Trader Joe’s

Who doesn’t love trader joes? I can get groceries for the week for only $ 40. What other grocery stores can beat that?
But why hillsdale Trader Joes? Because they’re always stocked up and fast. I always find everything I need and the workers are more than happy to help.

Trader Joe’s is my life.
Despite living closer to this TJ’s, I frequent the Delaware store more often due to it’s proximity to work.
In comparison to other TJ’s, I do think this store is on the bigger side which is nice. The general layout is similar, fresh produce, then frozen goods, then the dry goods.
I will say that the parking can be a bit of an issue at times. Or the traffic can be discouraging. After work traffic on Hillsdale causes a lot of lag.
But the TJ’s as a whole is solid.

I like the idea of Trader Joes. Even knowing that they are owned by the second biggest (after Walmart) retailer on the planet — Aldis, you can’t seem to stop appreciating their drive for simplicity and desire to always surprise you with basics. Who needs million types of cereal right?!
Oh and there’s a dirt cheap wines too! Tastes almost that way too but not bad for cooking or marinades.
It’s almost like more uncomplicated smaller version of Whole Foods.

I love this TJ’s, and all the employees.
Everyone is so nice and helpful and they always have everything, with rare cases of items being unavailable. The other TJ’s are always sold out of things, which is wild to me that they aren’t forecasting properly for the demand of their customers.
Great parking here, and the lines are never too long!

I like this trader joes. Not as much as the trader joes near Delaware st, but this one isn’t bad. It’s a little bit smaller and the food placing kind of throws me off a little because the meats are right next to the veggies and fruits and the cheese is all the way at the other corner of the store. But after a couple visits, I’ve gotten used to it.
Wine selection is okay, but not great. But staff is friendly and check out isn’t too slow. Me like!

I go out of my way to customarily buy, may be 5 or 6 items at T. J’s because they are good. Local honey, nuts, trail mix, etc. They have a cellophane bag that contains about 10 little packages of trail mix that are good and practical to take when going for a little walk.
What would be my unpleasant surprise when two days after I replenished my inventory I opened a little package which I have kept in my pants pocket
for about one hour and found myself staring at a gluey-​liquid little mess I was afraid to even open.
I bought this package at exactly the same place on the shelve where I have been buying this product for a while.
The package looks exactly the same as before except for the unbelievable content: «Peanut butter flavored chips», «Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips», «Cocoa Butter»…can you believe this c… p being sold as «Trek Mix»? The buyer deserves to be looking for a new job at McDonalds!
Who wants to eat this garbage while trying to keep fit?

This Trader Joe’s is very spacious, which I like. It’s located right next to the Hillsdale Mall. There’s parking, yes, so hopefully it shouldn’t be an issue.
The fruit is usually priced individually — no other grocery store to my knowledge does this strange pricing. I usually don’t find a LOT of fruit available for purchase compared to the other grocery stores as well.
Their checkout lines can take awhile because they usually don’t have separate people bagging the groceries so for those that do a lot of shopping, it may take awhile.
I still don’t find the inventory of Trader Joe’s to be that plentiful, but if I’m in the area I do tend to stop by Trader Joe’s to pick up random produce or snacks.

