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Has anyone checked out the new store? It was just too hot and muggy for me to walk over.
A friend checked it out over the weekend. She said it's nice, but smaller than Trader Joe's Chelsea. She said she saw only one floor. I thought that was odd because I read somewhere that the grand opening on Friday was postponed because an escalator wasn't working.
It was nice to have the update, thanks, so I walked by a couple of nights ago - and at 9:30pm in the evening, the line was outside the door!
So much for that. It made a bad enough impression that I have no immediate plans to shop there. I have no idea why New Yorkers, famously short on time, are willing to wait so long for something so mundane.
Why do they do this stupidity. They always open tiny stores so you have people wrapped around the block and it's a c.ock fight to get anything from the shelves. The 6th ave location is pretty spacious but that's the exception. They could EASILY support stores 3-4 times as big
Why do they do this stupidity. They always open tiny stores so you have people wrapped around the block and it's a c.ock fight to get anything from the shelves. The 6th ave location is pretty spacious but that's the exception. They could EASILY support stores 3-4 times as big
Like most other supermarkets in NYC, TJ's goes with spaces it can get and then makes things work. This new store once was a Food Emporium...
Unless it is new construction few supermarkets have the luxury of getting spaces designed for that purpose, especially in Manhattan where often large ground floor retail space is often hard to find. Think the largest supermarket in Manhattan can remember was the Pathmark off the FDR Drive.
Like most other supermarkets in NYC, TJ's goes with spaces it can get and then makes things work. This new store once was a Food Emporium...
Unless it is new construction few supermarkets have the luxury of getting spaces designed for that purpose, especially in Manhattan where often large ground floor retail space is often hard to find. Think the largest supermarket in Manhattan can remember was the Pathmark off the FDR Drive.
Except that this is not a Manhattan policy it's an everywhere policy. The store in Maspeth is tiny and always completely overrun. They do it everywhere even when real estate is plentiful and affordable
Trader Joes pays its employees well above the minimum wage and they get good benefits. Since Trader Joes sells its items at low prices, they depend on massive volume to make money. They delicately don't have huge half empty stores and deliberately do t try to be on every block like the old Gristedes or KeyFoids use to. They know what exactly what they are doing in terms of expansion, store size, and crowds. Notice it's the half empty grocery stores that are all going out of business.
This TJ is only a block from me and I stopped in a few times. On Sunday, it was pretty quiet but on Monday night, it was packed. Still, the longest wait has been less than 5 minutes. The reason it's only one floor is because there is no room for items or cashiers on the top floor, so you need to take an escalator downstairs. This is pretty commonplace with nearby groceries like Fairway and the dreaded Gristedes. Once downstairs, TJ's aisles and shelving is very spaced out. I thought they had a lot of space to add more inventory later on. The employees were very nice and helpful, and I found all the snacks I usually get at the TJs in Union Square and Chelsea.
Thanks for the report! I'm glad you thought it was roomy!
So you're saying you take an escalator one floor down, and the entire store is on that floor? That would be good, in my opinion. I've only been to the Upper West Side TJ once, but I found it kind of disorienting. I avoid my local three-level Duane Reade for that reason.
Since Trader Joes sells its items at low prices, they depend on massive volume to make money.
They sell at low prices because they don't deal with any middlemen. They are their own distributor, they commission all their packaged good straight from the factory and produce from the growers
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