This blog won’t be entirely about rating their food. From time to time when there is some newsworthy item, I will comment on it and give my perspective. This item comes from the LA Times :

After reading this article, I finally realized why they built that huge Trader Joe’s down the road from me in Redmond, WA. Well first, it’s Redmond, WA, home to Microsoft. There are probably 4 Trader Joe’s within 5 miles of the Microsoft headquarters campus and sometimes there feels like there aren’t enough around here. If you read the article, you’ll see that they are abandoning their old method of moving into lower rent areas, smaller footprints and usually crappy parking! I hate having to fight over a parking spot at Trader Joe’s!

They also mention in the article that there is going to be rapid expansion across the country. Many people seem to have a problem with that. I don’t really have any problem with it as long as things pretty much stay the same for me. I started shopping their outside the native California, so I never knew Trader Joe’s as this neighborhood shop. It’s never really been that for me. For me, it reminds me more of the European style shopping I did when I lived in Germany 30 years ago. Small shops, limited selection, but good food at a good price. The public will speak with their feet. Trader’s has enough of a loyal following that, for now, they will tolerate some change. I really don’t care if they change the size of the stores and the whole checkout experience is OK, but it’s really all about their products. Start changing those and you lose me. I actually welcome bigger stores where I don’t have to constantly push people’s carts out of the way! So I say, for the time being, bring on the changes and the expansion!