I've only been to a handful of their stores, but every single one just feels way too small. It also feels like the majority of the people there are employees restocking shelves and just generally being in the way. They are friendly and it's nice there's always someone I can ask if I need help finding someone, but it can be annoying to always have people in your way.

The small store sizes are all almost surely one of the factors that enables the low prices other comments have mentioned.

I don’t understand, can you elaborate?

The dark chocolate peanut butter cups are really really (really) good

Can you tell me by looking at this photo what section I am in and what else I might find in this aisle?

https://i0.wp.com/www.dailycal.org/assets/uploads/2021/09/TJ...

There’s like 6 aisles, it’s not hard to remember which products are where. It’s not like one of those 20 aisle stores with unrelated endcaps. There are gas stations bigger than Trader Joe’s.

It's the cookies and crackers and frozen food and hot sauce and candy and coffee aisle, of course! Next one over is the soap and pasta and canned goods and spices and dog food and olive oil.

If you go there when it's busy, the checkout lines can get pretty large (they don't have dedicated baggers) and crowd parts of the store. With that said, I've noticed a similar trend at bigger stores by me lately as they added more self-checkout lines.

I've generally found that checkout times at TJs are much less than the local supers.

Price- and quality-wise they totally win on cheese and pasta by a huge margin. Supermarket cheese is generally pretty awful (the only cheeses we get at the super are Mexican cheeses that TJs doesn't stock. I’ve occasionally bought, say cheddar at the super and it’s awful and costs more than TJs).

The big thing for me for the last two years is that the clientele and staff at my local TJs have done a much better job of taking Covid seriously than the same at Whole Foods¹ or any standard super.

⸻

1. I was in Whole Foods earlier today and was rather appalled to see a sign saying that customers are welcome [italics mine] to shop without a mask regardless of vaccination status. This while local Covid rates are on the rise. It seemed like they were encouraging people to go maskless.

> It seemed like they were encouraging people to go maskless.

What year is it!?

I find their checkout to be the fastest of any store I go to, but I suppose it probably depends on the location.

Try ringing the bell next time the lines are slow. That'll get their attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbafXjG9ROA

I'll also add their slowness is partly due to their clientele (moreso that standard stores) bringing their filthy reusable grocery sacks, which throw off the flow of the line.

The staff use these to communicate. There’s no intercoms so this is how they know when to open more registers, come to the front of the store, etc. Don’t ring the bells, they will not appreciate it.

Source: past TJs employee