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| - Trader Joe's is excellent. They are a money suck in the same way that Target is - I go in thinking "I need a bag of onions and those peanut butter dog biscuits and that's it", and I somehow spent $60 and come out with 4 huge bags of everything under the sun. Everything just looks so good. The packaging is pretty, the ethnic foods are all intriguing, and there are so many things you just have to have.
I will admit that the produce section is not great, since almost everything is packaged in bulk. But Trader Joe's produce (specifically the onions and potatoes) seem to stay good a lot longer than Giant Eagle's.
And a lot of things are cheaper here than Giant Eagle - milk, the Indian boil-in-a-bag lunches (love those), the aforementioned dog biscuits (Rosa loves those), tofu, olive oil. There are also a lot of dishes you won't find at Giant Eagle, especially in the frozen foods section. Trader Joe's offers a ton of vegetarian convenience foods, something that Giant Eagle is lacking. Burritos, single servings of eggplant parmesan, vegetable biryani, spanikopita... it's all here, along with soy ice cream and mochi and $7 tiramisu. I'm pretty sure Olive Garden charges $5 per slice of tiramisu; come here and get a whole cake for $7!
And there are always new products coming - just look at the Fearless Flyer. It's funny and makes you want to buy everything advertised in it.
The staff is friendly, the prices are pretty reasonable for the quality of the merchandise, the store is never too full and they give away free samples. What's not to love?
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