Larkspur Trader Joe's Opens Friday, July 24

Those of us who subscribe to the dictum that you can never have too many local Trader Joe's grocery stores will be excited to hear that the long awaited Larkspur location opens this Friday, July 24, 2009. No longer will shoppers from central and southern Marin have to trudge all the way to the Trader Joe's in San Rafael's Montecito shopping center, where long lines and challenging parking are the norm (especially on weekends… ugh).

They'll have music, a ceremonial lei-cutting, and, of course, free samples. This is the third Trader Joe's location in Marin, along with the aforementioned San Rafael store and the one in Novato.

The new location, in case you haven't seen the store going in, is the Cost Plus Plaza shopping center on the Redwood Highway frontage road, in the space formerly occupied by Tower Records and a Crown Books clearance center. With Cost Plus World Market and BevMo! in the same shopping center, there certainly won't be any shortage of places to shop for wine and beer! Hopefully the increased traffic from Trader Joe's will be good for everyone's business in Cost Plus Plaza.

Of course that particular shopping center has the potential offer it's own parking challenges (we've seen some pretty gnarly situations there in Christmas shopping seasons past), so it will be interesting to see how Trader Joe's will affect this. The Larkspur Trader Joe's will be open daily from 9 am to 9 pm, and their phone number is (415) 945-7955. For more info on Trader Joe's, including other locations, product info, FAQs, recipes, and more, visit www.traderjoes.com.