Trader Joe's - Ahwatukee, AZ Review

It’s okay if you’ve never shopped there, honest. We won’t make fun of you too much. We’ll just snicker a little.

No, come back. If you’re wondering what all the fuss is over a grocery store, keep reading, even if you’re more franks & beans than goat-cheese pizza. You’ll find both here, by the way.

For starters, it’s not a regular grocery store. It’s not exactly a trading post, either. It’s not big but not expensive; it’s gourmet with a populist touch, it combines kitsch and class and accommodates persnickety foodies and harried Moms with equal ease.

Much ink has been spilled on their unusual business model, which revolves around the Pasadena staff’s finicky tastes. It’s a company doing what it darn well pleases but doing it well.

So I’ll review what I’m best at as a hardened organic foodie AND harried Mom: the quality of their in-house brands, the depth of their selections, the freshness of their produce, even their customer service.

Joe and I

Joe and I go way back, all the way to the late ‘90s, but my husband’s affection for America’s favorite trader goes back to the late ‘80s in Arizona, where a few stores had already popped up. We’ve shopped TJs from coast-to-coast, just so you know that we’re on familiar terms with the place.

Selections

He’s quirky guy, that Joe. He carries a food item—say, frozen potstickers—for a time, and then he doesn’t. He loves to peddle those snacks, he does, but darned if you can find that trail mix you got hooked on next time you’re there. And no two stores feature the same mix of items or the same layout or even the same packaging.

None are terribly big: it’s the opposite tactic of a Costco, where they’re trying to mimic your average neighborhood convenience store, tucked into a shopping center but carrying a dozen varieties of soy milk.

Sometimes the differences are so vast between stores, however, the only clue you have that it’s the same chain are the goofy scribblings on the chalkboards and the minimalist wooden shelves.

The California and Arizona stores generally have a much broader mix of foods, and fresher produce, than the ones in Chicago and Connecticut, where I’ve also shopped. In fact, Chicagoans are seriously being cheated of the full TJ experience. My husband is still mystified why he can’t get full-leaf frozen spinach out here instead of chopped. A problem with growers? Transportation? What? The enigma remains.

Essentially, all the stores carry a large variety of packaged foods, many of them organic; frozen concoctions, wine, produce and household products. All of the foods fall decisively under the gourmet heading for the emphasis on taste. Their peanut butters, after months of problems with suppliers, is finally back to being an ecstatic experience for the true believers: try the organic crunchy and you’ll never go back to Skippy. I swear.

Their cheese selections—nearly all stamped free of growth hormones and antibiotics—consistently beat everyone but Whole Foods, and their wines are second to none (see below).

But this isn’t really the place to get your basic foodstuffs. Sure, you can get plain ol’ frozen corn kernels—they’re right next to the fire-roasted variety. The frozen green beans come in two varieties: French haricot verte (the long, super-skinny ones) or the Thai version with a packet of hot sauce thrown in.

Get the idea? It’s no-brainer gourmet food—good for you and your taste buds without having to hunt down bizarre ingredients or endure stifling lectures on global warming. You just microwave your Thai green beans like any normal person.

Glatt Kosher meats started appearing after Mad Cow scares turned many people off the regular stuff and now share space alongside the turkey bologna or soy sausages, and there’s an ever-changing array of sauces and marinades for a variety of ethnic palates. Celiacs can find a growing range of gluten-free pastas, breads and baking mixes though I make no guarantees from store to store.

Wine Selection

TJ is famous for making its employees—yep, even the stock clerks—attend wine tastings so they can make sensible recommendations to customers.

Most famous is “Two-Buck Chuck,” which sells outside California for $3. The Charles Shaw label is swill for anything except cooking, in my opinion, but I suppose it’s marginally less humiliating to put on your table than the plonk from Gallo.

Nevermind. Because TJ’s buys a minimum of 50,000 cases at a time, they’re able to offer a price break on some decent labels (to be reviewed another time) and have vaunted some smaller boutique vineyards into the big time.

Produce and prepared foods

There are two types of produce: the most popular kind, such as bagged lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and then the weird or seasonal or we-bought-a-truckload-cheap varieties, and almost nothing in between. The produce sections are generally small, especially in the Midwest, and what they have is what they have. Tough.

Because TJ’s carries so many organic varieties that rot more easily, shopping for fresh veggies can be disappointing. You can get just enough ingredients for a respectable salad, but not for a hearty, fresh stir fry. Of course, you can get that in either their frozen or prepared food sections, but that’s not the point, is it?

Their prepared foods section doesn’t rival Whole Foods—there are no live human beings behind a huge glass display of heaping platters—they do have a small and, again, unpredictable selection of sushi, roll-up and pita sandwiches, heat-and-serve gourmet pizzas, etc. But a few hours in a refrigerated display can be rough on organic and gourmet items, so picking up something for lunch is probably wiser than popping in just before dinner.

Christmas

I’m Jewish and mostly over my Christmas envy, except when I set foot in TJ’s in December with its ceiling-high displays of chocolates, mints, gingery treats and candy-coated morsels. Their peppermint bark is a thing of wonder; their soy eggnog cured my lactose-intolerant husband of his nostalgia for the real thing. Last year, they featured the latest in food trends: single-source chocolates from exotic locales, rather like what Starbucks did for coffee beans. By combining your favorite childhood memories with your grownup fetishes, Joe’s cornered the market on tasteful Merry Christmases.

In-house Brands

As TJ’s grows from quirky and regional to national and predictable, they’re stamping more labels with their own imprimatur. Whether they’re taking over smaller labels or simply copying their formulas is beyond my expertise; I don’t sense any loss in quality in the transition. In fact, a goat cheese pizza that sells in the organic section of the Vons (Safeway) in California for about $4.99 under a well-known brand is duplicated perfectly at TJ’s for about half that price.

Economies of scale will of course mean prices remain lower as the chain branches into new communities. Whether the folks at company headquarters in Pasadena will someday sell out, cut corners, cheapen ingredients or deaden the atmosphere remains to be seen. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Customer Service

Like its products, the friendliness of its staff varies by region. There’s simply no making a Chicagoan smile. I’ve had terrific service from the stock clerks and managers in the Skokie, Illinois, store, but suburbanites are a different animal than those urban hipsters, no?

Maybe it’s having to wear bright Hawaiian shirts when the wind chill outside is 30 below that can put the frost in a simple, “Did you find everything you need?” They seem to be hoping that I have, and that I’ll get myself and my weird requests and whiny kids out of their hair before it freezes over.

But considering how well I knew the cheery, extroverted staffs at several TJ stores in California without even trying to befriend them, I’m put off by the aloofness and foot-dragging I find in Chicago.