The Traderverse: Trader Joe's Real Roots In Tiki Culture

Trader Joe's has some pretty unique aspects, like its refusal to offer delivery service since the company prefers its customer have an in-person experience. But perhaps its most interesting concept is the store's tropical-infused nautical theme that starts with its name and stretches throughout its branding down to the Hawaiian shirts Trader Joe's employees wear as part of their uniform. The man who launched Trader Joe's in 1967, Joe Coulombe, came up with the store's concept while vacationing in the Caribbean in an "atmosphere of fun-leisure-party prosperity," he recalled in his memoir "Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys." But it wasn't just his surroundings that inspired Trader Joe's.

Coulombe was the owner of a struggling chain of California convenience stores and was looking for a way to pivot the business. At the time, tiki culture — a Polynesian-inspired Americanized aesthetic that began with cocktail bars and spread from there — was still incredibly popular. In fact, it was a well-known tiki bar chain called Trader Vic's that directly inspired the grocery store's name. But there were other related South Seas sources behind Trader Joe's tropical theme.

A well-traveled man named Donn Beach (born Ernest Gantt) opened the first tiki bar in Hollywood in 1932 called "Don the Beachcomber" that he decorated with souvenirs from his journeys. It was so popular that competitors quickly appeared, including Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron. Both Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's leaned heavily into Caribbean cocktail culture through the use of multiple ingredients including spices in the tiki drinks they invented.

Trader Vic's did especially well with locations from Beverly Hills to Hawaii to Manhattan. By the time Joe Coulombe was looking for a way to differentiate his grocery stores from the competition, tiki culture had become so pervasive there were tiki-themed car dealerships and bowling alleys. Coulumbe recalled just how popular the scene was at the time. "The 30-somethings (including us) of that day were drinking not Chardonnay but Mai Tais and Fog Cutters (you know, those drinks that come with little umbrellas) to protect the booze from the 'Rain on the Roof" feature of those Polynesian bars," he wrote. Besides Trader Vic's, Coulombe relied on other inspirations related to the tropics for his store's theme.

Joe Coulombe's other various inspirations for Trader Joe's aesthetic are tangentially connected to tiki culture. Among these were a Calypso song called "Yellow Bird" and a Hawaiian-themed tune, "Beyond the Reef." Yet another was an early-20th century book Coulombe had read, "White Shadows in the South Seas," about journalist Frederick O'Brien's travels in the South Pacific. America's fascination with both the cultures of the Pacific and the Caribbean that led to the explosion of the tiki scene originated with these kinds of books, and the music of these cultures.

At the heart of why Coulombe chose a tropical theme has to do with the customer base he was going after (and very quickly won over). The GI Bill of Rights, which allowed U.S. military veterans to go to college for free, produced a surge in better educated Americans, and the birth of the Boeing 747 jet meant travel became easier and cheaper. Coulombe believed highly educated and well-traveled customers would be looking for a different kind of grocery store. And tiki culture helped usher it in.