Once upon a time there was a convenience store called Prontos, located on Arroyo Parkway and Pico in Pasadena. Then one day the owner decided to change the focus from all-around convenience stuff to wines — both domestic and imported. So he stocked up and added some nuts and cheeses–again, American-made and imported. And he changed the name from Prontos to Trader Joe’s. It was back in 1967 and the concept of a store devoted to wines, lots of wines, and nibbles took off.
Trader Joe’s grew and developed its own brands from the corporate headquarters in Monrovia, a few miles from Pasadena. Years passed. Trader Joe’s expanded across the nation and eventually caught the eye of a German conglomerate which bought the chain. That brings us up to today.
While it has happened on an evolutionary basis, shopping at Trader Joe’s–and I’m in there at least once a week–is a lot like shopping in London or Germany.
A lot of items, particularly produce,are wrapped in packages–unlike most American grocery stores which have bins of loose fruits and vegetables for shoppers to pick over. And there are more private brand items than there used to be. But the people are still as friendly as ever. (And the parking lot is too small for the amount of business they do so sometimes I go to their other Pasadena store which is on the third floor in an outdoor shopping mall. which has four levels of parking.)
