave alot due to work schedule, and Trader Joes makes that seem less gross with some really nice quality frozen and prepared food sections.

Very rare to find something I don't like there. I still have to supplement with some produce and specialty items from whole foods, but overall it's a regular stop for me and I have come to trust the Trader Joes brand.

I do give them shit regularly about the bottled water from New Zealand. Is it really a good idea to ship bottled water 7000 miles to a country that has plenty of bottled water?

I haven't been to Trader Joe's in years. Shit was way overpriced. Not sure what it's like now.

Not a huge fan of it. Good for some things, but I couldn't do all my shopping there.

I always got trader joe's confused with trader vics. I'd go in looking for a mai tai and find nothing but hippy food. WTF?

My gf wanted to take a look, so we went to the one in Town Center. I just don’t get it. Atiny grocery store selling nothing but their own brand of EVERYTHING! I didn’t see one non-TJ item in the store.

And the parking lot was a mess, took forever to get in and out, and almost got hit twice by soccer mom SUVs. I came away from my experience with 2 conclusions: I will likely never shop at trader joes, and while people are morons, the ones who frequent Town Center are the worst kind of moron.

A sampling of great things from trader joes:

canned corn. amazingly crisp and sweet and not canny at all.
almond milk. they just added this and I like it more than almond breeze brand.
roasted pepper and corn soup. I sometimes add grilled chicken and hot peppers, but good straight.
satay noodles. I miss these since I stopped eating gluten.
marinara. the regular one, tall jar.
caramelized onion dip. great on carrots ,cucumbers, and grilled steak tips (happy accident.)
hummus. all kinds.

Love Trader Joe's.

Sad that there's not one in my area.

The wife braved the crowds this weekend. She loves the place.

Trader Joe's is awesome. Think of it as a small, hippie Whole Foods with better prices. (Or, if you have a cheapskate Aldi's around, think of it as Aldi's crossed with Whole Foods.) They have some truly unique products that are hard to find (if not impossible) elsewhere.

I love TJ's and shop there all the time.

And apparently they have some decent tasting wines at very chep prices.

The Chocolate Croissants are amazing. They are in the frozen breakfast area.

Sounds like a "hipster" place.

Yea, thats kind of the vibe im getting. I dont think im enough of a food connoisseur to appreciate a place like this.

Ill stick to the regular grocery stores and name brand stuff.

Not really. Granted, there are a fair share of hipsters who shop there, but they are certainly a minority.

When I chose to go back to school full-time 3 years ago, I started working at one of the locations here in St. Louis. Flexible hours and great benefits made it the perfect job for me. I totally had my preconceptions blown out of the water as I had a similar opinion to the one above. Sadly, my tenure there has come to an end as I've graduated.

What it boils down to is this: if you like healthy foods (no artificial preservatives, no GMO's, etc.) at a cheap price (more often than not they are cheaper than your neighborhood grocery store), then it is a great place to shop. Best frozen foods and best valued wine, bar none.

BTW, many of the TJ label products are really major label products that have been reformulated to meet the TJ standards.

Actually, a lot of them are name brands, but they package them as house brands so people don't say "why would I buy XXX at the grocery store when TJs has it $.50 cheaper."

I, and my family [who went there gleefully, Sunday], are totally in the cult of Trader Joes. I don't buy everything there [I still prefer cheap produce to expensive 'hippy' produce, same with dairy and eggs], but their meat, frozen and especially 'trail mix' aisles are de rigeur.

If a hipster and Sam's Club 'did it.'

it's actually owned by the guy who owns Aldi's.

Take a lot of Sam's Club's foodstuffs and package them individually, and you have a good bit of Trader Joes.

Ive never been but the idea is a cool one.


Id love to go someplace and trade stuff to get stuff. I have stuff they may want to trade me for.

The private label business model is growing rapidly. Aldi was the first to do it exclusively and they continued the idea with Trader Joe's.

