My non-food NAY at TJ’s is the exact opposite: old bats who don’t mind their own business (in the store and in the parking lot).
Have to agree with that. Dumb is dumb wherever you find it. I just think that TJ’s product mix leads to more shelf-gazing than the mix at other markets.
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Maybe this is an east coast big city problem?
At our TJs, everyone seems very happy to be there.
We still feel lucky to have one.
The next ones are hundreds of miles away in
Redding and Eugene.
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Then I strongly suggest you don’t frequent New England Whole Foods or Roche Bros. stores, OR the tightly packed aisles of older Market Basket stores before a perceived or real Snowmaggedon or a pre-Patriots game Sunday while store associates are also stocking the shelves at the same time.
TJs on a weekend is easy-peasy as compared to the oft-entitled shoppers at Whole Foods and Rochies.
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Please forgive me for reposting this gem from 2016 (the original post was much further back, on Chowhound):
“…Next rant… Berkeley Bowl. God, do I ever love the selection and the prices are normal grocery store to better, but I can’t stand the parking and I have even less love for (dare I say it) the patrons. Please take this in the nicest, most constructive criticism way, but Berkeley bowl shoppers can be the rudest, pushiest, most arrogant, self-aggrandizing, solpisistic, ankle-bashing-with-their-carts doofi I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. It’s like bottled Berkeley PC concentrate in there. As much as I love the place, the gauntlet I have to run just to get good veggies makes it not worth the trip.”
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Our Somerville, Mass., Market Basket is one of the old stores, and the parking lot is downright dangerous. However, despite the crowds, the shoppers there are very efficient and very polite and the children are very well behaved. I agree about irritating Whole Foods shoppers in the Boston area…fortunately, there are usually fewer shoppers there than at Market Basket.
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I gave this a like just for he fake latin pluralization of ‘doofus’
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I live in walking distance of the original Berkeley Bowl, so it’s my regular supermarket. It used to be insanely crowded, but not so since they opened BB West. I just don’t encounter any of that ‘tude there, but I know bashing it is a cherished pastime. True, the parking lot is small, but there’s lots of nearby street parking and you can take the carts off the parking lot if need be.
I know whereof you speak, and yes, insanity reigns in that parking lot. (I drive past it on my way to Dali.) Having said that, I also know that that particular MB caters to local clientele with the products they carry that you can’t find in other MBs. I like that MB does that.
And if you know what you want, MBs and TJs are easy to navigate. Although TJs tends to have more looky-loos who walk away from their shopping carts. Then again, you have walkaways in every supermarket now with Instacart and store-brand internal shopping services. 
It is what it is.
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Our local TJ’s here in Portland also has a horrendous parking lot. There’s talk of another opening up I forget where, Westbrook, ME probably where there are a few large retailers who’ve bit the dust due to COVID and/or online sales.
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no discussion of TJ’s Parking Lots will be complete until everyone hears the following: An impression by comedian Paul F. Thompkins, reading “Werner Herzog’s yelp review of the Trader Joe’s on Hyperion”
and, naturally, Herzog’s reaction, which is all you could ever want:
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Tremendous!
Thanks 
That’s interesting. You have old people in and aroud TJ’s, in your face, telling you what to do?
while i love taking my time wandering through tj’s, i’m used to powering through the somerville mb. so when i’m at one of the new ones (which are the size of an aircraft carrier), it takes me forever to find what i need. i wander through the aisles, cell phone in hand, stopping when i see something on my list.
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Actually, yes. Multiple occasions.
Now I’m fascinated. What do these old bats at TJ’s tell you to do?
One of them told me to keep my kids quiet, and two others took umbrage at my parking technique.
I pity any oldster foolish enough to ask you to move your cart!
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I know how to park my cart so any oldster comment on it would be way way off base.
Good for you. Many at TJ’s aren’t as skilled at parking carts, cars or screaming children.
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