Trader Joe's is going national. Did you know they were owned by a secretive German supermarket-owning family?

Trader Joe's is no ordinary grocery chain. It's an offbeat, fun discovery zone that elevates food shopping from a chore to a cultural experience. It stocks its shelves with a winning combination of low-cost, yuppie-friendly staples (cage-free eggs and organic blue agave sweetener) and exotic, affordable luxuries -- Belgian butter waffle cookies or Thai lime-and-chili cashews -- that you simply can't find anyplace else.

Trader Joe's is an amazing place, and with very little coverage. But Fortune does an admirable job of filling us in.

Did not realize that the store had been sold to a German family that is better known for a large German chain of supermarkets. And that they're expanding like mad. Good on them. They rock.