A rhetorical question...

... at least for those of us out in the boonies:

Trader Joe's, or Whole Foods?

Comments

[kathyrn laughon]

totally different things. TJ is good for stocking up on basics, snack foods, and some fun stuff. Whole Foods is a grocery store. We have a WF and generally do most of our shopping there (we find that organic food is actually MORe expensive at the regular grocery store and eat little meat, so our groceries aren't all that expensive.) We go to TJ when we get a chance (it's a 100 miles to the nearest, so it's not a destination, but when we happen to be near one) and stock up on nuts, pasta sauce, peanut butter pretzels and cheap wine.

[julie]

Moving from somewhere that has both within 3/4 of a mile to somewhere with niether in 250 miles, I have to emphatically vote Trader Joes. But then, I've only been in Whole Foods once. I think if you have food allergy problems or any other special dietary concerns WF would be more useful, but that's not us. I'm all about TJs.

[Twice]

I'm thinking, do I want to spend $60 for two bags of groceries (TJs) or $160 (WFs)?

[Teri]

Like you, I wish I were close enough to either one to be sure!

Nice tidy-up of your bloglines, by the way. Our taste is close enough to the same that I've been using yours all these years instead of creating my own, and now they're all updated and fresh. What happened to Tertia and Cecily, though? Did they gradually fall off of your reading list?

[BrooklynGirl]

I don't have either near me, but I fantasize about shopping at both regularly.

[Emma Jane]

Brooklyn Girl, what definition of "close" are you using?! I have to drive 13 miles to get to an okay grocery... of course, it probably takes far less time than it'd take you to get to Union Square, say.

Kathryn, I think the point of the question is that they are totally different places to shop. But aren't both are going for the same upper middle class consumers, just aiming for different parts of their shopping ids? So: which one is more fun?

I'm Whole Foods all the way. Give me the glitz, with aged parmesan, superdark chocolate, and organic lip gloss on top. My God. When we travel someplace with one nearby I have to take along an extra bag.

In Trader Joe's I always feel a little disoriented, like there isn't a there there. When I was 18 I spent a summer in L.A., and I was pretty amazed at their 10 pound blocks of Ghirardelli for $20—that was back when I thought Ghirardelli dark was good chocolate!—but now I tend to wander listlessly and wonder why I'm there.

Teri, Cecily is still there—just listed under "And." The list will keep growing, but my God—I hadn't updated since before the last presidential election!

[Lori]

Whole Foods is more fun, hands down. More to look at and better organized.

TJ is good for certain specific things, but a lot of their inventory is also available at smaller ethnic grocers, even in the boonies (at my Midwest U., the closest TJs was over an hour away, and I don't think there was a WF yet...). And their whole "we buy the scary ethnic food so you don't have to" schtick kind of irritates me...

[softmachine]

where i live -- emerald city -- we call whole foods "whole paycheck." TJ's is always reasonably priced -- or so it seems to me -- so if it's a matter of savings, i choose the latter. but whole foods kicks TJ's butt when it comes to produce and organic food...also it is more of a grocery store than TJ's.

[Steinn Sigurdsson]

Whole Foods for day-to-day groceries and skyr!
TJs to stock the pantry.

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[Professor Zero]

Farmers markets and non-chain wine stores!

Am I the only one who finds the TJ food to be stale, the cheese to taste like the plastic it is wrapped in, and the wine selection to be poor?

Is New Orleans the only town so poor (I mean po') that we refer to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck?