RIP Trader Joe
AP- Joe Coulombe envisioned a new generation of young grocery shoppers emerging in the 1960s, one that wanted healthy, tasty, high-quality food they couldn’t find in most supermarkets and couldn’t afford to buy in the few high-end gourmet outlets.
So he found a new way to bring everything from a then-exotic snack food called granola to the California-produced wines that for flavor compared with anything from France. And he made shopping for them almost as much fun as sailing the high seas when he created Trader Joe’s, a quirky little grocery store filled with nautical themes and staffed not by managers and clerks but by “captains and mates.”
From the time he opened his first store in Pasadena, California, in 1967 until his death Friday at age 89, Coulombe watched his namesake business rise from a cult favorite of educated but underpaid young people — and a few hippies — to a retail giant with more than 500 outlets in over 40 states.
There is no easy way to say this, but the world lost a real one this week. To build a place like Trader Joe's with so many good options that normal people like you and I wouldn't mind dealing with weirdo Trader Joe customers or Trader Joe's parking lots is no small feat. But Joe Coulombe did it with an amazing combination of fun food, cheap booze, and people wearing Hawaiian shirts. Name a better trio that can instantly bring a smile to your face. You can't.
The haters will say that products like Joe Joes were just Oreo rip offs. But I say that type of branding is American capitalism at its best while Joe & Co. sold some of the greatest culinary innovations the world has ever seen.
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SWISH!!!
RIP In Peace Joe Joe and thanks for all you gave to the food industry including the wonderful dips, seasonal treats, and frozen foods that just hit different. May the bells in heaven ring for you like the bells in your 500+ stores as I personally plan on honoring the memory of a legend with a cool ass nickname by loading up a few paper bags at my local store with some of TJ's greatest hits this weekend.