Trader Joe's - West Newton, MA

Trader Joe's
Opened: between 1999 and 2006

Owner: Aldi Nord

Previous Tenants: assorted non-grocery tenants

Cooperative: none

Location: 1121 Washington St, West Newton, MA

Photographed: February 23, 2020 and December 17, 2022

Trader Joe's is a chain that definitely doesn't mind unusual buildings. Here in West Newton, they've taken about 10,000 square feet on the ground floor of what appears to be a former industrial building. It faces Washington Street, the main road through this part of Newton, and has parking on the sides and in the back. There's actually an entrance on each side, but none out to Washington Street.

I took the above picture out the window of a train on the Framingham Worcester Line, which runs between Washington Street and the Mass Pike. That picture is from the winter of 2020, but the rest of the pictures in this post are from December 2022.

Here's a street-level view of the front facing Washington Street, and a look at the entrance on the west side of the building facing Armory Street below. (The West Newton Armory was just behind this property.)

More or less, the store is oriented to face the back of the property, where both entrances and exits are.

So floral, produce, and the registers are in that area. The grocery aisles and dairy/frozen are in the front part of the store.

Inside, we can tell it's an older Trader Joe's -- the first TJ's in the Boston area opened in 1996, and this one opened at some point between 1999 and 2006 -- so although it's not that old it definitely feels different from their newer, more modern stores. I also suspect that if they were moving into this building now, they might get more creative with the interior as they did in that Seaport District location.

Because inside, this store feels basically like any strip-mall Trader Joe's. It's hard to tell, but it appears the building goes all the way back to the 1930s or before. But it also looks like parts of the original industrial building were demolished, probably to make way for a parking lot. A roughly T-shaped building remains. That also explains the store's strange parking arrangement -- which is perfect for Trader Joe's, anyway!

As you can tell, though, it's a very popular store. Trader Joe's is said to be working on a second Newton location in a former Stop & Shop.

This one also has a wine store in one of the prongs of the T.

I'm not familiar with Trader Joe's doing renovations. Do they ever renovate existing stores? I'm not aware of their decor changing much over the last couple decades, and I imagine they're more likely to just fix problems -- such as replacing refrigeration or lights -- as necessary.

And a look at the front-end, which is between the two entrances and exits at the two sides.

Tomorrow, we'll be checking out two stores in Newtonville just a couple blocks east of here!