LOS ANGELES — Joe Coulombe envisioned a new generation of young grocery shoppers emerging in the 1960s, one that wanted healthy, tasty, high-quality food they couldn’t find in most supermarkets and couldn’t afford to buy in the few high-end gourmet outlets.

So he found a new way to bring everything from a then-exotic snack food called granola to California-produced wines. And he made shopping for them almost as much fun as sailing the high seas when he created Trader Joe’s, a quirky little grocery store filled with nautical themes and staffed not by managers and clerks but by “captains and mates.”

From the time he opened his first store in Pasadena, Calif., in 1967 until his death Friday at age 89, Coulombe watched his namesake business rise to a retail giant with more than 500 outlets in over 40 states.