More than a year ago I wrote an article on Dane101 analyzing what could happen if Trader Joe's opened in Monroe Commons. I thought I was fairly even handed while taking a look at the store, but it somehow earned Dane101 the title of being part of the "loony left" by the knee-jerk reactionists over at Dummocrats. I suggested Trader Joe's could receive a similar reception to Whole Foods by labor activists who feel the store should be unionized. Nowhere did I actually say I thought Trader Joe's should be a union shop. In fact, I praised the stores treatment and pay scale for workers as it is in fact better then the workers would get paid at union scale.

Anyway, the criticism concerned the suits in publishing here at Dane101. My explanation that the English language can sometimes be confusing just didn't fly, so in order to defend ourselves from the deeply analyzed and thought out counterpoint by the Dummocrats the suits felt an investigation was in order. Last September they tossed me and a traveling companion in the corporate cargo plane and sent me to the Northern tip of California's Pacific Coast Highway. My orders, travel down the PCH and find out what this whole Trader Joe's thing is all about. Now that we have confirmation that Trader Joe's will be cutting ribbon in late October, the story can finally be told.

For some reason the cargo plane dropped us in Arcata, Calif. There is no Trader Joe's in Arcata, but there is a poorly stocked car rental place a little bit to the north in Eureka. The plan was to make like drug dealers and rent a black Lamborghini so we could drive at top speed undetected at night with only night vision goggles to guide our way. This was not going to happen in Arcadia. Simply put, if Arcata were a book, it would be the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Seriously, even in 2006 - its where all of the real hardcore hippies and Merry Makers ended up and spawned children. Madison is Salt Lake City compared to Arcadia. VW busses aside, we were able to rent a Hyundai Elantra from Enterprise for a reasonable flat rate as long as the vehicle stayed in the same state. Not a bad car, especially considering I would soon learn that driving a car at top speed at night with lights off down the PCH is probably a very, very bad idea (lots of curvy roads and cliffs).

After a jaunt through the Redwoods I soon found myself in Berkeley, Calif., a city that Madisonians like to compare to Madison just like apples are compared to apples. Whether or not you buy that comparison doesn't matter, because this story, if you recall, is about Trader Joe's and one thing Madison will soon have that Berkeley doesn't have is Trader Joe's. Berkelians have to pile onto their bikes or into their efficient transportation system and travel all of three miles from Telegraph Avenue to Emeryville --- or one of at least six other locations in the San Francisco area --- to find Trader Joe's. Suckers. Who needs Amoeba Music when we'll have a Trader Joe's IN our city.

One of the rules of this experiment set up by the suits in publishing was that I couldn't go to Trader Joe's without a reason. Thankfully, I was staying with my cousin Jennifer at the time and she had plenty of reason to go to Trader Joes. For one, at the time she was being schooled in the art of dumpster diving by her "waste not," Anarchist, train hopping friends. Jenn, thankfully, put her lessons on hold for the night and decided to get the bread off the shelf. For the record, Madison's Recyclopedia would look like a Alaskan oil spill in the city by the bay. You aren't truly recycling if you aren't grabbing that loaf of bread from L'Etoile's dumpster.

The purpose of this trip to Trader Joe's was for organic bread, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil. This also happened to be the trip I met Mr. Charles Shaw and my judgment of Trader Joe's would be altered forever.

Mr. Charles Shaw goes by a different name for Trader Joe's regulars - Two-Buck Chuck. Why? Charles Shaw is the winery that produces wine that goes for a measly $1.99 at most Trader Joe shops across the country. I say most because according to the company website it goes for the high price of $3.39 in Ohio. We purchased a bottle of the Two-Buck Chuck upon recommendation by a friend. I admit, while I make an effort to get to Star Liquor the 15th of each month for their 15-percent wine discount, it is always nice to have a couple of bottles of cheap but tasty wine around the flat for those nights you're already too drunk to appreciate the expensive stuff. They'll also make great holiday presents for your friends in Milwaukee who don't know about Trader Joe's and Two-Buck Chuck.

The first thing that struck me at the Emeryville Trader Joe's was just how busy it was. We went twice while I was in the San Francisco area and both times it was wall to wall customers. Of course, the assumption was that I was in the greater San Francisco area so the busy store must just be the result of a high population rate. This was a flawed assumption as I would discover later in the trip.