There used to be a website that listed what foods at Aldi were made by whom. It was a Kosher site for those who needed to know what was edible. Some well-known names that I remember were Sargento for most of their cheese, Tyson for chicken, spin-off of Prego for spaghetti sauce and cereals made by Quaker and Malt-O-Meal. I'm sure things change, but most of their food comes from well-known sources.

When I worked in food production during HS and college we did some private label packaging. It was exactly the same as the name brand product, it just came in a store-labeled carton.

Sheeple

Trader joes is better than an NBA team

They are better than the Minnesota Timberwolves, but not better than the Memphis Grizzleis.

I work in the same shopping center as the Trader Joes on 119th, it was nothing more than inconvenience for me. Although I know a few people who work there.

2 buck chuck FTW.

Their beers are worth perusal as well, though since they are store branded as well you have to find out for yourself what you do and don't like.

A notable exception, Framboise Lambic, still quite expensive $7.99 for a 32 oz bottle, but still cheaper than other outlets.

The other thing to keep in mind is Trader Joe's is pretty fanatical about dropping anything that doesn't move enough volume, so the stuff that isn't "new" is stuff that a lot of people like. Not just stuff they can get cheaply.

Trader Joe's buys mostly close-out items. In other words, they buy all the crap nobody wanted in the first place. They price it very low (they practically get it for nothing) to draw people in, end of story.

Do you have any sort of evidence for that, or are you just making shit up? That sounds highly unlikely given the types of products they carry.

This is what I don't get....

How can they afford to sell good tasting wine so cheap? Is there a limit to how many bottles you can buy in one trip? Do they run out a lot? Why don't bums buy their booze at TJ's?

I need answers! :cuss:

So very untrue.

You're thinking of Big Lots, different store. Dunno that there's a lot of 'close-out' prime cut beef, or 'close-out' artisan bread, delivered fresh daily for years.

I was about to say 'because they don't put their stores where bums can get to them, then I remember that the Metrolink in Big Derrty was extended to within walking distance of TJs.

2 Buck Chuck is below average to me.

Trader Joe's house beers are often worthwhile, though. Legit breweries make their beers. Most Trader Joe's labeled beers are brewed by Firestone Walker or Unibroue.

Well, nobody ever claimed the 2 buck Chuck was good. Don't get me wrong, it can be passable, but I'm certainly not opening one to pair with a good meal. Now if I'm serving 100 people at a wedding reception, then hell yeah. There is a limit with Charles Shaw (2 buck Chuck), but that limit is 8 cases or 96 bottles, and nothing is stopping anybody from bringing a friend to buy another 8.

Forgetting the Chuck for a bit, there are quite a few private label wines there in the $7-$10 range that are absolute steals. To answer your question on how TJ's does this, we will look at an example. Say a good sized vintner has a stellar crop that yields a stellar bottle of wine. The bottle is good enough to yield a $20 price tag. Well, right off the jump, that is going to limit the number of bottles you'll be able to sell, as average Joe consumer won't spend that for a bottle at a grocery store. So the vintner will then sell their bottles with their label for $20, while at the same time selling in bulk to TJ's (the single biggest wine purveyor in the US) at a highly discounted rate, which nicely allows them to maximize their profits. TJ's then puts their own label on it allowing the vintner some anonymity so people will still buy their label at twice the price while TJ's is selling it much cheaper.

There is one across the street from me and I don't ever shop there really. Every once in a great while I'll go there for wine, but thats it.

Trader Joes = pure Awesome.

The one they opened out by Ward Parkway is managed by a guy I went to High School with in Independence. He moved back here from Colorado, he's worked for TJ's for more than 10 years.

Try the mochi, bomb shiznizzle

Where's the Brentwood stop?

Drawing a blank.

It doesn't stop there between Best Buy and Dillons? Then why did they build the parking garage behind Best Buy? Never looked, and never took Metrolink beyond the old line [ie, CWE].

Seriously, why the parking garage? They have the metrolink right there passing through, and people park there to hop on a bus?

I checked out the new one in West Des Moines a while back. Was with my 2 daughters who weren't in the mood for grocery stores, so I didn't get a chance to really absorb what all they offer.

