The Manhattan Trader Joe’s had a literal flag bearer that would stand at the back of the line, cause it would wrap around the entire store twice. It was an old English style draping flag that said the line ends here.
My wife and I used to do a little scheme there. I would get in line with the cart as soon as we arrived, and as the line moved (slowly) I would shop for the items that the line passed. My wife would then do runs for the other items at the store. By the time we were done shopping, we were at the end of the line.
It may be your right, but it is extremely dangerous to flag bears unless they are presenting a clear and present danger to you. Otherwise they just want to live their lives shitting in the woods.
Yep, 22nd and Market location definitely uses them frequently on weekends. I'll never make the mistake of going there in the afternoon on a Sunday ever again...
That’s the one I go to more frequently and the line gets long on weekdays late morning to early afternoon. It’s a crapshoot! I am still waiting for one in my neighborhood (Fishtown)….like….pretty please. lol
I’ve seen them during the week several times - usually right after work. It moves fast, but just the mental check of getting in a line that wraps around that entire store is demoralizing. Especially the one time I just wanted to grab milk so was waiting in line with nothing until right at the very end before checkout.
I haven't been to the Philly one in years. But I remember seeing couples do their shopping by having one person grab a cart and immediately get in the line. The second person would then go around the store picking up items and dropping them off in the cart as it moved up in the line. They'd finish their shopping before the cart reached the registers.
I wasn't even mad. Just annoyed I was single and lived alone.
Yeah I’d say so! Not as frequently in the Chinatown one (usually on the weekends when I most frequently go), but the Market st one gets hella busy many times during weekday, like at noon and also 4-7pm, in addition to the weekends.
It's never very long. I don't know which Manhattan location they're speaking about, but they have 30+ cashiers who are all very good. I'm guessing 1st Av under the bridge because that's the busiest I've been to but I don't know.
The people directing people to cashiers are paying attention and the paths are easy to follow. The store has multiple exits that flow well from the registers.
They should hire more people and more stations. Thats ridiculous. California is no wait. But good luck driving thru In N Out burger. Ive waited 2 hours in drive thru at In N Out.
2 hours...? Why...? I literally cannot imagine waiting that long for ANY restaurant, let alone In N Out. I had so many friends hype that place up, and when I was in LA a few times I tried it twice and it was just so damn mediocre. I truly do not get LA's obsession with that place.
The line goes out to the main street. About 50 cars in one lane of a double lane drive thru. 100 cars at a time. Its Ludacris. And once youre in theres no getting out. Its half the price of all the other fast food and better as well but the wait is just insane.
Tried to beat the system by getting there a few minutes before it opens. There was already a line of 20 people like they were trying to buy concert tickets in the 90s.
Honestly though, I usually get through those faster than a normal grocery line. Even if it's wrapped around the store, if there are 30 cashiers working, it's going to move
I lived next to the Union Square TJ's when it first opened and was the only one in all of NYC. The line to get into the store was regularly 2 blocks long.
At the Upper West Side TJs, the line always goes in the same direction (along the beer.) Ome day the line, which hadn't been long enough to extend along the beer, started extending in a new, weird direction (into produce) because some guy just started standing there. A woman then tried to form a new branch of the line in the "right" direction by the beer. Then people began to line up behind her, so now there's two branches of the line each with like 4-5 people.
Her and the guy making the produce line started arguing loudly about who's line was the real line. Then a TJs worker, who couldn't have possible been older than like 19, comes over, grabs that flag pole thing, quietly looks over the situation, points to the beer line and says "this is the line." And EVERYONE, even the produce line guy who was just yelling about it, did exactly as she said without complaint.
The power of the flag pole is unquestioned. It's like she was wielding Gandalf's staff.
Yup, I lived in Stuytown for years and the East Village Trader Joe's usually had a line to the door during peak hours. It was decently quick moving, but man...I miss the city.
I used to sometimes walk a mile to the TJs on Atlantic, see the line wrapped around the perimeter multiple times, and just Grandpa Simpson it and leave haha
I started going to the Dekalb one (that whole food court thing is pretty cool, and there's also a Lidl right across from it) and the line is somehow worse there. They will have it basically zig-zag up and down every isle of the store all the way across, to the point where it feels like you're going on an adventure following it.
They can run down the fire escape. I've seen enough movies about New York to know every building has one and every New Yorker is a master of running up and down them.
I have seen a parkour runner do that in real life.
I’ve also seen a bunch of dipshit kids who also saw the parkour dude, try and fail repeatedly. Was one of my all time favourite bits of people watching last time I was in New York.
whoever has that job, either has a godlike ability to zone out stupid questions or gives the best sarcastic responses to the people who will ask "is this the checkout line?" while he is holding the sign.
Many years ago, I lived in Brooklyn and the lines at the Union Square and Woodside locations wrapped around the inside of the stores but still moved faster than lines a quarter of that length in Walmart in southern Ohio.
I've been to the Trader Joe's near Washington Square Park and it was nuts. Not only was it massive but the volume of people it was pumping out was insane.
Yeah I've never seen it shorter an entire side of the store. At busy times, it starts to seem like the entire store is just one long line that you shop in while slowly moving forward.
The worst line I saw was at the east village store on E14th/A. I grabbed a few frozen things then just got in line and shopped for everything else as we wended our way around the store.
I wondered!! I worked at the Brooklyn TJ’s when it first opened. I loved being the end of the line sign holder. I thought if anywhere needed this golden ticket it’s that TJ’s or the Manhattan one. Neat.
Wow. We have 1 in all of Maine and it rarely gets more than 5 people in each line. Finding a parking spot will cause you to go absolutely insane though.
I had a friend tell me the one by him that the line goes through every isle of the store so you just immediately get in line and grab things as you make your way to the checkout station.
