IWETHEY v. 0.3.0 | TODO
1,095 registered users | 0 active users | 0 LpH | Statistics
Login | Create New User
IWETHEY Banner

Welcome to IWETHEY!

New We're getting Trader Joe's
3 in the Houston area and 2 in Dallas.

The Shepherd location will be most convenient for me. I used to go there all the time when it was a Bookstop. S. Voss is closer to linc's part of town.

http://blog.chron.co...ston-trader-joes/

New Might go to the Voss Rd one
once the daughter returns from college. When she comes home we always do a road trip to Central Market on Westheimer inside 610 for cooking supplies.




"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."

-- E.L. Doctorow
New They closed the TJs up the street from me . . .
. . the presence of which was one of the reasons I bought here (of course, TJ's was a lot different back then). While originally much larger than the Proto markets (the original name of the Trader Joe's chain) it had been there for more than 35 years and was now tiny by TJ standards. They opened a big new one down in Montrose - not too much farther away.

Some of the Montrose locals said they'd never shop there because it would compete with the local Cordon's market (a single non-chain market). They just didn't understand the three prime factors of retail - location, location, and location.

My expectation was that a great many people who would never have gone there before would now be driving right by Cordons and would stop to pick up stuff TJ's doesn't have (and some that they do but at better prices). Judging from their parking lot, that appears to be what has happened.

Like all the other independent markets and small chains around here, Cordons sells at prices way below those of the big grocery chains, and has a better selection of specialty items (and it's much less yuppified than TJs - this is not a particularly yuppified community - they're mostly over on the East Side).

Of course you Texans will probably be paying $3 for "two buck Chuck" (or do they prohibit wine sales in grocery markets in Texas?). I never buy the stuff, even for cooking. This is one of only a couple cases*** where I agree with a New York critic. "Charles Shaw wines can stand up to any $2 bottle in the country" - a masterpiece of faint praise.

My daily guzzle is Crane Lake, much better. Unfortunately, after many years, the price at Sunland Produce just went up from $2.99 to $3.33 (I think it's long been $4 elsewhere). That's still nowhere near enough to lure me to 2$Chuck.

*** The other time I know if is the NY critic who declared Los Angeles "The creative capital of the world". Of course, you must realize that in New York that's an insult. In New York they are "intellectuals". Intellectuals don't create, they criticize. They look down upon the creative types their careers would evaporate without.
New Two Buck Chuck is $3.29 here.
Chuck's Merlot and White Zinfandel seems fine to me, but nobody is silly enough to take my wine recommendations. ;-)

I still like the local TJ's here, even though they seem to have had a lot of staff turnover in the last 6 months or so and many of the new people seem very cold. They don't make me feel like a criminal when I buy beer or wine the way Target does. There as soon as the cashier rings up an alcoholic beverage they have to scan the bar code on the back of my license for some reason. No other store I've been to does that... :-/

Cheers,
Scott.
New All new people here too . . .
. . as far as I can tell - though they said they'd retain anyone who wanted to move to the new store.

In particular I haven't seen the Australian guy, who, when I checked out with 5 six packs of Dutch beer (the big 1 pint cans), two bottles of red wine and a small block of cheese, told me I had the ratio between food and drink exactly right.

Of course this is Southern California, so we don't have a coldness problem at all (apparently TJ's doesn't hire recent arrivals from New York). Maybe your store needs a new manager.
New The manager's new, too. :-/
New I pick up wine at HEB and Kroger
though there are confusing laws on what can be sold where.
http://en.wikipedia...._U.S._state#Texas

HEB's a Texas grocery chain, they have ~300 locations in Texas and ~30 Mexico.
New They just announced one coming to Boulder, too.
Looking forward to it.
New The Woodlands and Fort Worth locations open Friday
http://blog.chron.co...ands-trader-joes/

The Woodlands is an hour north of where I live, so I won't be frequenting that one. I might check it out if I'm up there for a concert (they have a large outdoor venue there) before the Shepherd location is open.

The Shepherd location opens in September, and I drive past the building it's going in at least once a month as it's down the street from my boss' house - we have a monthly meeting there on the first workday of the month.

The Voss location out towards linc opens sometime in the 4th quarter.
New We'll be getting a Whole Foods someday
Construction has cleared the lot at Fry Rd. and Grand Parkway, so I'm guessing 6 - 12 more months to go.

