How International Travel Played A Part In Trader Joe's Origin Story

Lately, it seems like everyone's lining up for Trader Joe's mini tote bags and cauliflower gnocchi, but there was a time when everyone's favorite quirky grocery store was just a small, regional chain in the Los Angeles area. Interestingly, if it wasn't for Boeing inventing the 747 in the late 1960s, T.J.

's might not have even stood a chance. The company's origin story owes quite a lot to a boom in international travel back when the actual Joe behind the brand — Joe Coulombe — came up with the concept around the same time commercial airliners started to take flight. When the first 747s started jetting off across the ocean in 1969, Coulombe wisely surmised that there could be a market for educated grocery shoppers who were developing a taste for more gourmet, international products like coffee and cheese, and thus a grocery store began.



He even chose a name that would give the store a counterculture, global vibe that set it apart from other American supermarkets. The Trader Joe's name was inspired by a tiki bar Walk into any Trader Joe's, and you'll immediately pick up on a South Seas vibe. From the beginning, Joe Coulombe wanted his stores to have an international feel that would appeal to a well-traveled shopper.

All locations, including the original, have a nautical theme, and employees wear Polynesian printed shirts . The name of the chain itself, according to the store's history , is even a nod to Trader Vic's, a southern California bar and restaurant that was iconic during the Tiki culture craze of the 1950s and '60s. "He wanted to tap into this idea that food was exploration, that food was travel and adventure," author Benjamin Lorr told CNN of Coulombe's vision for Trader Joe's.

Many of the same '60s-era touches that set T.J.'s apart in the beginning are still a big part of the company's modern branding, which is perhaps why it's still the best grocery store in the state of California .

But these days, instead of evoking a vibe of winging off in a 747 to a faraway land, it's arguable that the store's vibe hits on an even more powerful theme for today's culture: Nostalgia for simpler times..