Trader Joe’s, a unique, neighborhood grocery store with foods and beverages from the exotic to the basic, has scheduled a Friday, September 27 opening day for the Asheville location. The 13,000 square feet store is located at 120 Merrimon Avenue and the trading hours are 8A.M.-9P.M., daily. Crewmember applications are scheduled to be accepted beginning Monday, August 26 at 10A.M. Interested individuals need to apply in person at the store and can obtain an application on site or online.
The “Trader” in Trader Joe’s refers to the way the company blazed a distinct trail through the grocery industry, searching the world for great values and distinctive products. Store employees, dubbed “Crew Members,” consider themselves “traders on the culinary high seas.” Crew Members sport brightly colored Hawaiian-themed shirts, adding to the friendly and light-hearted air of the store.
Many area residents after the store opens can expect to receive a copy of the Trader Joe’s “Fearless Flyer” in their mailboxes. The Fearless Flyer is a somewhat irreverent description of a timely selection of Trader Joe’s products. It’s been called a cross between Consumer Reports and Mad Magazine. Each edition highlights a selection of Trader Joe’s products that the company buyers believe are worthy of customer interest, including comfort foods and items that are organic or have other special attributes.
32 Comments
I loved to go to Trader Joe’s when I lived in California. I moved to Johnson City, TN in June and have yet to visit Asheville. Now I have another reason. Wish they had one here.
There is one in knoxville 🙂
We have been driving to either greenville sc, Charlotte or Atlandta a few times a year just to shop at trader joes. So glad now it’s a 6 min drive!
I plan to take the 1 hour drive to shop at TJs. I’ve missed having one since moving up to NE Tennessee, especially the 3 buck chuck.
As someone who has been laid off twice, I have a hard time understanding how anyone can be absolutely certain about anything. Let alone whether Trader Joe’s is good or bad for Asheville. I speak with authority when I say that I certainly do not have all the answers, I doubt whether anyone does. My paradigm is not complete, I cannot predict the future and there is always another way of seeing things. Maybe Trader Joe’s just is, some good & some bad consequences, it just is.
I and all my friends are thrilled to have trader joe’s come to Asheville. Great prices,unusual products, great service. I could go on and on….d
[…] will be the first in a wave of new grocery stores set to open around Asheville. Next up will be Trader Joe’s, which has set a Sept. 27 opening. There’s also new Whole Foods, Katuah Market and Publix stores on the […]
[…] Here are a few pix from the Harris Teeter and Trader Joe’s grocery stores along Merrimon Avenue in north Asheville. Trader Joe’s recently announced that its store would open on Sept. 27. […]
It will be nice to finally eat relatively healthy and not break the bank…
Trader Joes also pays its employees much better than chain stores like Walmart, and offers benefits…
They pay _much_ better, with raises every 6 months, and excellent benefits, apparently. I have a friend who works at another TJs, and she’s really impressed with the pay/benefits package (even for crew members).
The thing with Trader Joes is that you get funky stuff cheap. Those of us who can not afford to go to EarthFare or Whole Foods who enjoy something other than Kraft products enjoy Trader Joes for allowing us to spend $200, fill up six bags and eat differently. It’s not going to be your only shopping trip. Many staples need to be bought elsewhere.
But where else can you get a frozen bag of indonesian fried rice, a jar of wasabi mayo, black pepper cashews, and a loaf of asiago black pepper sourdough bread and still have change left in your pocket?
But can the people that live close be enough to sustain such a large store. I think the dust will clear and they will break even at most. I have gone to Trader Joes to see if the normal items I buy weekly are at the store and can I save money by going there. The only thing I found cheaper was the pizza dough at half price. I can get the rest at Earth Fare or Ingles without wasting the gasoline or fighting the traffic of cars and hipsters.
Downtown tourist dollars will help greatly.
Folks are always asking me how to get to Green Life…they can go two doors down now for TJ’s
Great grocer…can’t wait for some tasty new food and great paying jobs!
