On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:49:08 -0400, Boron Elgar
> wrote:

>On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:54:43 -0700, sf wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:08:27 -0700, Jed
> wrote:
>>
>>>It was only after TJ's was acquired by Aldi(?), a German company, that
>>>TJ's began to contract with manufacturers to make products for them at
>>>a reduced price. The founder stayed on as a consultant for a while and
>>>kept things much as they were, but after he retired completely, we
>>>began to see the evolution of Trader Joe's to what it is today.
>
>The store was sold to Theo Albrecht (he ran the European Aldi's
>companies, his brother ran the US ones) in 1979. So the Aldi's you
>know in the US has nothing whatsoever to do with TJ's.

I have only heard of Aldi's here in RFC. The name means absolutely
nothing to me.
>
>>Thanks for the history lesson. I only knew that TJ's is just a shadow
>>of its former self.... a reliable shadow, but not as exciting or
>>interesting as it used to be.
>
>When are you talking of the "former self" existing? More than 30 years
>ago when it was sold to Albrecht? Coloumbe, the original owner, left
>in 1989 - almost 20 years ago. Is that the former self you recall?
>
I've never tracked who owned it, or even cared for that matter. My
perspective is before '80.... early to mid '70s. I used to cross the
Golden Gate Bridge (when gas was dirt cheap and crossing the bridge
was 25¢ in each direction) to go to the San Rafael store, which was
probably their only outlet in NoCal at the time. It was a long time
before TJ's opened here in SF and I had absolutely no idea it was a
SoCal chain at the time. I just knew their cheeses were worth
traveling to buy even a small amount.

What I remember about the store is it was "rustic" (similar to a
dented can type establishment) with fantastic cheese at unbelievably
low prices. They also had lots of inexpensive wine, all of them one
time only buys... with occasional exceptional wines, one of which was
a "sparkling" or "fizzy" deep red colored wine from Spain that I'll
never forget. The rest of TJ's stock was just plain forgettable.


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