Trader Joe's

[DCJenn]

and the one in Old Town Alexandria is TINY!

Jenn

[peggyfromwastate]

I am not sure why they don't sell beer and wine in the stores in MD... This is a very strange law to me...

[DCJenn]

They do sell beer and wine in other counties, it's a Montgomery County thing stemming from Prohibition. When booze became legal again, the County took over selling ALL alcohol. Eventually, they released beer and wine to individual stores but all spirits are still sold only by county owned liquor stores. (and you know, the income that those stores bring in? The county will never give it up)

I think Virginia is the same with the ABC stores.

Jenn

[peggyfromwastate]

stemming from Prohibition! Wow...

In Tennessee, you can't buy wine in the grocery stores. It is only sold in liquor stores. :huh: That is ridiculous! You can buy beer, wine coolers, Zima, etc, but no wine.

Here, you have to walk around the wine displays/racks to get in and out of the stores, even Target! Love it! And Trader Joe's has CHEAP wine that doesn't taste cheap.

[Momo]

I am about to . I just ate about half a container of these. They are soooooooo good.

Lilly...now why did you have to go and show me that. We will def be trying them soon!! Funny, I have never noticed them before??

[GrayMatterWife]

I am about to . I just ate about half a container of these. They are soooooooo good.

These are AWESOME!! Upon the recommendation posted here, I bought some yesterday. YUM!!

[Momo]

When i told Dh about them, he said you better stick w/ your dark choc covered pretzels...he said the banana chips are fried and milk choc is higher in fat....what a downer ...I'm still gonna get some you know for the "kids"!

[GrayMatterWife]

When i told Dh about them, he said you better stick w/ your dark choc covered pretzels...he said the banana chips are fried and milk choc is higher in fat....what a downer ...I'm still gonna get some you know for the "kids"!

I have no shame.

[Cumberland]

We live about two hours from a TJs-we went this AM and it was just..... beautiful. I spent double my weekly grocery budget, but I did buy a case of Charles Shaw and a few other bottles of vino. If I didnt have to haul the kids I would probably make the drive once a month just to stock up.

[poky]

I have a sad (well, sad-ish) TJ's tale to tell. We finally made it to the one near us, and while we did get a whole bunch of stuff we like, we got increasingly frustrated as we tried to find things we knew they *should* have, but didn't!

We looked pretty thoroughly (it's not a huge store), so were reasonably confident they didn't have the three particular items we had in mind. I figured, well, when the cashier asks if we found everything we were looking for, we'll just say no, and ask what's up.

Except...he never did. I decided to speak up, said "there were a few things we were looking for that we couldn't find..." the fettuchini alfredo I raved about earlier in this thread - he said they DO carry it, they're out right now, doesn't know when they'll get it back. Regular wonton chips. They had the chinese mustard ones, no plain ones. Cheese enchiladas. A *staple* of mine from TJ's; I've never seen one that didn't have them in stock. 2 to a bag, green container. Nope, all they had was chicken, no cheese or even beef. He wasn't positive about the chips and enchiladas, so he went to another employee, who insisted they did have them, and brought us...the chinese mustard wonton chips, and some other type of enchilada that was something like 6 to a container instead of 2.

He felt so bad, he grabbed a little potted rose plant from a display, handed it to me, and said "for you". Aww...it's not like I wouldn't be coming back, but it was a really sweet gesture.


Is the asking if you found everything you were looking for a regional thing? When we went to Whole Foods later, I paid attention and noticed they never asked, either (we also had trouble with a couple particular items there!). I'll have to keep paying attention to see if maybe it depends on the type of store or something; I just thought it was really odd that the two times today I *wanted* someone to ask that, they didn't.

I noticed on the way back from TJ's that we also passed a Wild Oats; I may have to go looking there for the things we couldn't find at Whole Foods. Sheesh. What health food store doesn't carry soy-based imitation bacon bits? They make organic ones with no trans fats or fake color or anything, but the ONLY kind whole foods had was real bacon bits, a choice of cured or uncured. One employee was sure they had them but couldn't find them, another told me "we don't carry anything *imitation* here"

Anybody have any other ideas where else to look for good imitation bacon bits? This is getting kinda silly.

*sigh*. I still miss Fred Meyer and now I miss New Seasons, too.

[Deebs]

No good advice, other than to let you know that Wild Oats was recently bought by Whole Foods. So, if WF doesn't carry the bacon bits, I'm not sure WO will either.

I went to TJs earlier this week - for the first time since all the yummy recommendations. I had a great time picking up new recommendations from all of you, and can't wait to go back without DD (it was a little challenging, looking for new items, steering my cart, and keeping DD from crashing with the little mini cart all at the same time, but we sure had fun trying).

The banana chips - I never should have tried. Unbelievably good! I also tried the pesto gnocchi for the first time - it was great, and took about 3 minutes once my water was boiled. Doesn't get much faster than that.

[planet]

Mmmmm...we also discovered the pesto gnocchi recently. So easy and everyone loves it!

WF is attempting to buy Wild Oats but it is looking less likely to go through.

Sandy, I think there is a west region and east region for TJs and the stuff doesn't always overlap. Sorry.

How silly about the baco-bits! I know the ones you are talking about. I would give Wild Oats a try. I think that WF is better, generally speaking, than WO but WO tends to have more of those "health food store" sorts of things. Whereas WF just gets snobby about what it carries. Well, Wild Oats does too but in a different way.

Did you ever shop at New Seasons? I love them because they aren't snobby. Want tofu pate? Sure! Want Coca-Cola to go with it? Have at it! I love it.

[poky]

I think the "did you find what you wanted" thing is regional. I'm fairly sure that nobody in my immediate area could give a poo what I found or didn't! :P

I'm not so sure they actually *do* care when they ask that, but they've been told to ask, and it does give an opportunity to bring it up when you can't find something and there weren't any employees wandering around the aisle to ask.

That said, the TJs and WF people are awesome wherever I go. The local grocery though? Well... meh.

I agree completely about the TJs people. I haven't had the same experience with Whole Foods. I've seen the snobby attitude I got today before, and we dealt with about 4 other people there today, too, and none of them had a flippin' clue about what they have in stock or don't. Another item we were looking for was powdered buttermilk; when we didn't find it where we expected it, we asked; at least two people told us they definitely didn't carry it; one even said they used to, but the company stopped making it. When we went back to the baking aisle, Tom found it on the bottom shelf.