On Thursday, 500 Boylston Street was the site of the hottest ticket in town: the grand opening of Boston’s newest Trader Joe’s.
Dozens of TJ’s enthusiasts lined up outside the brand new Back Bay supermarket before 9 a.m., when they were loosed on the 16,500-square-foot store and its freshly stocked selection of frozen treats, prepared entrées, and — perhaps most enticingly — shelves upon shelves of beer, wine, and liquor.
“I don’t want to say it excites me, but it excites me,” said Sydney Forsyth, a North End resident and self-professed “frequent Trader Joe’s gal,” after eyeing the $31.99 bottles of cucumber jalapeño tequila.
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The alcohol license is the new location’s main distinguishing characteristic from the other Trader Joe’s on Boylston Street, about a half mile away, between Gloucester and Hereford streets. Often dubbed the chain’s smallest store, the subterranean location will remain open, even with the debut of its bigger, boozier cousin up the street.
“I’m sure we’re going to hurt their business a little bit, but I think we should both be able to coexist,” said general manager Paul Lembo. “They do a phenomenal job there, and it’s just overly busy, so they probably would welcome a little bit of breathing room to lose a few customers.”
To this end, Lembo said, the new location is designed to “fill a void” — at least, a relative one — of full-service grocery stores in the densely populated city core. Its nearest competition is the Star Market in the Prudential Center.
“It was time to put another food store here,” said Chinatown resident Karen Russell, who arrived to the new location at 8 a.m. and was first in line for the grand opening.
And the store is a reminder of the changing retail landscape of this stretch of Boylston Street, long a key Back Bay block. The new Trader Joe’s took the place of a shuttered Modell’s Sporting Goods store (previously a City Sports), and the Marshalls next door closed in 2018. Though a Nordstrom Rack still occupies a storefront across the street, a nearby Talbots is no more.
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Changes began in 2015, when Oxford Properties Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co. snapped up the huge office buildings at 500 Boylston and 222 Berkeley for $1.29 billion. Since then, they have leased office space to the likes of Wayfair and DraftKings, and filled street-level retail with a SoulCycle and a Juice Press.
“It’s a great space in a great building,” said Lembo. (One shortcoming? The lack of free parking.)
For Tom and Phyllis Cullinane, regular customers of the smaller Boylston Street location, the larger option is a welcome addition to the neighborhood. “The square footage is wonderful,” said Phyllis, looking over her bounty of greek yogurt, a box of shredded wheat, and a small bouquet of sunflowers.
”You can’t beat the prices on — not everything — but a lot of things,” she said.
Planning for the store has been at least a year in the making, with the company nabbing the liquor license last May. The crew, made up of about 100 new employees and about 40 transfers from other locations, has been readying for the grand opening for about two weeks, said Lembo.
Another team player was local artist Ben Jundanian, who designed the murals that snake around the store above the displays of peanut butter cups and pita crackers. The frescos depict Boston scenes with a foodie twist — the “Prune” tower; a baseball stadium home to the “Red Sauce”; the “Citrus” sign. In some of the vistas, food items outfitted with runner’s bibs race toward the finish line of the Boston Marathon — a landmark that is a stone’s throw from the store.
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The store is the California-based chain’s 22nd in Massachusetts, and fourth in the city of Boston (in addition to the smaller Boylston Street storefront, there are also outposts in Allston and the Seaport). On opening day, the new store already appeared to be settling in nicely.
Just ask Lauren Fu, who stopped by on her way to the Public Garden with her 17-month-old son, whose legs dangled out of a shopping cart filled with snacks like crispy rice bites and Thai lime and chili cashews.
Fu, visiting Boston from Singapore for her sister’s graduation from Harvard University, hadn’t realized that the store had opened just that day.
“We were just lucky,” she said.
Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.
