Trader Joe’s In Foggy Bottom: Open!

I went to Trader Joe’s on Saturday late afternoon, it was like an oasis in the dessert, as a long-term DC resident it was a miracle to see a Trader’s Joe store in the heart of in-town DC. Yes, they have a great wine selection, super friendly customer service, I didn’t wait at all for check-out– plenty of check-out lines and carts for that matter and best of all I left with non-boring groceries and I just had to go across town to shop. Yay!!!!!

i was coming home from visiting a friend at sibley and came home via canal road then L street across town. i had to stop and pickup some non-boring food items. parking was easy and i didnt mind walking the two blocks. no ticket writers on sunday and zone 2 sticker for the rest of the days.

For those of us who live near Pennsylvania Ave, the 30/32/34/35/36 bus route will get you closer to the front door. For those closer to K Street, the Circulator is a great option. Both routes operate buses every 10 minutes or so (even on weekends), and either way you can avoid the switch to the Orange/Blue lines.

it is fantastic to have a new grocery option downtown. the produce was fresh and fairly priced they had a great selection of ready made sandwiches, wraps, salads and sushi. i do wish that they stocked a larger selection of vegan/soy products – i will still have to go to whole foods to find soy yogurt, soy cheese, and tempeh. the upside is that trader joe’s soy milk and tofu (and wine!) are the cheapest i’ve seen around.

Thanks for the tip that it finally opened. I went tonight (Monday) around 6pm. I have probably been in about 5 different Trader Joe’s in my life, and this one is by far my favorite. The aisles are wide, there are a lot of registers, and parking in the garage was easy and free (for one hour).

The only downside I saw was that the refrigerated food is right when you walk in, so I put a bunch of refrigerated stuff in my cart that was not so cold by the time I checked out. Even so, it was awesome and I’m so glad to have a TJ’s so close to home.

I went over this morning. I’m up on Mass Ave so taking the Circulator is a really convenient way to go (provided you don’t hop off at the wrong stop like I did ).

I think this may have been the first time that I’ve ever been to one of their stores. My impression was that it was really, really small. Certainly they aren’t trying to be a complete market.

Seems like snack foods and frozen meals are the big categories. Their food choices are certainly a lot more interesting than what you find in a CVS.

I don’t see any reason why their store concept wouldn’t be right for the Balducci’s space. Was that space too big for them?

I bet with all the residents, office workers, and tourist foot traffic off the mall they could easily carry it.

We just returned from TJ’s tonight. Unfortunately, it was close to closing time and certain areas of the stock were picked clean (deli meat, cherry tomatoes, and some frozen foods). But, we’ll echo other commenters on that the aisles are nice and wide and there are tons of registers open. The place was packed even less than 1 hour before it closed tonight.

Parking was a breeze in the garage (entrance to the left of the TJ’s pedestrian entrance) and had TJ’s typical 1 hour free.

We need more TJ’s in this city!

I thought Balducci’s had 60 days to make up their minds about the grocery store. This was reported back in July. Any updates?

I went over the the store was very busy. It would be equally busy in Penn Quarter.