If WNC people are driving to GVL, SC to go shopping at TJ’s my guess is the folks at TJ’s have been collecting zip codes and know just what potential there is in the AVL market … they are a smart company – not just building willy-nilly and crossing fingers.
You can’t afford EarthFare, but you spend $200 at Trader Joes for six bags of junk?!? That’s f’d up. If I had $200 to spend on groceries for a whole month I would be happy. I think you might be slightly out of touch with how people live.
Tim’s food is all natural and HMO free. I ha e worked for them for 10 years and am coming to check out Asheville as a place to semi-retire. I didn’t think Ty’s would be greeted with such negativity. You don’t have to shop there you know. It will provide 100 great paying jobs with unbelievable benefits. You will never be treated better as a customer as you are there…but you don’t have to experience it .
Jason, how do you know that the $200 is for a week, 2 weeks, a month? Why do you categorize Trifecta’s selections as ‘junk?’ What Trifecta eats is not your concern.
Very judgemental of a strangers shopping habits.
I’ve lived around TJ’s stores for years. Their cheeses are much cheaper for quality, they have great prices on dried fruits and nuts, brown rice, good dairy, vitamins, and lots of Gluten Free house products. On the down side their fresh produce sucks and the wines are overrated.
They will be jammed from day one. Just watch.
I’m with you! Love TJ’s affordable organics and cool stuff. The haters and whiners will soon love it too—resistance is futile!
Niche market. It’s affordable organic and somewhat healthier processed foods. They would have been more happily accepted in Biltmore Park though.
And would have had more parking and a larger customer base at Biltmore Park, but instead they are moving to a place that obviously has access issues. Location is the number one thing when creating a thriving business. Sounds like their ego has gotten in the way or they took the word of someone in walking distance which will hurt their bottom line.
It feels like a mistake to me, especially as you see it and Harris Teeter go up side-by-side. It’ll get business, but it’ll make Merrimon/Chestnut even more of a mess.
The location is going to work out like the Buckhead TJs, where the parking’s out the back and the trucks have to negotiate a tricky road off the interstate. (That’s the one place where the Atlanta/Merrimon comparison makes any sense.)
Or maybe they blindly go where Whole Foods goes.
Being a native here, I welcome anything that comes to Asheville. Merrimon has always been a cluster anyways ages before this. Asheville still has the same character, it’s just growing up fast.
If you don’t like and adapt the great commerce, then migrate away.
I love how Trader Joe’s will be accepted by the Asheville community, but other chain stores will not. How does one decide what chain is acceptable. It’s not local, it’s not fresh, and the money does not stay in NC. WTF? I guess Walmart is OK too.
Merrimon has turned into a circus and will only get worse in the next 2 years. It’s no different than driving down any road in Atlanta now. It’s lost pretty much all the character that made it nice.
Depends on how you define “the Asheville community” and by how much you let this nonexistent entity define your life. A lot of people in the greater Asheville area accept plenty of chain stores. We’ve got a mess of ’em, and they wouldn’t still be here if they weren’t getting customers. It’s not an all or nothing deal. Some chain stores are great; some are not; some vary in quality from location to location. Some local stores are great; some are not. Some have more than one location, which makes them local chain stores. And some of those are great and some of those are not.
And if Merrimon ever had any character that made it nice to drive down, it lost that decades ago. I’ve been driving that road for 29 years and can’t recall a time that I would describe it as “nice.”
Please show me *any* evidence that the people bitching about chain stores are the same people who are cheering the arrival of TJ’s. You realize there are a few hundred thousand people living around here, right?
Good Comment. This “Your a Hypocrite if you hate chains yet welcome a chain” argument is so exhausting ANYTIME a new ‘anything’ get’s opened in this town.
have you ever been to atlanta?
Last time was back in 1978, based on that comment.
Merrimon has “lost pretty much all the character that made it nice.” Ha ha, that’s a good one. Thanks for the Friday laugh.
(BTW, I loved off Merrimon for 15 years. It certainly has its own style, but I’d love to hear you expand on its “nice character.” Seriously, I can’t stop chuckling.)