Trader Joe's Turning Into Tiki Joe's

I was at the Westwood (CA) Trader Joe's and was pleasantly surprised to see the store had become still more Tiki and now features price tags/product tags which state: "Tiki Joe's."
I also noticed several of the male employees sporting kakui nut leis.
Maybe a Tiki Joe's product line is in the future?

It is always good to see Trader Joe's spreading the Tiki love.

Has anyone else noticed the Tiki Joe's characteristic?

Hopefully, come spring the Tiki themed shopping bags will return:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=23398&forum=1

or maybe Tiki Joe's will add:
"Mele Kalikimaka" to the bags soon.

Reportedly, Oceanic Arts does a lot of the Trader Joe's signage.....

On 2007-11-25 12:16, TikiDeke wrote:
Reportedly, Oceanic Arts does a lot of the Trader Joe's signage.....

Also, Tiki Joe's has retained the talents of our own TikiDiablo, if I recall correctly.
It really is astounding (although not necessarily surprising) how Trader Joe's has embraced Tiki - and appropriately so.

After all, Trader Joe's does have the Trader Giotto product line, so just as easily they could have embraced a Venetian theme, complete with Gondolas, St. Marcos replicas, clocktowers and employees in striped shirts.

Tiki Joe's sells coffee with Tikis on it: the 100% Kauai coffee.

Tiki Joe's in Thousand Oaks has a bunch of carvings from VonTiki as a well as a few others

Unfortunately for those of us here in the Twin Cities, there is no tiki in the three Trader Joe's in the region...

o/' For we need a little tiki / Right this very minute... o/'

Sadly, none in the Atlanta ones either.

OK, for all the Twin Cities folks...

If you have kids, take 'em to the Woodbury store. There is a tiki hidden somewhere in the store, and the tykes who find him receive some sort of prize. Don't know what it is, though...

On 2007-12-27 14:39, TimboTiki wrote:
OK, for all the Twin Cities folks...

If you have kids, take 'em to the Woodbury store. There is a tiki hidden somewhere in the store, and the tykes who find him receive some sort of prize. Don't know what it is, though...

..i think the prize is one of those cheap ugly little tiki fountains from walgreen's.....

SORRY, here in Maryland at our local Trader Joe's its business
as usual. Aside from same fake plam trees there since day 1 & a
"few" clerks in Hawaiian shirts, zip!

Thortiki

In an effort to promote more visual documentation on Tiki Central, a while back I went around and photographed the various Trader Joe's in the L.A. neighborhoods I frequent: I shop in Burbank and Toluca Lake because of my Naomi, and in Eagle Rock because of my son Diego's school. Ironically my own T.J's in Silverlake has not one Tiki face in it.

The Burbank Trader Joe's has the some of the better nouveaux Tiki touches of all of them. Here's the entrance:

Here's their plastic bamboo bag recycling can. It would make a good ice ice bucket for outdoor Tiki parties:

The cash registers have some well done flat sculpt Tiki signs above them:

Here's quite an elaborate painting explaining the concept of the helmsperson:

And here are some cartoony signs that were done by a sign painter that also did some for the Toluca Lake store:

While maybe not the best Tiki renderings, the Toluca Lake store gets an A for its elaborate entrance installation:

The Tiki torches have flickering lights. Here's a sign in the Toluca store aptly describing the frustrations when we T.J. shoppers cannot find our favorite food item:

These guys are done pretty stylized, I like'em:

...though I am not partial to heroic renderings of trailblazing hummers:

Here's another artsy sign, with a Party City Tiki border in the background:

The Toluca Lake store even has Tiki detail in it price tags:

The Eagle Rock store unfortunately gets the least favorable review in terms of Tiki design execution ( but it is great to shop in because it is never crowded! :) ). While the interior signs are OK:

...the exterior murals are just frightfully off, in color AND design:

...a parrot Tiki?

This guy was a play on the summer shopping bag Tiki:

All in all it is quite astonishing how Tiki has appeared in my daily world in places where it has never been before. I am glad that my favorite grocery chain's theme-ing coincides with my favorite hobby. Now if they only could stick to their low prices...

just in case anyone missed it

Link here

Wow, I have to look more closely when I go to my TJ's in Toluca.....I know I spot Tikis there, but I never spot Tiki Luminaries there...Sven K shops at Toluca TJ's......

Whodda thunkit ?

BTW....

The most addicting candy EVER can be found at TJ's - Dark Chocolate Almonds...Salted Almonds covered in Dark chocolate...Sweet, salty,chocolatey,crunchy...HIGHLY addicting.

NOW they just need to bring back those TIKI shopping bags from last year.

I'm addicted to the mini peanut butter cups! Oh my!

This year's reusable shopping bags (the ones that had a hibiscus print last year) don't have any tikis on them, but they've got a really cool surf design.

Although I could find no evidence of Crazy Al, the Alameda store has a lot of tiki touches (unfortunately including that Party City border around most of the walls). I'll try to remember my camera next time I go.

Excellent photos!

I think the "tiki thing" is over at Trader Joe's. The local TJ's (the company is based about ten miles from here) got rid of all the cool island stuff and the tiki shopping bags.

:(

Are you sure?
The original Trader Joes in Pasadena, CA is very Tiki, down to the bathrooms.
Every product price label has a Tiki on it.
One of the bags available for purchase has Tiki on it.

