By this time next year, Baton Rouge will join the list of cities partaking in the Trader Joe’s phenomenon that started in 1958 with a small chain of Pasadena-founded convenience stores called Pronto Markets.
The store was reborn as Trader Joe’s in 1967 and now spans the country with more than 300 stores, with one of its most recent developments in Baton Rouge’s Acadian Village Shopping Center near Acme Oyster House and the soon-to-open Galatoire’s Bistro near Perkins Road and Acadian Thruway.
Trader Joe’s had been debating over what city — New Orleans or Baton Rouge — a Louisiana location should be placed in, said Tina Rance, marketing director of Commercial Properties Realty Trust, the company that owns Acadian Village.
“We don’t have many national grocery stores here, and I think the fact that they chose Baton Rouge over other cities in Louisiana is key to show the progress here,” Rance said. “That particular location — being close to LSU, older neighborhoods and the interstate — will be a regional draw as well.”
But Trader Joe’s doesn’t treat itself like a run-of-the-mill grocery store.
According to Trader Joe’s website, the store has branded “innovative, hard-to-find, great-tasting foods” with its own name, which cuts costs and saves the customer money.
Trader Joe’s buys directly from suppliers whenever possible and is constantly shifting items on the shelf — if a product “doesn’t pull its weight,” it’s ditched for another.
“Trader Joe’s is a unique concept,” Rance said. “A lot of their food is their brand. It was set up to bring different cultural foods from different areas into the grocery store.”
The store resembles a trading post with cedar-planked walls. Workers scurry around in Hawaiian-themed clothing, and bells, rather than intercom announcements, ring to notify employees of certain duties, Rance said. All the while, staff members dole out product samples.
“They’re almost a tourist attraction as well as a grocery store,” Rance said after visiting a store in Raleigh, S.C. “People who know what [Trader Joe’s] is are big, big followers. It’s just a really fun place to visit, and it’s almost like a cult following.”
The store has such a following that Facebook pages have been created to campaign for new stores in cities around the nation, including Baton Rouge, Rance said.
Rance said where Trader Joe’s shines is in the food selection, the recipes and the newsletters offered by signing up on the store’s website, which adds to the shopping adventure.
“If you sign up, you become part of their world. You don’t sign up for Walmart do you?” Rance asked. “It’s more of a personal experience, I guess.”
The company decided the close proximity of Acme and Galatoire’s was a great mix for Trader Joe’s, Rance said. Construction on the new grocery store will begin later this year as construction on Galatoire’s concludes.
The 13,000-square-foot Trader Joe’s will be part of a larger shopping center, which will include speciality boutiques and other first-time stores for Baton Rouge, Rance said. Though she couldn’t reveal the debut stores, she said they should be announced in about a month.
