Thursday, October 19, 2023
What's happening at the former Trader Joe's Wine Shop on 14th Street?
Monday, August 22, 2022
Report: Trader Joe's closed the Union Square wine shop after learning of plans to unionize
Workers at the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop ... spent the last four months laying the groundwork to unionize their store. A small organizing committee met regularly to discuss strategy around building support to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and they planned to go public with their effort the week of Aug. 15.But in the early morning hours of Aug. 11, Trader Joe’s abruptly informed them it was closing the popular wine shop, its only one in New York City.
Like our customers, we were shocked and saddened by the abrupt closure of the Trader Joe’s Wine Shop in Union Square. Most of the staff has been with the company for over 5 years, some since the store opened 15 years ago, and we have loved being part of the neighborhood and our customers’ lives for so long.Trader Joe's is not being transparent about its motives for closing the shop. This sudden closure comes just days after our coworkers in Minneapolis, MN, and Hadley, MA, successfully voted to unionize.Management in our store knew we were having organizing conversations and were planning on signing union support cards. Closing our store is textbook union busting. This kind of retaliation is exactly why we want a union at the Wine Shop — to guarantee we have real job security, consistent schedules, and wages we can live on.
Monday, August 15, 2022
Days of wine and closures
The closure prompted a surprising amount of nostalgia for the shop, many related to buying bottles of Two Buck Chuck ... to spurring some existential crises, as one Twitter user asked, likely rhetorically: "Why God, why????"
It sounds like a Trader Joe's Wine Shop will return someday and somewhere. The signage on the door mentioned that. And in an email to staff, management stated (in part):
It is now time for us to explore another location that will allow us to optimize the potential of our one and only license to sell wine in the state of New York. In addition, the space currently used for the wine shop will be used to improve the overall operations of store 540, our grocery store in Union Square.
Read the letter sent to employees at 12:01 a.m. here.
Friday, August 12, 2022
Here's the midnight email that employees of the Trader Joe's Wine Shop received about the closing on Union Square
Effective Thursday, August 11 our NYC Wine Shop in Union Square will be closed.It is now time for us to explore another location that will allow us to optimize the potential of our one and only license to sell wine in the state of New York. In addition, the space currently used for the wine shop will be used to improve the overall operations of store 540, our grocery store in Union Square.You will be paid for all days through __________.During this time, we will be working with the Mates, Merchant, and the Crew, and will talk indovidually with each of you about the opportunity to transwer to another Trader Joe's store in New York City.
A Reddit user, ID-ing himself as a former store employee, left this comment on the site:
The store still gets plenty of foot traffic, even after the pandemic - so I promise that isn't the issue here. Both the wine store and the grocery store next door are in a building owned by NYU, which is fine for the grocery store, but the wine store had to jump through hoops constantly to keep NYU happy. In fact, the wine store even has the license to sell their TJs brand liquor that you see in other states, but NYU wouldn't allow them to sell it due to their proximity to underage college students.
If anything, we'll see the wine store pop up somewhere else in Manhattan, probably adjacent to one of the existing grocery stores, and I promise it'll be a way better store than it was now that it's out of NYU's grasp.
Thursday, August 11, 2022
The Trader Joe's Wine Shop on Union Square has permanently shuttered — effective today
The Trader Joe's outpost next door remains open.NYC TikTok is outraged that the Trader Joe’s wine store in Manhattan is closing pic.twitter.com/npdZsW9Gsv
— Benjamin Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) August 11, 2022