I am on my last bag of Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzels. Last week I finished off my last bag of Trail Mix. It's a sad day when all of the treasures you bought on your last road trip to Trader Joe's run out. I first heard about Trader Joe's several years ago on a Ipod Podcast called "How Much Do We Love". This podcast was a guy (Rob) and a gal (Sara) talking about what they loved.
http://www.howmuchdowelove.com
One of their episodes was devoted to the "Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter in the Middle Pretzels" from Trader Joe's. They were so passionate about these pretzels that I really wanted to try them. The other item they constantly talked about was "Two Buck Chuck". Wine for $2? How could this wine possibly be good? A few weeks later I received my latest issue of Consumer Reports in the mail and they had done an article on the best tasting wines. One of their hightest rated wines was from Trader Joes. That was the deal breaker. I must check this place out. I went to the Trader Joe's website and I discovered the closest store to Birmingham was in Atlanta Georgia. I knew that I was going to be over that way in a couple of weeks and would be able to work in a visit to this place.
My first visit was on a Saturday afternoon (rookie mistake number one). The place was pretty packed but I persevered through the crowd. I was surprised at how small the store was. It was a very simple layout. I first hit the mixed nut area. They had very good prices and I picked up a few bags. To the right of the nuts was the cereal. I had also heard the cereal was pretty good so I grabbed a few boxes. Then I hit the produce. I did not get too much from here. This visit was in July and I did not bring a cooler (rookie mistake number two). Then I trasped through each aisle looking for the coveted pretzels. I found them in the frozen food area. I picked up one bag (rookie mistake number three). Then rounded the next corner where most of the people in the store were congregated. This was where the shrine to the "Two Buck Chuck" had been built. People were loading their carts with bottles and bottles of wine. I picked up one bottle of red and one bottle of white (rookie mistake number four). I rounded the corner of the store and picked up a couple of other items and headed to the register. I felt obligated to pick up some of the reusable bags so I could put my name in the bowl for the weekly drawing for a gift certificate. They kept ringing some sort of cow bell whch I did not ask as I did not want to appear that I was a Trader Joe's newbie.
I spent the next week trying out all of things I had bought on my Saturday afternoon trip. I was very impressed will all of the items especially the "Two Buck Chuck". Needless to say I was hooked. I realized at that point the error of my ways. It just so happened I had to be back in Atlanta the next week and was able to reedem myself. I still went on a Saturday afternoon. This time my family was with me and we were able to divide and conquer. We hit every aisle of the store and loaded up on the items we had discovered from the previous week and estimated what we needed to carry us over until we made it back over to Atlanta. I pride myself on being able to forecast need and factor in a weeks of supply with an adequate safety stock but unfortunately I have not been able to calculate the correct formula when it comes to Trader Joes. We always run out of Trader Joe's product way before the next trip to an area of the country that has a Trader's Joe's.
I have made a few other rookie mistakes with Trader Joe's over the years. Trader's Joes in Tennessee do not sell wine. Also until recently you could not buy wine or beer at Trader's Joe's in Georgia on Sunday. Fortunately this is no longer an issue. "Two Buck Chuck" in North Carolina is really "Three Buck Chuck" due to taxes.
I will spare you my ranting (for now) on why certain areas of the country have Trader Joe's and Birmingham does not have one..... Knoxville before Birmingham, really guys?
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