Trader Joe's opened its first Santee location in August 2024, occupying a 10,072-square-foot former Best Buy space on Mission Gorge Road near the Cuyamaca Street intersection. The store carries the chain's private-label grocery inventory — Mandarin Orange Chicken, Cookie Butter, Everything But the Bagel seasoning, cold-brew concentrate, and rotating seasonal items — alongside conventional produce, dairy, bakery, and floral departments, filling a specialty-grocery niche on the same corridor as Sprouts Farmers Market half a mile south. Interior murals commissioned for the Santee build-out depict Santee Lakes and other local landmarks, tying the store's visual identity to the 92071 ZIP code rather than defaulting to generic corporate artwork. The Neighborhood Shares Program donates 100 percent of unsold-but-fit products to local nonprofits seven days a week, a zero-waste food-recovery commitment that operates independently of the retail markdown cycle at neighboring anchors such as Kohl's on Mission Gorge Road. A San Diego County Department of Environmental Health inspection score of 100 out of 100 covers cold-case temperatures, produce-misting sanitation, and prepared-food handling across the full store footprint.