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THE DISCOUNTERS CONVERGE:

Marshall's Heads To Chelsea

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Things To Know About
The New Trader Joe's In Chelsea

Logo There's really nothing in the new Trader Joe's on Sixth Avenue that you can't get in the more familiar location on 14th Street near Union Square. There are even a few things missing such as hassle, inconvenience, frustration and the need to constantly say, "excuse me, pardon me, sorry, can I just grab that over there?"

Yes, this Trader Joe's appears to have been configured by people hell-bent on correcting all the many ergonomic flaws of the earlier store. And how they have succeeded, making that other store look like it had been laid out by drunken monkeys. The popular frozen food aisle, for example, is especially wide, and no longer bookended by imposing, traffic blocking columns. The tasting station is no longer in a crowded corner blocked by dual checkout lines. In fact, now that this superior location has opened, we wouldn't mind seeing the other store reconfigured to imitate some of its improvements.

For starters, this store feels like it is at least twice the size of the other one, and that means wider aisles and more shelf space for everything. The section of the store that could possibly fill up with a long checkout line, though none had materialized today, was especially spacious. You could practically have held a square dance in the southwestern corner of the store, but instead there was plenty of room to browse the refrigerated bays without feeling like another customer was breathing down your neck to reach that wedge of Roquefort. Perhaps the reason why there was no line to get into the store at noon on opening day was that, for once, the store was actually big enough to hold everyone who came in.

Unfortunately, the folks at Racked tell us that the upcoming TJ's at Broadway and 72nd Street is still a long way off, but at least it now seem possible to actually run in to grab a few things at the new location and getout before your ice cream melts. Folks, it's the Trader Joe's you were dreaming of while you were waiting in an annoying checkout line for 15 minutes in that other one. Enjoy!

Trader Joe's 675 6th Avenue at 21st Street, Chelsea
Grocery Groupies Ecstatic As Trader Joe's Hits Chelsea (Racked)

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