A Look Inside Forest Hills' New Trader Joe's

 Much to my pleasant surprise, the store seems enormous, bigger than I expected. My brain was actually having trouble wrapping around the idea that my carless self can now buy anything in this store and not mastermind some complicated method of getting it home. I can finally just walk! I'm a pretty jaded New Yorker, but I have to say this was a lot more thrilling than I expected. The below photos barely capture all the new store has to offer...

New Trader Joe's Coming to Forest Hills

 .... and you won't need a car to get there, finally. 

As I always said, the one on Metropolitan Ave. might as well be in Nebraska if you are like most of us carless FoHi residents. So this new store, opening where the former Key Food used to be, on Yellowstone Blvd. in the new building going up between MacDonald Park and Gerard Towers, will be just awesome. 

Finally, central Forest Hills is getting a terrific big chain supermarket option. 

Hmmm, maybe I can retire from this blog now? I've gotten just about everything I was hoping for when I first started the blog over a decade ago. 

Although come to think of it, there are still a few more things I'd like to see open here. A bookshop, for one. A place to get a decent sandwich on the fly like a Pret.  And maybe a salad place (though Natural does make some good salads these days, and TJ's has plenty in that department, too.)

 Anyway, this is really good news for our 'hood. Read more about it here: Trader Joe's Confirms New Forest Hills Store

(By the way, didn't I tell you back when the rumors started about this new Trader Joe's that the company never actually denied the rumor, despite what was reported? They said something like "we have no current plans." Which obviously did not mean they have no future plans :) 

Natural is Growing Yet Again

I have been told that the Natural food store on Austin Street will be taking over the CTown space next door. This will be at least the second time Natural has expanded in recent years, after having taken over an ice cream shop that used to be at the corner. CTown will be closing this weekend.

Hale and Hearty Soups Comes to Forest Hills

.... but not how you might think. There's no Hale and Hearty store—at least not yet. Instead, the C-Town on Austin Street, next to Natural, has set up a Hale and Hearty Soups kiosk inside its store.

Renovated CTown

A shot of the renovated CTown supermarket on Austin St. with a rather innovative spelling of the name of our neighborhood. Still, a nice improvement...

CTown Renovation

I noticed there's some major renovations going on at the Austin Street CTown supermarket....

I guess this market is not going to give up without a big fight. We've had some major improvements in terms of grocery shopping here in the neighborhood in the past year or so, with the Farmer's Market on Sundays offering excellent quality fruits & veggies, and the Duane Reade, Rite Aid and CVS offering expanded grocery sections that are actually pretty darn good for a lot of the staples. So I guess CTown needs to step up its game a bit. Should be interesting to see what this renovation results in. Personally, I've barely done any shopping there - only when Natural doesn't have something I need I walk right next door...

Pink Slimed

So this is what that commenter was referring to on this blog a few days ago. I had no idea: Where You Can Get 'Pink-Slime'-Free Beef

"After an ABC News investigation detailing the use of a cheap meat filler, finely textured lean beef, commonly called pink slime, which is in 70 percent of the ground beef sold at supermarkets, J. Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, defended the practice as a way to safely use what otherwise would be wasted."

I have to say that I haven't trusted ground beef, or pretty much any meat, brought from lower-end supermarkets since the first television news reports uncovering their meat preparation practices decades ago. I am referring to the reports where they took hidden cameras into the backroom kitchens of the grocers and discovered them mixing old, out of date meat in with fresh meat. That was the deal breaker for me. Ever since, I go out of my way to shop only at reputable markets now, or as reputable as I can possibly find, in the rare times I actually buy meat at grocery stores.

I cannot begin to tell you how strongly I feel about this issue. As a business, when the health and well-being of your customers can depend on what you do, and then you go and violate that, you have lost me forever as a customer. There are no second-chances here. You have shown your true colors and nothing you will do will earn my trust again.

And, by the way, if the entire supermarket industry is harmed by these reports, then they deserve to be -- even those who are not responsible for it. It is a very powerful industry with a lot of money and should be using those resources to police itself and pressure those companies among them that are using such disgusting practices.