Houston Historic Retail

Editor’s Note: Today’s photos are graciously supplied by Holcombe of Hidalgo on Flickr If you’ve lived in Houston for any amount of time, then you’ve probably driven past Más Club or at least the remnants of Más Club. While I never ventured inside during its short existence, I was at least aware of the store, and it was well-known enough that it ended up with its own Wikipedia article. It reads a bit like a …

A Reddit post yesterday excitedly sparked speculation that Trader Joe’s may be coming to Sugar Land soon. The post cited a notice published in a newspaper for a new Alcoholic Beverage license for Trader Joe’s #430, located at 13550 University Blvd, Sugar Land, TX 77479, a former Sprout’s that closed a little over a year ago. While Trader Joe’s is quite tight-lipped about their store development process, another user in that thread pointed to a …

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR! Today, we’ve got a quick post, one I haven’t done on the blog in quite a while. It’s a bit of a restaurant review but also an exploration of a new concept in Houston. Speaking of restaurant reviews, though, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, please check out HHR on Facebook or Instagram, as I regularly hit up old Houston favorites. Today, though, we’re at Swig, …

Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today, we’re revisiting an old story from April 2022. Nearly two years ago, I broke the news that Sam’s Club appeared to be in the midst of reopening a club that had been shuttered in 2018. The store, located at 13331 Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX 77077, had only been open for five years when it was closed along with a wave of other stores throughout the …

El Bolillo the Mexican Bakery chain taking Houston by storm, has completed a majority of the exterior work on its new location at Fountain View and 59. The project is a bit delayed from its initial conception, with working only starting after the Mission Bend El Bolillo finally held its grand opening last November. Plans had initially called for the ex-Luby’s Bake Shop to be open by April 2023, but undisclosed hiccups pushed the date …

Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail! Today, we’re reviewing the history of the Kroger Co’s stores in Rosenberg. These stores have a special place in my heart. I grew up in Fort Bend County, and Kroger was the dominant grocer in Richmond-Rosenberg for a long time. For years, their only real competition came from independents, Weingarten’s, Fiesta, and a few Lucky 7/Minimax locations, even managing to kick Randalls out of the area …

Based on permits filed by HEB, it appears that a new Joe V’s Smart Shop location may be headed to the north side of town. It seems that the grocer is meant to take the spot formerly occupied by Fry’s Electronics in West Road Plaza. Based on the permits, the Fry’s building would likely be torn down, and a new building constructed for Joe V’s. If built this new store would not be the first …

Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Hisotric Retail! Today, we’re celebrating a business that is beloved by many in the tech community, Electronic Parts Outlet, aka EPO. Now, many loyal readers will likely ask the question, who in the world doesn’t know about EPO? Well, lots of people. If you were an electronics junkie in Houston during the 90s and early 2000s, you likely read about EPO online. Although in the days of social …

Crews have been working for the past week to complete the transition of about 20 franchised Timewise stores into Honey Farms. These changes are the result of Timewise selling off 64 locations after the C-Store business was purchased by Shell nearly two years ago. The company converted every location they could to Shell but had multiple sites where they could not change the fuel brand from Exxon. The decision to jettison these stores landed them …