Trader Joe's rocks

[firecat]

Trader Joe's runs out of stuff regularly, and sometimes it's a while before you can figure out if you've had a run of bad luck looking for something, or if it's discontinued. The OH and I like their frozen chicken pot pies. We haven't seen any for a while. Today I went there and again I found no pot pies.

The checkout person made the mistake of asking me if I had found everything, so I said there were no pot pies and asked if they had discontinued them. She said no and asked another staffer to check for pot pies in the back. But the staffer hadn't reappeared by the time I was checked out, so I headed to my car.

I was very surprised when the checkout person chased me down in the parking lot and handed me a pot pie, saying "They found some in the back, this is on me."

I thought that was a very cool gesture. It won't make me shop at Trader Joe's more, because I already get practically all my food there. But it makes me a little bit happier about shopping there.

Comments

[jae]

Oh, that is so cool!

We have someone like that at our local grocery store, too. She's just so nice and helpful and has great little gestures like that. I told her the other day that she rocked, and you should have seen the look on her face. I figure the world needs more people like that, but saving that, the rest of us can at least keep the ones who do exist happy.

-J

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

I rely on them as my primary source of food. I prefer a good produce market for produce, but I can get by with what they got.

I saw the pot pies recently, but they do rearrange things.

and I go so regularly to the Castro Valley store (close to work/home, great parking) that I've gotten to know most of the evening workers.

sweet.

[necturus.livejournal.com]

I do love TJ's, even if in my TJ's as in yours they often run out of things.

And mine is just two blocks from my house :-)

[firecat]

Wow, and I feel lucky that ours is 5 blocks away!

[bunnybutt.livejournal.com]

mmmm, just had one of their pot pies for dinner.

I'm told by the staff at my store that individual stores will often stop carrying something that can be found at other stores. (As opposed to the well-known discontinued phenom, where they get me addicted to something, like their hot and sour soup, and then just stop making it. feh.)

Like others here, I do almost all my food shopping at TJs!

[firecat]

hot and sour soup

I KNOW! I LOVED THAT SOUP!!!

[phoenixpdx.livejournal.com]

They did that to us with the Volcano coffee beans. We *finally* found the perfect bean to blend with the New Mexico Pinon, to make one truly excellent cup of coffee. And then poof! No more. We've been searching for 2 months and finally think we've found one.

And what does it say about me that I parsed that subject line as "the rocks of Trader Joe" and my brain went "ow!!" ?

[beaq.livejournal.com]

That is a nice gesture.

It's funny you should post now because I just spent 10 minutes looking for my special perfect candied ginger in TJ's and was afraid it'd been discontinued, but it was just out of stock. And when the cashier asked ... well, I said everything was OK, but if I hadn't, maybe someone would have brought me ginger. :-)

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

They almost always ask, and if in fact there was something I was looking for and couldn't find, I let them know. Occasionally they will find it, but that's not why I speak up--I figure if I mention something that they don't have, at least they know someone cares and if enough people do that, well, maybe it helps ensure that something doesn't go away completely.

I also, if I've been several times and not found a particular something (that would be unsweetened dried mangoes) and then I go and do find them (and buy bazillions of packages), I mention that to the cashier: "I'm so glad you have these again; it was so disappointing coming here again and again and not seeing them."

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

*sniff*
I miss Trader Joe's. One of the downsides to living in the middle of nowhere.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I often stop a random employee and ask before I get to the checkout; they'll always check the back and/or the computer for stock and status.