Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that hibiscus-print tote bag in your hand?
Tiki-themed grocery chain Trader Joe’s is opening a second Brooklyn outlet at Downtown’s forthcoming City Point mall next year, and loyal shoppers are hoping the new market will help shrink the famously long lines that snake out the door of the borough’s lone outpost in Cobble Hill.
“They definitely need a second location somewhere — this one gets packed,” said Albert Messer, who regularly commutes from Crown Heights to buy groceries from the store at Court Street and Atlantic Avenue.
City Point honchos announced last week that the supermarket will join outlets of Target, department store Century 21, and hip cinema Alamo Drafthouse in the commercial slice of the huge Fulton Street development, which will also include three residential towers.
Joe’s fans are surprised their favorite emporium of flavored hummus and off-brand Oreos chose to open another location just a 15-minute walk from its other Kings County outlet — but they aren’t complaining.
“It might be overkill having two so close, but the demand is there I guess,” said Downtown resident James McNamara. “If the line gets shorter, you won’t see me complaining.”
But Trader Joe’s attraction to the Downtown galleria goes much deeper than checkout queues — the mall will have a sub-basement where delivery trucks can load and unload plastic-wrapped produce and frozen burritos without idling in the street, which the grocer was wild about, according a City Point bigwig.
“Having off-street loading was big for them,” said Chris Conlon, vice president and chief operating officer of City Point developer Acadia Realty Trust.
And the Hawaiian-shirt-sporting company isn’t putting all its cage-free eggs in one Brooklyn basket — it also plans to open a third store at a planned Williamsburg waterfront building on Kent Avenue at N. Third Street, according to a Crain’s New York report.
Trader Joe’s will set up its new City Point market below street level, alongside several as-yet-unannounced restaurants and a Chelsea-market-style food court dubbed DeKalb Market Hall. The hall will include outposts of Fletcher’s Brooklyn Barbecue, the Arepa Lady, and Cuzin’s Duzin doughnut shop — a staple of Albee Square Mall, which was razed in 2007 to make way for the new building — according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The whole thing is slated to be up and running by fall next year, Conlon said.
Trader Joe’s did not return requests for comment.