Yeah, the one in Oceanside, CA is still tiki too. Basically half surf theme, half tiki.

On 2008-08-21 23:39, Tiki Shaker wrote:
Yeah, the one in Oceanside, CA is still tiki too. Basically half surf theme, half tiki.

Ditto for the Escondido store.

Great! How about some pictures from those stores, then? That decor will not be up forever, and it deserves to be recorded.

I'm sure this TJ's WAS tiki(-ish) and now it ain't.

We're finally getting a TJs here in the smallest state. It's supposed to open in the next couple of months (I think the sign is up already). Hopefully it'll sport the tiki theme, but if it isn't near Pappy it probably won't be here, either.

We had the tiki bags here in Milwaukee, but the rest of the store's theme reflects Milwaukee's nautical history here on the Great Lakes... oars, fishnets, generic nautical decor.

Not tiki, but not terrible either. I still buy a lot from TJ's.

I approached the one in the northern burbs of Chicago a few years ago about doing some tiki stuff, they said that it wouldn't fit with the store's theme.

What is this Trader Joe's of which you people speak? Floridians know not of such a place. We have (okay, had) Piggly Wiggly. That is our heritage. All hail the pig.

The TJ's in Cambridge, MA is still pretty tiki, and it doesn't look like it's going away. I'll take some pix next time I'm there, and you'll see.

The one in Riverside is still pretty Tiki. Even has a couple OA tikis.

On 2008-08-22 14:13, TikiRick wrote:
The one in Riverside is still pretty Tiki. Even has a couple OA tikis.

Very cool.

However, there is a brand new Trader Joe's on Lake in Pasadena which is sorely laking in Tiki.

Toluca Lake Trader Joe's is still keeping up the Tiki theme, even with Tiki statues!:

Tis not quite the same than when Tiki Diablo used to carve for the Orange County Trader Joe's,

...but that was before all that cheap import stuff flooded the market.
Rather colorful signage:

...and a most unfortunate use of the Jimmy Buffet party Tiki:

...but all in all, Tiki is here to stay:

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-04-06 22:10 ]

Horrors: The Tiki decorated Kaua'i coffee motiff has been changed to a nice looking and bright, but Tikiless, Hawai'ian motiff.

Nice photos, Big Bro!

Sad to report - appears that all tiki carvings have been removed from the Trader Joe's stores in Fresno & neighboring Clovis.

The Toluca Lake Trader Joe's is still going strong (this is my 3rd post on it here), Tiki-wise, with some new Tiki mask/Aloha shirt installations:

High concept texting here, though the humor does seem a little strained at times :) ...

And I do like Cartoony Tiki....

...but not when it its based on....

....the dreaded JIMMY BUFFET PARTY GODS!:

AAAAAAAH!

Menlo Park got rid of their large thatch hut covering their customer service at the entrance. It looks so sterile now.

The Totem Lake TJ's just outside of Seattle is very tiki!
Every one that I've seen in the area has some poly-pop elements going for it..Aloha shirts and kukui nut lei's and all!

La Verandah mourns the lack of a Trader Joe's (by any name) in Colorado. This benighted state divides its grocery stores and hooch purveyors into separate facilities, with neither business allowed to sell the wares of the other. Some politico is now attempting to change the situation.

We fairly recently were allowed access into liquor stores on Sunday, so there is hope...

There is still no Trader Joe's in Hawaii. Shipping their fresh food entrees would not be very cost effective.
However, the air temp is 78 degrees at 6 a.m. and the water temp is also 78 degrees with tradewinds at 10mph with passing windward and mauka showers and a good swell on the east side for a change......

Quite cool, thank you for posting. The Trader Joe's in Glen Ellyn, outside Chicago has a bit, which is refreshing and welcome.

Trader Joe's in Chicago is on the way to Trader Vic's in Chicago...of course that depends on the path you travel...8)

Trader Joe's is a sham, a scam, there ain't no there, there, as my deep south friends would say " that Trader Joes is a whole lotttt of nothing". Sure you can buy a decent bottle of wine or a six pack of some foi natural brand,but most of the goods are strictly second rate, frozen Thai chicken, & bad burritos. The doltish crew are always in the way stocking the shelves, or your dodging some baby boomer gal with sharp elbows and a wreck-less shopping cart. Gourmet shopping, hardly. The whole cutesy Gilligan's Island atmosphere, & dumb radio commercials ring me the wrong way. After a trip to Traders I'm ready for a morning bracer & a crock pot of magic mushrooms.

:lol: I can't comment shall I be kicked off. :lol:

Oh Frankie, you are just such a Bad Boy! AND you have friends in the "deep South"!!! Whoaa!

Mrs. B, You go, say what needs to be said, I got your back.

Big Bro at least I don't get erections over Witco furniture.

Frankie G., of all people you should have a thicker skin.

Besides that's a vintage Tiki in BigBro's front pocket. :)

On 2009-12-03 07:42, FrankieGillette wrote:
Big Bro at least I don't get erections over Witco furniture.

You're so lucky! It's really hard to deal with the splinters! :)

Frankie, Dude, you gotta dump the anger and uptighthood and negative waves.

Trader Joe's is a muthabeautiful place. To quote that great 20th century British philosopher, John Lennon, "...let it be...."

Wow...so about 4 years late to this party, but thanks bigbrotiki for the kind words (I do the art at the Burbank TJ's). Any tikiphiles that frequent that store, feel free to find me there if you feel like chatting!