I think the thing that stuck with me was all the 40 year old men working cash registers, dressed like 20 year old hipster douche bags on the way to the coffee house. It came off almost like they were wearing costumes. Sad.

Place isn't close enough to ever become part of my grocery shopping, but I may check it out again someday. Or not.

Um, pretty sure Michael manages that one, and he is from Seattle. Though you could be talking about one of assistants.

There's a Trader's Joes in Naperville, but it's on the other side of town in a really congested area, so it's kind of a pain in the ass to go there. I think we've been there three or four times over the years. They have some neat stuff, but generally when we go there we walk out with a bunch of shit we don't need. I'd probably go there more if not for the location.

There is a stop there.

LMAO

I was asking you. I've never taken it that far west either.

But now that you mention Best Buy, I recall a sign being there.

Ya, It's like Sam's or Costco in that regard. You see something you've not seen before and your brain gets tricked into thinking you should buy it.

My one trip to TJ's, I bought a bag of Chile Spiced Mango. Dried mango, coated in chile. ****ing inedible.

It was just, when you questioned it, I realized that I'd never looked. When I go to BB, I come in the back off Hanley and park under the store. And if I'm on Eager, well I'm driving and thus more concerned with traffic than what's going on under the overpass.

Trader Joe...is he related to Ranger Joe?

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xMkqNnRy1bc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I miss the **** out of their chili lime peanuts. Roasted peanuts with dried whole chilis and some kind of leaf that tastes like lime [analogous to lemongrass].

The main thing we get at Costco is chicken - frozen, individually sealed breasts in a big bag that saves us anywhere from half to three-quarters off what the regular grocery stores charge. That alone is worth the annual fee. We'll also get things like cheese, frozen vegetables, cat litter, razor blades, batteries, toilet paper and paper towels, but we have learned over the years what to buy there and what not to buy, the days of going there and stocking up on a giant quantities of useless crap are over.

Same here.

Hell, I generally avoid that area anyway, because the traffic is usually chaotic - especially in the Promenade where TJ's is. On the rare instances I need to go to MicroCenter, I go in the back way through the industrial court, or take Rose from Brentwood Blvd.

They used to have a Peach Sauce that was the best waffle topping. Most missed TJs discontinued item ever.

As I mentioned earlier, family went to new KC store Sunday. Now they're raving about a new offering, Sparkling Clementine Juice.

See, that's the type of thing I like.

However, mango in chile is disgusting. In fact, after posting about that purchase I went to the cupboard to give them another try. 1 bite, I spit it out and threw the bag away. It's not food.

I can take the traffic, it's those ****ing micro parking spaces that get me. I think a Smart Car would get in a bind trying to park in those things.

Fresh mango and cayenne or chili powder is a classic Latin American and Caribbean pairing but I can see it losing something with dried fruit.

don't ever get that fat free spicy black bean dip. It's disgusting, pureed black beans with lots and lots of vinegar. PUKE

I've got one across the street from my office. If they had a decent soup/salad bar, I might check it out.

I'm addicted to their organic roasted red pepper and tomato soup. Its a fantastic base. I'll add some curry, ancho, red pepper, whatever I have on hand. Add some sauteed chicken and some baby spinach, yummo.

Their pretzel buns with jalapeno pub cheese are legit as well.

Is their sunflower seed butter not the best thing ever to be put in the jar?

I've never been there but a co-worker sent me a can of Trader Joe's English Toffee as a Christmas gift. It's superb.

Sunflower seed butter? Oh man, I have to try that.

Damn you!

I bought one of the Turkeys.. I work in the same parking lot as the one on 119th and roe.

Gonna check this place out tonight.

The wife and I prefer to shop late in the evening when most of the crowds are home. Open isles, short lines, get what you need and get the **** out.

Try the Peanut Butter cups.

Those are dangerous!!!!! Way too good and they embarrass Reese's.

Two buck chuck ftw. It's decent tasting, but the great part is that the alcohol content is super high. Win!