For an addict, the first step is admitting there is a problem. I am writing this review because I have a problem. Since Unilocal is the preferred choice for food confessionals, I’ve decided to pen my confession here.
When I need a fix, I come to TJ. You see, TJ isn’t just anybody. TJ is my dope dealer, the middle-​aged retired dad that dresses in Tommy Bahamas pineapple express swag, deceivingly unobtrusive yet has everything to fulfill your deepest desires. What is it that everybody has and some pirates and thieves try to take?
Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere! Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere! Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere! Rockin’ everywhere! Rockin’ everywhere! This is the anthem when I come through TJ’s EVERY SINGLE TIME my man. Trader Joe sicker than your average. If I die bury me inside a TJ store, this is my eulogy.
When I tell people I am grocery shopping at TJ, this is a lie. Not that TJ isn’t a grocery store, but this is a lie I perpetually made up for myself. Truth is, I come here to «buy grocery» when I am too lazy to cook. Perfectly packaged single-​serving proportion salads when I need something on the go, freeze dried fruit snacks when I am too lazy to wash and peel any real fruits, and don’t even get my started on different varietal packaged nuts. The snacks here are amazeballs.
Unlike other grocery chains that often produce their own «generic» snacks, TJ while often replicating familiar items incorporate subtle elements to produce truly unique signature snacks. Take for example the beloved classic gummy bears from Haribo, consists of five signature flavors listed as the following: Raspberry, orange, strawberry, pineapple, and lemon. Instead of replicating a subpar version of the perfected classic, TJ gummy bears replaced raspberry with apple. While this may strike as blasphemy to many, I welcome this unorthodox modulation.
The cheddar horseradish kettled cooked potato chips, kale chips with zesty nacho flavor, organic cheddar bites, delicately crips wafers filled with rich cocoa cream cocoa batons, to name a few favorites. While some snacks taste subtly different, there have been numerous blind-​taste studies conducted demonstrating that in fact products carried at TJ taste the same as other name brand products, allegedly. Of course, to keep costs low TJ has shrouded manufactures and vendors in secrecy. Like a pirate that will never reveal where the treasure is hidden or a dealer that will never reveal the source of the cut, TJ is the suburb neighbor that perpetuates the talk of urban legend.
As a user, I can only vouch for the products here, truly delightful. The chase for booty, can’t stop, won’t stop, I need an intervention.

I have always found Trader Joe customer service to be better than most other retail stores. In fact Tj is usually the best as far as employees willing to go out of their way to find a product for me. I recently had a very positive experience with Sonia… the quality of customer service matters a lot to where I want to spend time, money and expectation.

i have been a devoted TJ shopper ever since the late 90’s when my brother in law first alerted me to them. I like the prices and the selection of healthy food. The staff is typically helpful and upbeat. I am particularly grateful to the donations department for sponsoring the New Ground Theatre Dance Company’s premier of Quantum Leap. which opens June 5. This is produced by a fledgling non profit, Arts Unity Movement. Thanks to the generous donation from the Hillsdale Trader Joes our refreshments witll be abundant and interesting. Thanks TJs!

Nice store, good selection of foods, convenient location and friendly staff. The only reason they don’t get 5 stars is because I regularly look for items that are out of stock. Maybe I’m coming too late in the day/​evening. Love the selection of ready cut fruits, veggies and salads

4 ½ * Trader Joe’s
San Mateo
Healthy, exotic, organic foods
Convenient sizes
Super friendly and helpful staff
Love the monthly newsletter and holiday marketing e.g., dozens of pumpkin-​related edibles
Atmosphere is like a neighborhood market; don’t have to buy the institutional sizes

In my geek reference to Star Trek: TNG, Hillsdale Trader Joe’s is my Riker to SSF Trader Joe’s Picard. Since I shop for a majority of my groceries in San Mateo. I almost always come here to pick up a few things as well even though SSF Trader Joe’s is closer to my home. It’s way bigger than SSF’s location, but parking can be actually worse here despite the bigger parking lot mainly due to shared space with the other businesses. Like all Trader Joe’s, the products here are all pretty much the same and it’s usually full stocked whenever I come in and the workers here are all very nice and helpful.

