Trader Joe's - Pasadena, CA
Posted by: 
silverquill
N 34° 08.099 W 118° 08.825
11S E 394234 N 3777716
The first Trader Joe's was opened on Aug. 26, 1967, in Pasadena, California, and now is a chain of over 300 stores in 26 states. This is the original location still thriving.
Waymark Code: WM5FH4
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 01/01/2009
Views: 20
From the Wikipedia entry:
Trader Joe's is named for its founder, Joe Coulombe. The chain began in 1958 as a Greater Los Angeles area chain of "Pronto Market" convenience stores. The original Pronto Markets were similar to 7-Eleven stores, so similar that Coulombe felt that the competition with 7-Eleven would be fatal.[5] He is said to have envisioned the Trader Joe South Seas motif while on vacation in the Caribbean.[6] He had noticed that Americans were traveling more and returning home with tastes for food and wine they had trouble satisfying in supermarkets of the time. The first store named "Trader Joe's" opened in Pasadena, California in 1966. This store, on Arroyo Parkway, is still in operation. In response to strong competition from 7-Eleven, the chain differentiated its stores' offerings and doubled the floor space in 1967. In the first few decades of operation, some of the stores offered fresh meats provided by butchers who leased space in the stores. Trader Joe's at one time had sandwich shops, freshly cut cheese, and fresh squeezed orange juice. Theo Albrecht bought the company in 1979.[7] Joe Coulombe continued running the company until he was succeeded by John Shields in 1989. Shields retired in 2001, turning the reins over to Dan Bane. Shields still does consulting for the company.
A Business Week article about the store noted that between 1990 and 2001, the chain quintupled its store count while increasing its profits tenfold.[3] Supermarket News estimates that Trader Joe's total sales for 2007 was $6.5 billion, which gave it a ranking of No. 23 on the list of "SN's Top 75 Retailers for 2008."[1] The October 2006 issue of Consumer Reports ranked Trader Joe's the second-best supermarket chain in the nation, after Wegmans.
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