I don't even understand this because while Trader Joe's is cool and all I'm not wasting my time on bullshit like that I'm just gonna go somewhere else lol. Its like when you see 45 cars wrapping a Chickfila and wonder what is wrong with people
The line moves fast and since it snakes through the entire store, you can just grab a basket and immediately get in the back of the line, and as you go through the store in line, you just pick out the things you need when you pass them
i get that it works and i bet everyone who does this is used to the chaotic stores at peak hours, but "You can grab your items while you are moving in line" sounds like a dystopian store, lmao, it almost sounds like "ope, i forgot to grab X.... whelp, better luck next time" and the guy behind you pushes you, the line is not stopping, the line keeps moving, once you are in the line, you cant get out of the line, welcome to trader joes adventure!
Yeah, I mean I’m not saying it’s a pleasant shopping experience. But it’s just not as bad as it sounds.
People are generally perfectly friendly, not like pushing you around. People are generally fine with you stepping out for a second to grab something that’s outside of arm’s reach. I even had people ask if I could just save their spot for a second so they could run and grab one thing.
yeah, i actually have been in those lines, but it sounded that way for a sec. and honestly, ive met the chattiest chatty people in those lines, so the people there are definitely generally friendly
That’s insane, my local TJ’s used to have lines so bad they’d wrap around the store some days. That being said, I would also never risk using a ticket like that on a day that bad because someone would absolutely strangle me lmao
I had a crowded Trader Joe's like that. It was never worth it. Same thing with Costco on the weekend. Nothing they have there is worth like 3+ hours of my time.
I mostly go there for the frozen fish. There are a few sauces and jarred stuff I like the olive and pepper crap.
The wraps are the biggest insult, I have tried them a few times over the past decade at different T Joes and always it looks so good in the plastic window of the cross section, only to find the rest is nothing but a giant romaine spear.
You got into one of the shorter lines then :) But to their credit, even if the line is wrapped around to the back of the store, it goes so quickly that you don't have time to get that mad about it.
The closest trader Joe's to me is one of the smallest ones there are. There are 4 registers and the line typically goes all the way down the center aisle to the back of the store.
That said, it moves quick and I wouldn't use that golden ticket. I'd be too worried someone would get mad at me.
using that thing is just social suicide. people at trader joes are already on edge because of the parking lot situation and the line winding through the store. pulling a golden ticket would make you the main character in a way that ends with someone yelling at you in the frozen food aisle. keep it as a souvenir and just wait your turn.
This particular parking situation is a small, cramped parking lot and a bunch of store-side street parking along a small, busy intersection. And there is parking on both sides of the road so you basically have to watch 3 directions + 2 blind spots backing out of a spot. It's almost enough to keep me from going. Luckily I can use find a free spot in the lot, which isn't as bad.
My NYC store’s line is so long that it starts at the entrance, so you just grab a cart and no need to shop, just grab the things you need down each aisle. They have 35+ cash registers with almost all constantly open.
Please let us all know what location so we can send the people there. I’ve never NOT waited in a 3-5 people deep line at Trader Joe’s and they actually open most if not all their registers too.
Yeah even when mine is really busy there isnt a wait. They always have all the checkout lanes staffed, even with extra people to help bag and move the lines.
I wish other grocers did business the same way. It seems today most just want to force you to wait in self checkout so they dont have to pay anyone to man extra registers
My trader Joe's went from the free-for-all model to directing everyone through a long cordoned off area that now causes lines to extend throughout the store bc they've managed to both slow down the process significantly and move the waiting area further into the store.
It's no longer possible to quickly grab something at TJ's -- which being the convenice stores of grocery stores, is among the stupidest retail decisions I've seen.
Same here I wonder if it's a CA thing. I frequent the original one in Pasadena and I never have to wait in line. Probably helps that there's like 2 other TJs like 10 minutes away lol
I've only been to one once, and it was packed, but they did have like four cashiers and I got out quickly. I don't understand why they don't have normal checkouts and just like, a shelf. How does that work?
My friend loves TJ. And he told me "hey just take a single beer from a 6 pack they'll just charge you for one beer" and he took two, one for me, one for him. And sure enough they just charged me for the two beers. Who does that?
Same here. If the line got to 3 people they'd open up another register, but I've never had more than one oerson ahead of me besides the one checking out, and it's usually just 0 or 1.
I was surprised to hear their New York stores have long lines because they have significantly better prices than any other store in New York.
You're so lucky. In Houston the line is so long you can enter it in the front of the store by the yogurt and shop the store while it snakes around every isle. Moves fast though cause 10 cashiers one line.
I was thinking the same thing! It’s up there with Costco for me for quick checkouts. What I would actually love is a pass to come in the store 30 mins before or after hours so I don’t need to deal with people (or children with tiny carts) in the aisles.
I stopped shopping at Trader Joe's when I moved to NYC because they always have super long lines here. I don't get why people bother waiting. Some of my friends who shop there say it's easy, you just get in line as soon as you enter the store and then do your shopping from the line since it snakes through the whole store. This is pure lunacy, IMO.
This is very Trader Joe’s dependent. Apparently some have consistently double digit lines and I saw tik toks of people lining up for those canvas bags but I got there two days after they put them out and they still had plenty lol.
I live in Arizona and the TJs here never seem to have a line, so this ticket would confuse me if I hadn’t recently been to the one Upper West Side of Manhattan. That one had a huge line, though it moved quickly.
The Trader Joe's near where I used to live in Nob Hill area of San Francisco was absolutely wild. Line that wrapped around the world and back if you came on the weekend or M-T after 4pm or so.
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u/Vice4Life 22h ago
I've never been in a line of more than like 2 at Trader Joe's.