Trader Joe’s in Hillcrest (Yelp)
Fun Facts, Hillcrest

Did You Know…

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

…that in every one of the 500-plus Trader Joe’s stores throughout the country there resides a hidden, specially named mascot in the form of a stuffed animal? When kids or adults find it, they are given lollipops and whimsical stickers upon letting their cashier know where in the store they spotted the plushy critter.

We searched high and low at the Hillcrest location to find “Pickles the Panda,” but came away defeated.

“Pickles magically migrates around the store every few days. I’ve never learned who moves it in all the years I’ve worked here,” quipped an employee at the Hillcrest location. She added that the name “Pickles” originated from a children’s contest held at the store more than a decade ago.

“Pickles the Panda is the most popular mascot in the region, and one of the oldest,” noted a cashier we spoke to at Trader Joe’s in Mission Valley. “Our mascot here is Tuxedo Joe,” she added, but without giving us a clue as to where he was hidden except to say the mascots can be perched on walls, camouflaged in product displays, or hidden on shelves.

As another employee noted, kids are much better at finding the mascots, probably because they aren’t as interested in the latest dips, cheeses and other tempting goods that commonly distract their foodie guardians.