Secrets of the City

omg.

I thought Trader Joe’s was already planning to open in St. Louis Park’s Excelsior and Grand development (?)

I am so freaking excited about this development. I just had my first Trader Joe’s experience a few weeks ago on a trip to Chicago, and stocked up on a whole case of two buck Chuck (it’s already half gone). Other than the cheap wine, the store is like an affordable version of the Wedge, aka my own personal paradise.

Given Minnesota’s stricter liquor laws, do you think they will still offer alcohol? How will they set up the store? I think the law requires there to be separate entrances into the grocery store and liquor store.

I’m thrilled, for reasons that have nothing to do with Two Buck Chuck. Trader Joe’s packaged foods are fabulous. Whenever I visit San Francisco, I always cram my suitcase with Joe’s sauces, dips, marinades, crackers, snack mixes….

I would think they would set up shop like the Cost Plus World Markets, which have liquor stores attached.

I heard the St. Louis Park Excelsior and Grand rumor as well. Either way, I can’t wait!

liquor stores have to be physically seperated from the grocery store in MN. The practical effect is basically a pain in the ass for the store owner/developer. They just have to find a spot where they can do both.

Of course, this does a great job of limiting access to alcohol. Oh well.

Expect alot more liquor stores. Target is in the process of leveling their crappy old stores & building Super Targets. saw an ad where they were searching for a “liquor license specialist”.

I’ve heard from a “TJ staffer” that the St. Louis Park’s Excelsior and Grand development is the spot. I thought it was locked in over a year ago.

The article also talks about the “expected” Trader Joes at Excelsior & Grand. I think this would be a second location for them. At least I hope so – I live right there.

well damn, Excelsior & Grand is way way closer to me

Can’t wait! One of the FEW things I miss about living in SoCal! Looking forward to becoming reacquainted with Charles Shaw.

People are trying to get the liquor laws changed in MN to allow beer and wine sales in grocery stores. the web site

http://www.winewithdinner.com/

Has information. It is currently down and since I don’t have any actual contact with these people I’m not sure for how long or why.

Target does make a nice boxed wine not available in MN.

Not many people realize that the push to allow wine in grocery stores comes from the massive liquor wholesalers – the folks who specialize in selling Gallo, Sutter Home, Beringer, Glen Ellen etc.
Minnesota’s system of liquor stores and restricted hours means we have more small wholesalers than any comparable market, and even more than some larger markets.
These small wholesalers are the main, if not only, reason you can go into a store and buy wines from obscure regions, or wineries with tiny production volumes. They care about good wine and they work hard to teach their customers about why a $9 bottle from an unknown winery in the Alexander Valley is a better buy, and a better wine, than a $9 bottle from a massive bottling operation like Gallo or Constellation.
Two-Buck Chuck or Target wine are fine as far as it goes, but I don’t think the convenience of buying a bottle in the grocery store is worth the overall decline in the quality of available wine it would cause.

This thead has been immensely informative.

Not that I work for a large Vintner or have any stake in having wine in grocery stores, but I don’t think that allowing wine in grocery stores would hurt the majority of the smaller distributors. I think the twin cities have a rather educated wine drinking population. People that by wine from E&J will continue to buy it from them and people that are buying wine from small vintners will continue to buy from liquor stores that stock those items.

Is it possible that with the competition from grocery stores that liquor stores would have to complete by supplying a wider variety and better quality than would be available at a grocery store?

Also does any one know if any information on how opening beer and wine sales in grocery stores effects the prices of groceries? I would think adding very high margin products to a grocery store might allow prices to fall back on groceries. Or Roundies will just take more profit. I can’t decide of I’m wearing my I hate Corporations hat or my Competion is Good in a Free Market hat.

BeccaVargo, very interesting points. I like going to the liquor store. I’ve spent a little time in Montana, and while it sure is convenient to be able to pick up some beer or wine while shopping, it just isn’t as much fun. There’s definitely a certain kid-in-a-candy-shop feeling of going to the liquor store.

A while back, after the last round in which the wine in grocery stores initiative was defeated, Cub Foods in Stillwater (and maybe elsewhere?) opened up a liquor store with a separate entrance. It seemed to obey the letter but not the spirit of the law and left me with a kind of bad taste in my mouth. Especially because not even a block away, a really good liquor store, Sutler’s, has been serving the residents of the town just fine, both with good wine, knowledgeable staff, and with a long history of giving back to the community (especially the schools).

Anyway, my point is that although I never saw any reason that we shouldn’t allow wine in liquor stores, you certainly provide a pretty good reason there. I’d be happy if they’d just start selling liquor on Sundays and after 8 p.m. in the Hennepin and Ramsey counties during the week.

Excellent comment BeccaVargo, thanks.

It’s too late for liquor, but we can always get some 3.2.

The separate entrance, 8pm in-town closing time, and dry Sundays are the ONLY things keeping me from being drunk all the time and driving into school buses.

Somebody can tell me that this is false, and they probably will, but I believe that liquor store hours in Minneapolis were extended until 10pm on 6 days a week. Much to the chagrin of liquor store owners, who would actually prefer to be open only one hour a week, do crazy business, and spend the rest of their time building ships in bottles. They lobbied the city council hard against it, and I believe the change to 10pm will sunset in a couple of months unless extended again.

This was the last I saw about it. Don’t know what happened…

Just moved back here from Tucson. All I can say is Charles Shaw 08′.

To gerg, Sutlers is exactly the kind of store I’m thinking of. If you go in there and ask who their most knowledgable and helpful wholesalers are, they’ll tell you it’s the small companies that care about wine.

Mpls Simpleton would seem to have a good point, except that even if the volume of bulk wine sales goes up becasue of grocery store sales, it is unlikely that the total volume of wine sales will go up. It’s zero-sum, or close to it, and the small producers and wholesalers lose.

In this case you can wear both your “I hate corporations” and “competition is good in a free market” hat, if you just remember that markets require some regulation in order to be truly competitive.

Want to know what you’re drinking when you open a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck? http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2005-08-24/news/feature.html

For anyone interested in an in-depth look at liquor regulation laws, the Office of the Legislative Auditor is currently conducting a program evaluation of this topic, which will be published this coming February. It should provide a wealth of information, including a comparison of liquor prices across the state and the above-mentioned selling liquor in a grocery store issue, and will include recommendations for what the state ought to do in the future.

The reports are always available online at the website.

The Office also just released a scathing report on data security across the state and in the Office of Enterprise Technology.

I was told by the head of retail at the Excelsior and Grand that TJ’s is slated to open in St. Louis Park in the spring in April. More details on my blog.

I heard that the grand opening was May 15th.

The problem that restrictive laws on alcohol consumption attempt to remedy is not drunkenness and automotive fatalities or the imperialistic reach of big bottling concerns; it is the use of alcoholic beverages itself. Why else would these laws prohibit alcohol sales on Sundays, the great holy day of the Christian week?

It is high time we recognize that religion should hold no authority over the way our nation conducts its affairs. This principle should hold as much for our nation’s foreign policy as it should for our personal market freedoms. Unfortunately, it holds for neither.