By Gus Saltonstall
UPDATE: Tuesday, February 10 at 8:50 a.m.: Trader Joe’s at 670 Columbus Avenue reopened Tuesday morning, after it was closed for the majority of Monday due to flooding, a store employee confirmed on the phone.
The in-store shopping experience is not affected by yesterday’s flooding, but there will be no deliveries from the location on Tuesday, and the outpost will be restocked on Wednesday.
Original Story
An Upper West Side Trader Joe’s is temporarily closed on Monday, according to the store’s website.
The grocery store’s outpost at 670 Columbus Avenue, between West 92nd and 93rd streets, shuttered Monday morning “due to flooding,” Trader Joe’s website reads.
It is unclear when the business will reopen, and the store did not respond to a pair of phone calls from West Side Rag. Trader Joe’s website for the location currently has the business as closed for the duration of Monday.
While it is unconfirmed, multiple people on the Upper West Side Reddit page said the flooding was caused by a burst pipe in the store.
There are three small signs on the Trader Joe’s entrance doors as of 4 p.m. on Monday that read, “We Are Closed. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
Coincidentally, the Whole Foods at 808 Columbus Avenue, near the corner of West 97th Street, was also temporarily closed Monday morning due to flooding, but has since reopened, as confirmed by a customer service representative from the store.
WSR will update this story when we learn more about when the West 93rd Street Trader Joe’s might reopen, which remained closed for the entirety of Monday.
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Frozen Pipes?
Funny, Whole Foods at Columbus Square was closed because of the same reason this morning. They reopened and Trader Joe’s closed because of flooding. Sounds like The State Health Inspector was in the area.
Nope, quite a few burst pipes around the city that morning which had nothing to do with food establishments, just from the weather.
Strangely the corner market on 93rd and broadway was also closed due to flooding! Tried to go there after TJs was closed.
I noticed the same thing. Maybe there’s a pressure issue in the area due to frozen pipes.
Was it a water main break? I went to Whole Foods around 11 this morning and it was closed but the guards wouldn’t say why. Then I walked straight down to Trader Joe’s and it was open with no sign of a leak or flooding. Weird.
The city infrastructure is falling apart. Money that should have been spent on maintenance over the years was given away to politically connected city worker unions.
Pension and health benefits are much larger than private sector.
No, global warming has caused significant changes in soil freeze/thaw cycles, and that earth movement breaks pipes.
Lots of private employers provide crap medical coverage (which is not the same as health care) barely have pensions is all your last point emphasizes.
Most NYC employees are badly underpaid.
It was a privately owned pipe inside the store, not the “city’s infrastructure”
The problem is that we have no one in city office who understands what infrastructure is and that NYC floods in the subways need to be addressed, instead of opening up little Island on 14th street with Barry Diller’s money, and the city’s responsibility to upkeep an island that is built in the hurricane zone – that private money needed to go to make sure the subways were not flooded. Our mayors have not had the bandwidth nor hired people who comprehend how drastic this city is. It’s a precarious situation when we had Hurrican Sandy and our own residents could not get home from being away — and Bloomberg thought it was a good idea to keep the Marathon event. After explaining to his office that our hospitals are down — running on generators and the nurses and doctors cannot get in to work from New Jersey and Long Island floods, no gas and we don’t even have enough medical facilities for our city residents — why on earth would you invite 40 thousand runners to take up space in our hotels which many people needed to rent while they had no electricity nor heat, etc. Our politicians need to have some semblance of understanding that the constant building up on this island in not in anyone’s best interest. We have buildings on the upper west side with older people on fixed incomes with no hot water now, with no gas service now. How this continues to be acceptable is the issue that we need to address. Yes, the temperatures are extreme but 100 year old subways and water pipes need to be updated, now.
When hurricane Sandy hit, Bloomberg cancelled the Marathon.
You don’t think it was the below zero temperatures that caused all the pipes to burst?
Maybe they will have a chance to restock the shelves…
The Duane Reade on 94th and Broadway also had flooding. Several firefighters streamed in and the one behind the wheel of the giant firetruck told me they went in due to a serious flood somewhere in that building.
There was no flood in 700 Columbus.
UPHILL
Extremely cold weather over a prolonged period can make pipes brittle.
Management probably figured customers wouldn’t be very keen on shopping knee-deep in frigid water; no doubt TJ’s nonunionized workers would have been up for it, though.
At 8:00 this Tuesday morning, a call to Trader Joe’s found that the store is open, but has received no new stock. Everything they have is on the shelves. They will have new stock on the shelves by tomorrow.
Pipes can’t last when temperatures are below zero for days on end.
Speaking of excessive water … TJ’s needs to tighten up their chicken salads. Soppin’ wet!
“but there will be no deliveries from the location on Tuesday”. What does this mean? They don’t deliver
MANY FOOD & beverage stores use their basements as storage, for quick re-stocking. I lived decades on the upper & mid west side & even the w village ( w 12th & bank before), moved to DOUGLASTON, a house, when older – and though we live on the hills, the nearby shopping Ctr experienced TJ same thing – theyr off the LIE – so the Ctr lies flat below the hill. MY basement never floods, it goes downhill. . Manhattan too is a huge slant of a rock – climaxes at Washington heights, or jump a squat THE BRONX – all cliffs. Battery park, hanging on by land fills?
THUS IS NATURE: Terraine & weather. They say NYC, is experiencing the income of a subtropical terrain, similar to Junea AK. But it hasn’t yet adapted to the vast sub temps shooting south ( chilly keys, chilly Cuba)
WHATEVER SHALL BE SHALL BE, SHALL MAN EVER CATCH UP? NATURE SHALL SEE
A neighbor told me there have been many burst pipes in Brooklyn.