TRADER JOE'S OPENS NEXT WEEK

Mark it on your calendar: Friday, September 26th!

It's the grand opening of the Brooklyn Trader Joe's! Yeah, baby!

There will be live music by the JahPan Caribbean Steel Drum Band, free giveaways to the first 100 customers, raffle prizes, a variety of free samples and free stickers for the kids.

The long-awaited store, located in the former Independence Community Bank building in Cobble Hill, will celebrate the history of Brooklyn.

The store’s crew members worked together with the Brooklyn Historical Society and obtained reproductions of the borough’s key sites and incorporated these images into several handcrafted murals painted to look like the original photographs. The scenes selected include Coney Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ebbet’s Field and Downtown Brooklyn.

In addition, every sign, including the shelf tags and chalkboards have been hand-drawn to reflect the borough’s old town market scene using old fonts and lithograph techniques.

Ooooo, I hope they deliver to The Ridge!

OH TANNENBAUM

Ok, we're getting a Christmas tree but we're not sure of the best place. We may drive to the Garden State and chop one down ourselves at a tree farm or we may just drive to some place in Brooklyn and pay someone to shove it in our car.

Anyone have any suggestions of where to get a good tree in Brooklyn? I understand one grows here.

STARBUCKS NATION

The Daily News is reporting that Brooklyn will be getting about 75 more Starbucks in the next three years.

Now I am a self diagnosed Starbucks junkie but I worry about places like Caffe Cafe. So get that venti mocha cha-cha, but don't forget to also visit the "mom and pop" places like Caffe Cafe.