Trader Joe's coming to Warwick
Yes, the budget stuff is a lot more important, but Trader Joe's will be in the house (this fall), and I'd been meaning to do a related post for some time.
It's been something of a parlor game in Providence to ponder the question of when Trader Joe's might come to the area. Some perceived such a development as an ultimate sign of end-game gentrification, while others who've shopped at the distinctive, reasonably priced grocery store, N4N included, felt like it couldn't arrive soon enough.
There are anecdotal accounts, perhaps apocryphal, that Whole Foods has maintained its Wayland Square location to keep Trader Joe's from coming into the space. And while some might have hoped for TJ to occupy the former Shaw's in Eagle Square, the chain is said to be very, very precise in where and how it sets up. That explains why it's going for as traffic-intense an area as Bald Hill Road in Warwick.
Jen comments:
This has got to be the worst location in RI. Anyone who has half a brain stays away from Bald Hill Road. The demographics HAVE to be better in Seekonk where they can draw from RI, East Bay and SE Mass. Are folks from Barrington and Bristol and Aquidneck Island going to go to Bald Hill Road? Doubtful. But folks from Warwick and East G might go to Seekonk. The whole thing is very strange! And I think TJs will rue the day they opened in RI when they try to conduct business in the state--my friend who manages REI says that it was a nightmare because of the laws around retail (ie., employees have to be paid weekly, which screwed up the company's payroll which is biweekly everywhere else in the country).
And who knew they were owned by the ALDI people? I didn't. And Scott Avedesian can totally be governor now if he wants. He can just glide into the statehouse on the "i brought Trader Joe's to town" ticket.
Anyway, the food fanatics among us will welcome TJ, but Route 2 is unlikely to generate the sexual frisson of a certain Trader Joe's in lower Manhattan. I can't find the link, but New York Magazine has a piece last year on how it's the hip place to work for a lot of young artist types.
