Trader Joe's Finally Explains Why Their Parking Lots Are So Small (2024)

Trader Joe’s parking lots are notoriously small. And for years, customers have wondered why.

But they may finally have an answer thanks to a recently unearthed episode of the popular podcast “Inside Trader Joe’s.” During the October 2022 episode, “What’s Up With Trader Joe’s Parking Lots?” hosts and employees Tara Miller and Matt Sloan answer the long-standing mystery.

According to Sloan, who also works within the company’s marketing department, there are a lot of elements at play—none of which point to saving money or purposely frustrating shoppers, as some online critics like to think.

“Like a lot of things related to Trader Joe’s, this can be traced back to the very first location, the Arroyo Parkway store in Pasadena, which has had, and still very much has, a challenging parking lot. And by that, I mean it’s small, and it’s busy,” Sloan said of the first store that opened in 1967 and is still operational.

It also has to do with city planning. City managers give out parking lot spaces based on the size of the store. For example, a 200,000-square-foot store will get a lot fewer spaces than a 700,000-square-foot store.

“When you design a parking space, or you allocate spaces for parking for a retail store, it’s based on the size of the store,” Sloan said. “So you mentioned how small our stores are relative to other grocers. Well, that’s true, and that can have an effect on the number of parking spaces allocated.”

Trader Joe’s strives to be everything those big box retailers aren’t—friendly, inviting, and most importantly, small to keep in line with the focus of being a neighborhood grocery store.

The problem is that Trader Joe’s has just as many customers as the big stores, making it seem busy and crowded virtually all the time.

Even social media pokes fun at the Trader Joe’s parking lot situation, which makes it seem that frustration is a universal experience for shoppers. There’s even a Reddit thread devoted to the subject called “Trader Joe’s Starter Pack,” featuring images of car pileups, fender benders, and more.

But what can you do? If you want those seasonal favorites (Enchanted Jangle) or customer must-haves (Everything But the Bagel Seasoning), there’s no choice but to brave the parking lot. Just remember to bring your patience.