Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's is an American privately held chain of specialty grocery stores based in Monrovia, California, in Greater Los Angeles. As of 22 April 2015, Trader Joe's had 457 stores, approximately half of which are in California, with the heaviest concentration in Southern California. The company also has locations in 40 other states and Washington, D.C. It is a market leader in organic and fresh food groceries in the United States.

Trader Joe's was founded by Joe Coulombe and has been owned since 1979 by a German family trust established by Aldi Nord's owner Theo Albrecht. The chain has offices in Monrovia, California, and Boston, Massachusetts.

History

Trader Joe's is named after its founder, Joe Coulombe. The chain began in 1958 as a Greater Los Angeles area chain of "Pronto Market" convenience stores. The original Pronto Markets were so similar to 7-Eleven that Coulombe felt the competition with 7-Eleven would be ruinous.

He is said to have developed the idea of the Trader Joe South Seas motif while on vacation in the Caribbean. The Tiki culture fad of the 1950s and 1960s was fresh in the cultural memory, and Trader Vic's was at its height with twenty-five locations worldwide. He had noticed that Americans were traveling more and returning home with tastes for food and wine they had trouble satisfying in supermarkets of the time.

G.I. Joe's

G.I. Joe's was a privately owned retailer of sporting goods, ready-to-wear clothing, and auto parts, operating in the Northwestern United States. Founded in 1952, the company had as many as 31 stores, located in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. It was based in Wilsonville, Oregon. In 2007, the company changed its name to Joe’s. In 2009, it filed for bankruptcy and was liquidated.

20th century history

G.I. Joe’s began in 1952 when Edward Orkney purchased army surplus sleeping bags and then set up a tent in Portland, Oregon, to sell them to the public. Orkney sold out of the sleeping bags and then started selling other army surplus merchandise in a store that then doubled in size by 1956, making it Portland's largest retailer of sporting goods and outdoor gear.

During the 1960s, Orkney transitioned the company away from military surplus and towards an eclectic combination of sporting goods, automotive parts, and hardware; the 1970s saw the company become a chain within the Portland metropolitan area, with its line of merchandise expanding to include housewares, lawn and garden supplies, and apparel. In 1976, Orkney died and his son, David Orkney, took over the business. A distribution center was built in 1979 in Wilsonville, with that facility expanded in 1986. G.I. Joe's opened its eighth store, located in Eugene, Oregon, in 1983. At the time, the company also operated 16 The Jean Machine stores, and the two chains had combined annual revenue of $68 million in 1982.