Trader Joe’s and Starbucks Arrive on the Island

By Buelch Loudleigh, Food and Wine Editor

Shopper ready to fill cart

The Boston-based law firm of Bickers & Bickers, has announced the April 25^th signing of contracts with two major companies to open businesses on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Trader Joe’s, a Monrovia, California privately held company and Starbucks Corporation, a NASDAQ traded company based in Seattle, Washington have agreed to start operations within the fiscal year 2012.

Trader Joe’s founder, Joe Coulombe, is said to have developed the idea of the Trader Joe South Seas motif while on vacation on St. John in 1973. Work has already started on a 50,000 square-foot building in the back parking lot of The Marketplace. “We know that St. John has the sophistication and taste for up-scale food and wine at bargain prices.” The official announcement stated, “Products to be sold include gourmet foods, organic foods, vegetarian food, unusual frozen foods, imported foods, domestic and imported wine and beer, ‘alternative’ food items, and staples like bread, cereal, eggs, dairy, coffee and produce. Non-food items include personal hygiene products, household cleaners, vitamins, pet food, plants, and flowers.”

A relief for Virgin Islanders is that pricing will be the same as the state-side stores. “We expect a large number of consumers from St. Thomas to come to shop on St. John.”

Starbucks plans to fill the spot now occupied by Bougainvillea in Mongoose Junction. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with more than 17,000 stores in 55 countries, including over 12,500 in the United States, over 1,200 in Canada and over 700 in the United Kingdom, 54 in Russia and now St. John, Virgin Islands.

Kiosks for the new St. John International Airport and Bullet Train terminals have been staked out on the not-yet-published plans.

Dietin Soone spokeswoman for Bickers & Bickers, said that with proper support these initiatives will be ready to meet the needs of St. Johnians by year’s end. “St. John will never be the same,” she said.

Whole Foods must be just over the horizon.