Special Report: Trader Joe's - Forest Hills, Queens, NY

Trader Joe's
Opened: November 7, 2023

Previous Tenants: none; Waldbaum's and Key Food previously on site

Location: 69-65 Yellowstone Blvd, Forest Hills, Queens, NY

Photographed: November 7, 2023

Welcome to Queens! We're here in Forest Hills -- just under eight miles east of Times Square -- where a Trader Joe's has recently opened in the basement of a new building. The original building on this property, though, had a Waldbaum's (at least according to a customer I spoke with) which later became a Key Food.

I was here on opening day, November 7th, but unfortunately not for the official opening at 8. I was there around an hour and a half later. As we descend to the basement, we can get a beautiful overview of the store. To the right is most of the grocery store, with produce, meat, grocery, and deli items (although of course there's no deli). Frozen is basically straight back with floral across on the front walls. The registers are to the left from the entrance...

So now that we're here, let's take a look around! This looks a lot like many of the other New York City Trader Joe's stores, many of which are also in a basement or in some form of unusual setup. The store is spacious and attractive, but honestly a bit on the boring side. I mean, I find most Trader Joe's bland, and they largely look the same. At the bottom of the stairs and escalators, we enter to produce and floral...

The produce department continues below the stairs and meat is behind it.

I like this setup for the produce department!

The grocery aisles are a bit diagonal across the middle of the store.

Like most Trader Joe's, the grocery aisles are angled so there's no straight lines. The space also feels like it doesn't have any straight lines around the outside.

Some deli-related items and dairy products are in this alcove in the back corner...

A look at the meat department in the back corner near that dairy corner.

As typical in Trader Joe's stores, the frozen foods are in coffin cases in the middle of the store.

There's a very large frozen section, which we can see here.

And then it gives way to dairy, and moving towards the checkouts...

That wraps up our look at this Trader Joe's! While I was glad to have gotten there on opening day, and it was a lot of fun, it's not the most exciting store. But a cool setup nonetheless! Tomorrow we're headed up to the Bronx to check out a store that is no more here on The Market Report.