Streeter: The new Baltimore City Trader Joe’s is not the store we’ve been asking for

As a lover of brightly packaged frozen snack food and friendly bell-ringing cashiers who earnestly ask about your day, I’m a big Trader Joe’s fan. So I was psyched to hear that the whimsical grocery chain’s new location would be in Baltimore City.

But is it, though?

This store-to-be, located in York Road’s Anneslie Shopping Center, is technically within city limits. But standing in the parking lot of this former Party City, it doesn’t feel that way. This new store feels so much like Baltimore County that the Baltimore County Department of Social Services offices are on the other end of the parking lot.

And if you’re driving up York Road toward the city, you hit the “Welcome to Baltimore” sign about a block after you pass the store, which would seem to suggest that everything behind you is still in the county. It’s not. But you’ve even confused the sign!

All of this is to say that when us city dwellers requested a Trader Joe’s, we were imagining one solidly inside city limits in an area that was not already being served by the chain, which has an existing store on Kenilworth Drive in Towson. Saying this forthcoming Trader Joe’s is in the city implies that it’s for us, but if it’s not actually easily accessible to people who live here, that feels like a cop-out.

There’s a very strong city/county divide here, and mostly we’re proud of being on whichever side of that border we’re on. But why should all the cool stuff be hoarded on the fringes?

Close enough is not good enough.

“You know how sensitive we are to who’s in the county and who’s in the city,” said Trader Joe’s customer Jorja Comer. “I live in Mount Washington. I can see the county from my house, but it’s important to me that I’m in the city. You can literally see the marker for the county from that [new Trader Joe’s] parking lot. It’s practically in the parking lot.”

For real. “It’s still 20 minutes outside of downtown Baltimore,” Baltimore resident Jake Scholan wrote me in an email. ”If this new location did not exist, Baltimore City would never know the difference. If they wanted to take our city seriously, and actually commit, they would have posted up anywhere where I feel the majority of folks would consider ‘Baltimore.’”

Trader Joe’s is known for placing its stores near an upscale demographic, and there are many spots matching that description that actually seem like Baltimore City: the Canton Crossing area, Harbor East, Federal Hill or Mount Vernon, for starters. And for those who say, “Well, there’s a Sprouts in Canton Crossing and a Whole Foods in Harbor East,” have I not mentioned the Trader Joe’s 10 minutes away from this upcoming one? A representative from Trader Joe’s did not return a request for comment.

I really enjoy the TJ’s experience and am obsessed with the Taiwanese green onion pancakes I am eating as I write this, but not enough to regularly make an hour round trip.

But the store does have its devotees, like Westgate resident Kerry Cahill, who enjoys the experience of sharing suggestions with fellow shoppers and finding new favorites. “To me, it’s one of the most decent quality places, at decent prices, to go to these days,” she said — even with the hectic nature of finding a parking space. In online discussions about the new store, “I made a comment ‘I hope the parking is good,’ and someone said, ‘It won’t be!’”

Oh, yeah. The parking lot. It’s part of Trader Joe’s lore that every one of its stores must have the most confusing parking lots in the business. The Scary Mommy site, created by late Pikesville resident Jill Smokler, once wrote, “Why do the people who designed Trader Joe’s parking lots hate people who shop at Trader Joe’s? IYKYK.”

It’s been suggested that the locations are chosen for the relatively low real estate costs of buildings that were not necessarily previous grocery stores, so the lots aren’t optimal. I drove from the new store location to the very, very busy one on Kenilworth Avenue. The minute I pulled in to find a spot I felt myself being crowded by fellow impatient parking seekers like I was Ms. Pac-Man and they were the hungry ghosts. Park, get out of the way or get eaten.

So what if the coming store is most useful not as a genuine asset to Baltimore City but a way to ease traffic and confusion from the existing Towson store? That makes sense, and that lot sure could use some off-loading. Maybe that’s why a store deeper in the city, where parking is already precious, seems like a taller ask. But that doesn’t mean we residents don’t deserve it.

“I’d rather be celebrating a TJ opening literally anywhere else in Baltimore City,” Scholan said.

Me too, man. Give us that, and I’ll lead the parade.