First Trader Joe's store, still located on Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena. Photo from Google Maps, Copyright 2025 Google.
Named for its founder, Joe Coulombe, and founded in Pasadena, California, Trader Joe's is described as one of the most successful supermarket chains in the country (measuring sales per square foot of store space). Coulombe first entered the market business in 1958 when, working for Rexall Pharmacy, he was assigned the job of managing the company’s test purchase of a small L.A. area chain of convenience stores named Pronto Markets. Coulombe was young, but Rexall believed in this smart Air Force veteran and Stanford University MBA graduate. By 1967, the chain had been struggling against growing competition from an invasion of 7-Eleven stores. Rexall decided to cut its losses and sell the tiny chain. Coulombe had invested almost a decade of his life in Pronto and chose to see this as an opportunity. He scrapped enough money together to buy the chain for himself. He was not unrealistic, however. He knew that, unless you were 7-Eleven, the convenience store business was looking less and less promising. He needed a new angle for his newly purchased markets.
Coulombe noted a trend in 1960s America where GI Bill veteran benefits resulted in the largest mass educational advancement in human history, having produced a large new educated population. They also enjoyed more international travel, making them more open to new things. Coulombe saw customers ready for new food choices not typically found in American supermarkets. So Coulombe rebranded his chain of convenience stores into a different type of supermarket, offering alternative, and yet affordable, grocery choices.
Coulombe was also inspired by the popularity of Tiki culture in America. Since one of the most famous tiki-themed restaurants was the iconic Trader Vic’s, Coulombe thought he would have some fun and name his own markets Trader Joe’s. His stores would be decorated in Tiki and nautical themes and workers would wear Hawaiian shirts. The first Trader Joe’s opened on August 25, 1967, at 610 South Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena. That store remains there today.
In 1979, Coulombe sold Trader Joes to Theo Albrecht, German co-founder of the Aldi supermarket chain. Coulombe continued to run the chain until his retirement in 1988. His successor was a Stanford University college roommate, John V. Shields. In the first half of the 1990s, Trader Joe’s expanded beyond California into Arizona and the Pacific Northwest. In 1996, the first Trader Joe’s stores opened on the East Coast, just outside of Boston. As of 2025, Trader Joe’s now counts more than 600 stores in 42 states and the District of Columbia. Almost a third are in California
Joe Coulombe, 1985. Photo from the LA Times Photographic Collection at UCLA Library.
