Ikea Brooklyn

On Wednesday, June 18th, Alicia and I braved the early morning to get to the grand opening of Ikea in Brooklyn.

We got on the subway at around 6:30, taking the G train to its last stop. The Ikea is on the shore, about ten blocks south of the subway station. When the store is open, it has a shuttle bus running every 15 minutes, but because it was 7:10 in the morning (Ikea opened at 9am), we had to hike it. We got a little lost, but that gave us a tour of the neighborhood.

We finally arrived at Ikea around 7:45am. It was a circus. Literally. There were clowns, a band playing, even a carnival game where you hit the sledge hammer against the lever and try to make a little ball hit the bell at the top. I won a little finger puppet dragon. Here's the band playing next to some Ikea Flags on the Jumbotron set up.

At about 8:30, they set up a podium and some grand opening speeches were made. There was one by the Brooklyn Borough president, one by a New York City Councilwoman, and two or three Ikea executives. In Swedish tradition, instead of cutting a ribbon, they sawed a Log:

Here's a picture of a cool truck that was driving around that was basically a living room on wheels (the text on the top says, "See what $1,365 can do for a l:

Finally, at about 9am, the line started moving. I would estimate there were a few hundred people in front of us, but it was moving fast. As we entered, we were given golden envelopes with prizes inside. Alicia and I both received a coupon for a free frozen yogurt, but we could have gotten as much as $250.

The strangest (and coolest) part of the whole day was actually going up the escalators into the Ikea Showrooms. There was a large crowd of Ikea workers cheering:

It really made me feel like I had done something cool, even if I was just going into Ikea. It was crazy.

But the store was great. Ikea had put a lot of attention into making it look great. Here's one example:

They actually went through and made all the clocks have the correct time. Here's two other bizarre photos, one of very neatly folded yellow Ikea bags, one of the never been used carts all neatly waiting customers:

Surprisingly, it didn't feel very crowded. The store is just that big. The only other Ikea I've been to is the Twin Cities Ikea and I'd estimate that Brooklyn Ikea is about half as large. This is based on the size of every department. The showrooms just held more. The layout was almost the same. The warehouse section at the end was nearly identical. My only complaint about the other shoppers is that no one was actually following the arrows around the showrooms. They were zig zagging through the shortcuts, and it made it a bit confusing for Alicia and I to gawk at the pretty setups.

Shopping wise, I wanted a new desk chair to replace my previous $35 dollar Ikea chair. It had lasted about 2 years, but when I leaned back, the top would fall off the chair legs. The replacement I picked has a back, and only cost me $30. So it's been great thus far.

My favorite purchase has been a mortar & pestle. Its heavy, made of nice stone (marble I think?), and I've played with it almost every day. I keep crushing Altoids, but today I crushed some sugar that had gotten rock-like because it got wet and dried:

The worst and creepiest thing we bought was this Cheese and Roe spread from the grocery section. Check out the package:

It is just gross. At first, it has a pleasant cheese flavor. But then the roe hits. It tastes like gross fish, and doesn't go away. I had to quickly find something else to eat to make it go away.

But it was a great experience. There was a lot of new Ikea stuff to see, and I will probably never see such a clean Ikea in my life. Plus, we got free stuff while waiting in line:

We also got a pen and a tape measure, not pictured. The yellow thing at the bottom with the Ikea logo is a beach ball that I gave to the little girl next door. She's always bugging me as I come and go, but I still thought I'd be nice. Plus, what was Alicia and I going to do with a beach ball?

What's sad is that I'm already planning what I want the next time I go. I'm addicted to Ikea. Now that it is just a subway ride away, I might just have a problem.