Bradenton’s first Trader Joe’s draws hundreds who lined up early to be first to shop
Whether it was for the bananas, the tamales, the tangerine juice or something else, more than 300 shoppers lined up before 8 a.m. Thursday for the opening of the first Trader Joe’s in the Bradenton area.
Store captain Abe’ Desta was there, too, greeting everyone with a smile and maybe even a high five.
“It’s magical,” said Desta of the opening of the 12,000-square-foot store at 8111 Cooper Creek Blvd..
Shoppers in the Bradenton area have long wanted a Trader Joe’s. The anticipation had been growing since the grocer announced in May that it planned to open its first Manatee County store by year’s end.
“Finally, we don’t have to go to Sarasota,” Andrea Allemant said. “It’s exciting. We have everything right here. It’s good for Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch.”
Bob Knudtson of Lakewood Ranch was shopping for Trader Joe’s lasagna noodles and mascarpone cheese.
A transplant from Wisconsin, Knudtson said he thought the area had every retail offering that he could want.
Vivian Vergara agreed.
A Trader Joe’s customer for about 20 years, Vergara said one of the factors in her decision to move to the area was that it had Whole Foods, Nordstrom and the promise of a Trader Joe’s.
Among the items in her cart Thursday: cut flowers, garlic dip, a bottle of champagne and puff pastry.
“I don’t know if I want to share that I bought puff pastry, because it’s so popular and they’ll run out,” Vergara said.
And there was plenty of pasta, as Trader Joe’s prominently features the choices on its website:
“With a multitude of noodle shapes & sizes—and so many ways to make, serve, and enjoy them—our pasta is the proverbial blank canvas you need to create delicious dinners on the fly.”
Unlike some Trader Joe’s with cramped parking lots, the new Bradenton-area store, in the Shoppes at University Center, has plentiful parking.
Trader Joe’s is open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.
On inaugural day, the aisles at Trader Joe’s were packed with shoppers. At 8:15 a.m., a customer accidentally knocked a jar of cracked olive salad off the shelf, breaking it on the floor.
A swarm of Trader Joe’s workers quickly moved in to clean up the mess.
“It’s like a rite of passage,” a smiling crew member said of the accident.
More about Trader Joe’s
▪ The first Trader Joe’s opened in Pasadena, Calif., in 1967. The Sarasota Trader Joe’s opened in 2012 at 4101 S. Tamiami Trail. At the time, it was the second Trader Joe’s in Florida. The first was in Naples.
▪ The Manatee County store is the company’s 23rd in Florida.
▪ There are about 560 Trader Joe’s in the United States.
This story was originally published October 26, 2023 at 1:23 PM.
