Entertainment

This Baby's Grocery Store Joe Halloween Costume Is Here To Steal Bachelor Nation's Heart

by Jen McGuire

Halloween can be a stressful time, even though it is obviously the best season of the year. Especially if you're trying to come up with a kid's costume that manages to hit all of those sweet spots of being topical, functional, and highly original. Well folks, it looks like we might already have a winner this year. So if you're wondering who has the costume to beat for Halloween 2018, it's definitely going to be this baby's Grocery Store Joe Halloween costume. Not only does it tick the topical box for Bachelor Nation, it's also shockingly functional and for bonus points, totally cracks me up.

For those of you who haven't heard of Grocery Store Joe, let me quickly enlighten you. His name is actually Joe Amabile and he was a contestant on Becca Kufrin's season of The Bachelorette, who never made it past night one. He is a grocery store owner in Chicago, according to Hollywood Life, and was so well-loved by fans that he has gone on to compete on Dancing With The Stars and will be on the new season of Bachelor In Paradise. He's one of those guys who seems sort of sweet and innocent, which makes him a perfect candidate for a Halloween costume, of course.

And Bethany Heitzman, mom to toddler son Teddy, pulled off the look to perfection.

Yes, that's right. You are looking at a tiny Grocery Store Joe complete with name tag, khakis, and grocery cart. Which is so functional for trick-or-treating I can't even take it. Heitzman explained the process behind her son's costume choice to Romper. After considering a $50 skunk costume and deciding that was simply too much money to spend on something to be worn just one night, Heitzman decided to get more creative.

"I thought — well I'll just make something. So I searched costumes online and found a few options and the one was a blurry photo of little boy as 'Jake from State Farm,'" she tells Romper.

I mean... that would have been cute too, right? But it's been done already, and done rather well.

When she shared the Jake from State Farm costume with her sister, she thought it was Grocery Store Joe. And inspiration struck, as she tells Romper:

I said, "no, BUT that's GENIUS!" I quickly found a Melissa and Doug shopping cart on Amazon to complete the ensemble. I could justify purchasing a toy he'll use for years. It was cute and practical!

Since sharing the costume on Instagram, Heitzman has been getting loads of positive feedback... even from the man himself. "I never expected that Grocery Store Joe would 'like' it or his Dancing with the Stars dance partner, Jenna Johnson. His girlfriend Kendall Long also 'liked' it. And I'm pretty sure a few members of his family did too, which is pretty awesome," she tells Romper.

Heitzman's son Teddy is just 14 months old, so she admits she's enjoying "one of the few times I'll actually get to pick out his costume." And when it's time to trick-or-treat, she's excited to have the grocery cart on hand to fill with all of his candy.

After all her ingenuity and hard work, I hope this clever mom remembers to sneak a candy or two for herself as a just reward. I feel like even the wholesome Grocery Store Joe would approve.