In the meantime, Aldi's wants to put in a store about 2 miles north of me. naturally the neighborhood is against it because it will attract "those kind of people" as its clientele...




"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."

-- E.L. Doctorow
New yuppies with snotty attitudes?
thats what you see in Aldi's around here.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
New you know what they mean
"those kind of people" = "poor inner city minorities" coming out to our not-so-lily-white neighborhood to shop at Aldi's and maybe hang around and bring down civilization as we know it.




"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."

-- E.L. Doctorow
New You folks in Texas are a bit spoiled.
My SIL lives in Austin. There are several Whole Foods (unsurprising since they started there), but she shops at Central Market mostly. The place is always packed when we've been there with her. The prices seem relatively decent, at least compared to Whole Foods. It's an offshoot of H-E-B apparently.

http://www.centralmarket.com/

She doesn't have a TJs, AFAIK.

We've got Whole Foods, Balducci's, TJs and several of the usual chains (Safeway, Harris Teeter, Giant, etc.). TJs should expand quite a bit more - the store I go to is always busy and sells out of many things quickly. Much better prices than WF or Balduccis, but more limited fresh food selections.

Cheers,
Scott.
New they're getting one next year
http://www.statesman...year-2311879.html

Yep, Central Market is an HEB store. I've stopped at one here a couple times, but it's not convenient. I normally shop at the HEB plus! in Pearland, they stock a number of items from Central Market. Fun story - while in high school, we lived in Portland, just across Nueces Bay from Corpus Christi where HEB's headquarters was at the time (they relocated to San Antonio a while back). Their IT manager lived across the street from us and he backed into my car one day. He stopped by to give us his insurance info so my folks walked him back to my room where I was working on my Vic 20 BBS software. After explaining what I was working on and showing him the code (both assembly and BASIC), he told me to come work for him when I finished school (I was 16 a the time). Never took him up on it though, I'm not a fan of Corpus Christi and much prefer living in Houston.

We've been getting a number of California chains of late. Probably a side effect of the influx of people we've had from that state. While I liked the food at Carl's Jr, I've stopped going there because the service has been really bad and the restaurant's haven't been clean - I'd get there around 11:30 before the lunch rush starts, but always have trouble finding a clean table in the nearly empty restaurant. They would also screw my order up almost half the time.

Another thing we get spoiled with:
http://spiceware.org...ery/Misc/IMG_1090

I picked that up yesterday. HEB makes these, but I seldom buy them due to my low carb diet.
http://www.flickr.co...6@N07/6336051707/
New rofl. :-)
New about the prices
Back in the 80s when I first moved to Houston one of my jobs was at Gerland's Food Fair. One of things I found out was that almost all the stores in Houston got their goods from the distributor Grocers Supply (GS). As a cost savings HEB handles their own distribution so they wouldn't be using GS. Because of this, if any grocery store closed GS would buy it at whatever cost and, if need be, sell it at a loss to prevent HEB from getting in the market.

HEB ended up creating HEB Pantry, which were smaller stores and started opening them up in Houston. I didn't care for them as I was used to their full sized stores in Corpus Christi, but they did the job and HEB became successful in the Houston market. None of the Pantry stores remain, they've all been replaced with new full sized stores.

http://www.bizjourna...ry4.html?page=all

interesting tidbit from that article:
The two Central Market stores in Austin have become a tourist attraction of sorts, drawing in more than 1.5 million visitors a year, second only to the state Capitol in terms of Austin tourist attractions.


boggles my mind that a grocery story is a tourist attraction.
     We're getting Trader Joe's - (SpiceWare) - (15)
         Might go to the Voss Rd one - (lincoln)
         They closed the TJs up the street from me . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (4)
             Two Buck Chuck is $3.29 here. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                 All new people here too . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (1)
                     The manager's new, too. :-/ -NT - (Another Scott)
             I pick up wine at HEB and Kroger - (SpiceWare)
         They just announced one coming to Boulder, too. - (Steve Lowe)
         The Woodlands and Fort Worth locations open Friday - (SpiceWare) - (7)
             We'll be getting a Whole Foods someday - (lincoln) - (2)
                 yuppies with snotty attitudes? - (boxley) - (1)
                     you know what they mean - (lincoln)
             You folks in Texas are a bit spoiled. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                 they're getting one next year - (SpiceWare) - (1)
                     rofl. :-) -NT - (Another Scott)
                 about the prices - (SpiceWare)

#include <stdlrpd.h>
129 ms