It’s hard to believe, but the Trader Joe’s in Santa Maria has turned one year old. The official birthday was March 16, but staffers and shoppers celebrated the store’s “birth” on March 13 and 14. The celebration involved free cake and ice cream.
But ice cream and cake weren’t the only things customers were receiving. In what seemed to be one of the greatest birthday parties to hit Santa Maria for a while, there were hourly grocery giveaways.
There were also Hawaiian dancers and live music, which included 16 ukulele players on Saturday and four on Sunday.
Trader Joe’s, a privately owned chain, opened its doors at 9 a.m. on March 16, 2009, and, since then, it’s been offering the Santa Maria Valley healthy, environmentally safe products and practices—including meat alternatives, and, by a weekly raffle for a $25 gift card, incentives for customers to reuse their bags.
Store commander Kristina Myers told the Sun last year that the great thing about Trader Joe’s is that its arrival in town generated excitement because of the store’s ability to make the average cook on a budget look like a culinary genius.
“We love being a part of Santa Maria,” Myers said. “It’s great to be a part of this
wonderful community.”
This article appears in Mar 25 – Apr 1, 2010.