The second thing that struck me was the Hawaiian shirts. The theme of Trader Joe's is nautical and the store manager is "Captain" with the assistant manager as "First Mate." The decor is indeed fun and the rumor is that the founder of Trader Joe's, Joe Coulombe, was shooting for a vacation motif - as that's when people feel comfortable and want to buy. Hence, when you walk into a Trader Joe's you half expect to run into Gidget and Moondoggie or the cast of Beach Blanket Bingo.

Trader Joe's strategy is very similar to Wal-Mart's strategy. The big difference is that instead of bringing the customer a wide variety of crappy products from sweatshops in China at low, low prices - Trader Joe's brings a wide variety of quality and tested products at low, low prices. They also pay their employees well and provide healthcare. But just imagine if Wal-Mart let employees wear Hawaiian shirts, that would change everything!

In fact, the company says on their website that they are sure you will like everything in the store because their panel of tasters has tried and verified that everything is good. In the rare chance that you don't, the policy is to let you exchange it. I didn't know this on my trip, so I didn't test the policy out - I also didn't purchase anything I disliked.

After my stay in the San Francisco area it was back into the Elantra for a brief stop to visit John Steinbeck on Cannery Row in Monterey and see if he would compare the Trader Joe's experience to that of the sardine fishermen in the 30s. Sadly, I learned that Steinbeck passed in 1968 so he wasn't available for interviews. Disheartened, I thought I might be able to put some irony in a story about a store that supposedly has the goal (according to Private Label Magazine) of the "democratization of gourmet products by making them available to people who might have champagne tastes but a beer income" by passing through Pebble Beach. Sadly, my tight budget wouldn't allow me to pay the $8.75 admission fee to 17-Mile-Drive where all of the Richie Richs live.

With a heavy heart I drove out of the Monterey area heading back towards the PCH...and what should I find as I passed through Modesto? A Trader Joe's! Tucked away in an ugly strip mall in a less populated area then San Francisco, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast - plus we really needed wine, brie and crackers for our stay in one of the yurts at Treebones Resort in Big Sur.

Being a chain, I wasn't surprised to find that the products on the shelves were the same as the Emeryville shop. The nice thing being that the biggest brand name besides Trader Joe's brand products that stuck out were that of natural beauty product company Burt's Bees. The company obviously works hard to lift up the little guys as it makes billions of dollars in profits each year.

What was also surprising was how many people were shopping in the middle of the afternoon. The parking was dreadful and the shopping aisles buzzing with customers. I would later learn that having bad parking is sort of a company trademark. It wouldn't be a Trader Joe's if you could easily pull up and park. Yet another reason for Madisonians to use public transportation or invest in a bike.

Finding everything needed for a night on the cliffs of Big Sur, we left Modesto. It should be noted that a run-in with a bobcat (or was it a mountain lion) while returning to the car in the middle of the night for a flashlight almost cut this Trader Joe's experiment short. Thankfully, using my enhanced skills of cowering in the car until the beast seemed to be gone, and then hauling tail back up the path, I'm able to bring this story to your computer monitor.

Next stop, Hollywood!

Trader Joe's was founded in the greater Los Angeles area in 1958. It originally wore the name Pronto Market before Coulombe had his epiphany one day while sitting on a sandy beach. It was in 1966 that the name was changed to Trader Joe's and the first store under that name opened in Pasadena (source: Wikipedia). I, having done hours of research before embarking on this trip, did not know that. So instead of going to the first Trader Joe's on Arroyo Parkway, I instead went to two Trader Joe's in the dreaded "Valley."

Are you still reading this?

For the purpose of analyzing the consistency in Trader Joe's I found myself at the Burbank shop and then the Studio City shop on separate nights. Again, not surprisingly there was little difference between these two shops and the previous two shops. I did notice that there were a handful of beers and wines in the Southern California stores that I didn't remember seeing in the Northern California stores.

Again, both stores had limited parking and both stores were packed with customers. The Burbank store was especially chaotic with little room for maneuvering in the aisles. This wasn't necessarily a flaw in design as much as it was a flaw in too many people wanting to shop at the same time.

In conclusion, this is what I expect to find at the Madison Trader Joe's when the doors open in late October.

1) A jammed parking lot
2) Quality products at low prices - including unique frozen foods, organic produce, vegetarian options, and gourmet.
3) Two-Buck Chuck
4) Always busy

Will Trader Joe's have an impact on the Regent Street Co-op or for that matter any other co-op or supermarket in town? I could hazard a guess, but then I'll most likely just be stuffed back in with the loony left.