Hmmm, obits identify Joe as a Planned Parenthood benefactor. so... good riddance.
RIP.
Rest in peace. I spent time with Mr. Trader Joe’s last year at the home. He was cheerful and super lively. Seemed like he wanted to take everyone at the home on a trip around the world.
Planned Parenthood? Not good. I’ll pray for the slim chance that he had an ounce of love for the Lord.
Trader Joe’s a popular around the world. The one in Berkeley is always fun to visit.
Trader Joes didn’t take off as a chain until Theo Albrecht (the Aldi guy) bought it and din’t make it out of California until after Joe left the company. It’s kind of like saying that Richard and Maurice McDonald started a hamburger dynasty without mentioning Ray Kroc.
I believe that Trader Joe's is now owned by one of the German grocery chains (Aldis? or the other one)
RIP Trader Joe. Thanks for all the years of great service and great finds.
I’ve been shopping Trader Joe’s since around 1972. I think it had alcohol, chocolate, cheese, and not a whole lot else at the start. But always an adventure. RIP, Joe!
He used is vast fortune to subsidize evil. He probably regrets it right now.
Trader’s Joe is a great supermarket. We love the one we go to. It is across the street from a Publix and down the street is a Whole Foods and a Spouts Farmers Market...
I discovered Trader Joe’s in the early ‘70s - it was a wonderful place for quality gourmet foods (back when you couldn’t get decent cheese in most stores, let alone all the things we take for granted now) and inexpensive wines that were good and fantastic values. Some of the values/quality were unbelievable. There as an astonishingly good 3 vintage blend of Napa Valley Cabernet from Spring Mountain that was about $4 a bottle in 1978 that drank well for close to ten years (I bought several cases). Made to do something with some vintages that were less than stellar (including the disastrous 1972) they couldn’t bulk out effectively, it turned out to be far more than the some of its parts.
I don’t much care about Joe’s politics, but it really was the students’ friend back in the day. I don’t buy the wines their now (though my kids sometimes do), but we still find it worth a stop in our shopping.
What was revealing to me was that in 1979 Trader Joes was sold to the same family that owns the Aldi supermarket chain from Germany.
Trader Joe’s ping