Grocery chain Trader Joe’s opened its first small format grab-and-go convenience store at its renovated wine shop in Manhattan.
Trader Joe’s Wine Shop has been moved to a traditional Trader Joe’s store, as wine sales are not usually permitted in New York supermarkets.
However, the opening did not come without controversy. The wine shop is at the center of an ongoing dispute with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The employees of the shop sought to organize and the wine store was closed. The union alleges that the opening of Trader Joe’s Pronto is Trader Joe’s way of preventing the shop from reopening.
Trader Joe’s Pronto is “a one-of-a-kind extension of our store in Union Square,” said Nakia Rohde, a spokesperson for Trader Joe’s, in a statement to Supermarket News. “This additional space allows us to carry more of the products our customers in this neighborhood purchase daily. We do not have plans to open additional Trader Joe’s Pronto markets in New York or elsewhere in the country.”