RGI (Really Good Idea) Alert: Grocery For The Lonely.
Everything in the store is sized for one normal person.
Nothing is labeled as having 12 servings in it when it should only be 1… which I’ve found to be a frequent issue among TJ’s (and all other) products.
Examples:
Bag of chips = 1 serving… because nobody eats a partial bag of chips.
Whole chocolate bar = 1 serving.
Two whole chocolate bars eaten during the 3^rd week of every month = 1 serving… because menstruation, man.
Bottle of wine = 1 serving… self explanatory.
You get the picture.
Now, I want to clarify that while I’m alone a lot, I’m far from lonely. I’ve got my cats, I’ve my laptop, I’ve got my weirdo thoughts, I’ve got a fridge full of faux-​health food from Trader Joe’s. I’m basically a suburban baller, but I don’t want to brag too hard.
I like coming to this Trader Joe’s because I often drive in the right lane and then accidentally get off on the El Camino overpass at Hillsdale so coming here makes it look like I’m less confused by the terrain and more purposefully coming to shop for pumpkin butter, cookie butter, and other various butter supplies.
I’ll admit, I’ve got plenty of beef with Trader Joes. Between their kiddie carts to their hummus that tastes like sand to their spin on GMOs (
), I was actually contemplating un-​coupling myself from their customer database but let’s be real, I’m lazy and cheap and Trader Joe’s is hella convenient for people like myself.
Plus, I recently discovered that I love their vegetarian paneer microwavable meals (1 serving each, unless it’s the spinach one… for some reason that’s two servings, but whatever).
The parking lot here looks like an insane headache of a situation, but for some mysterious reason I’ve always been able to nab the same spectacular parking spot. It must be reverse cursed for me.
I do wish the aisles weren’t split in a manner that makes no sense to me. There’s bread products split up in 3 different sections of the store, by the door, the booze, and the back. and the freezer section aisles turn into an abandoned grocery cart graveyard right at the busiest times because it’s too difficult to walk through with so many others perusing and/​or waiting for perusers.
I don’t understand why every frozen pizza box I grab from here is super wet and floppy, but I can look past that because I know deep down inside that I really should not be eating as much frozen pizza as I do, so maybe the the soggy box (lol) is just the universe’s way of telling me to lay the f*ck off the calories.
The lines here can get a bit crazy and you def have to do some scheming and profiling of the cashiers and customers to find the fastest one. Lines with young women cashiers tend to move fastest because they’re clearly over talking to people and just get right down to business. Love it. Lines with Bruce as the cashier tend to move much slower, but the general vibe of everyone in Bruce’s line is an exponentially happier one and they really get that personal connection given his superb customer service skills… so it’s a trade off. Know before you go.

Nothing special about this location, solid just like other TJs. Parking can be difficult since it’s across the street from Hillsdale Mall, so here’s a tip: find parking off on the side (next to the Guitar Center), you have to walk a couple of minutes but I’ve never not found a spot there.

Coming from someone who has used Safeway for my entire life, this is a very refreshing change. It’s fun to try new foods and it’s never as expensive as you think. Also tons of impulse buying.
I love how efficient they are with checkout lines. There was 2 long ones, which then was divided up and handled very quickly.
There’s always parking too which is a plus. It’s the perfect size, not too big or small for what you’re looking for.

You would think that Trader Joe’s is Trader Joe’s. Well this is my first time coming to this location and I didn’t like it already cause it’s in the middle of where there are a lot of shopping stores. So the parking was kind of a hassle. Then when you walk in, it’s kinda small. I think this location had the basic basics of Trader Joe’s. I tried looking for some things that my TJ’s in SJ has but they didn’t have it and they didn’t have much variety of things. However, the workers were really friendly, the store is clean and organized.

A nice, clean, well-​stocked Trader Joe’s with plenty of parking — what’s not to love? The checkout lines are a bit difficult to designate and the aisles are a bit thin for the amount of shoppers bustling through, but otherwise this Trader Joe’s is on par with all the others I’ve ever gone to.
On a side note, I love the Kona Coffee Shortbread Cookies that I can only ever find at Trader Joe’s… they are worth every penny!

This is one of my favorite TJ stores! It’s huge and the cashier was really nice. Parking can be a hassle though.
My favorites are:
Shells with brie and asparagus
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chile Relleno
Chicken Tikka Samosas
Pork Potstickers
Their premade salads make lunch so much easier.
Hummus and pita chips

A TJs at Hillsdale! Hillsdale is becoming a one stop shop, that’s for sure. This TJs is neat and tidy. There were a lot of people but we didn’t have to wait long to pay. It is a typical TJs so I’m not going to critique their stock. I like the fact that this TJs is on one floor — unlike Stonestown.
Hillsdale, if you get a Target in, I’ll be forever faithful to you!