In early 2020 Belden’s in Braeswood Square closed their doors, after nearly 70 years of continuous operations closing a long chapter in Houston grocer. While official publications haven’t said exactly who will take this new spot, it is known that Braeswood Square, will once again be host to a national grocery tenant for the first time in 35 years! Belden’s initially started off as a member of the Super Value cooperative in 1951 with a location near the Bellaire Triangle. Belden’s would quickly expand over the next few years, jumping to Minimax as Super Value dissolved. By the 1960s Belden’s …
Continue readingHeadline News: Houston’s newest CVS moves into old Houston Post Building!
Houstonians of a certain age, remember when the city had more than one daily newspaper. Up until 1995, The Houston Post was the Chronicle’s last direct competitor before being dismantled as part of the slow decline of print media. It was often a dividing line to declare yourself as a Chronicle family or a Post family. The Post was considered to be more conservative, and the Chronicle more progressive, a division that went all the way back to the creation of the two papers. Marcellus Foster, a reporter assigned by the Houston Post to cover the Spindletop Oil Boom invested …
Continue readingRandall’s Going Out of Business Sale in Sugar Land and Why This Time It’s a Little Bit Different
Howdy folks, and welcome to Houston Historic Retail. Let me offer you a short introduction, as many people will likely find this via Google or Facebook (normal readers just play along). The following is a “Photo Essay”. It’s not meant to answer exactly why the Randall’s in Sugar Land is closing. However, it should offer some insight into how Randall’s got into the shape it is today. If you have an interest in this type of content or Retail News like when HHR broke the story that this location was going to close? Check us out on Facebook for regular …
Continue readingA Tour of Tomball Retail in 2000 and 1965
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Loyal Houston Historic Retail readers may recall that a few weeks ago, we published a blog post showing screenshots from a YouTube video published by Dan Starr and filmed by his wife Amy that showed Tomball’s retail scene in the year 1998. Well, Dan has come through once again as he recently uploaded some video footage taken by Amy and her father in the year 2000. This footage, which was taken right after Y2K, shows some of the retailers from the 1998 video in greater …
Continue readingWho killed Greenspoint? A look at the Mall, and a discussion about the community
Welcome back to Houston Historic Retail, where Dead Malls, are a bit of specialty. Chances are you learned about this blog through one of our Mall based posts, dead, dying, or otherwise. Houston’s dead mall problem has never been particularly bad. While we’ve had malls that have been problematic, we’ve usually been limited to one to two malls dying at a time, and in the 4th largest city in the United States, and that ain’t too bad. At the moment the two malls on “high levels of alert” are Pasadena Town Square/Marcoplaza and West Oaks with Greenspoint bringing up a …
Continue readingRetail News: Phonecia’s got company, as 99 Ranch Market lands ex-CompUSA spot
Howdy folks, and welcome back to HHR. In this week’s news brief 99 Ranch Market lands an anchor spot, on Westheimer, and Quiktrip prepares for its first Houston proper location. 99 Ranch Market lands former CompUSA spot on Westheimer across from Phonecia Nearly two months ago, I posted some photos to Facebook of the old CompUSA/Goodwill Computer Works spot on Westheimer near Kirkwood. The interior of the buildings was being gutted, and nearly every tenant had moved out. It was clear something was in the works, but no one knew what new anchor tenant landed in this spot. Sitting vacant …
Continue readingA Speedway Gas Station in Texas? It’s more common than you think!
For those in the know of Speedway, the Houston area isn’t a market you’d expect to find the chain in. Even after an aggressive expansion campaign that landed the chain with a handful of stores in and around El Paso, H-Town is far from Speedway’s turf. The reason for the location of the store is due to the previous parent company of Speedway, Marathon Oil. The first Speedway to be built in Texas, actually dates all the way back to the previous Melinium, yes 1999. When Speedway opened its first location outside of the Midwest, a Travel Center conveniently located …
Continue readingFishing Tackle Unlimited closing means the end for this historic former Sugar Land Grocery Store
Fishing Tackle Unlimited, the Fishing Superstore, located just outside the entrance to the Sugar Creek Neighborhood has recently closed. While I’m not sure exactly when the store shut down it seems to have been sometime in early April of this year. Fishing Tackle Unlimited is hardly the first tenant here, but it has done a great job of preserving the history of an important building in the area. For many years, this was one of the only grocery stores in this part of Fort Bend County. Located at 13831 Southwest Fwy, Sugar Land, TX 77478 plans for a grocery store …
Continue readingRetail News: Burlington likely to move out of Almeda Mall and Ollie’s makes plans for Friendswood Babies ‘R Us
Welcome to Retail News: This week we learn about a big tenant loss for Almeda Mall, a new Ollie’s Bargain Outlet pops up in a familiar location! Almeda Mall Burlington is likely to close as a new nearby store is being planned The Burlington (Coat Factory) at Almeda Mall has operated at Almeda Mall for just shy of 15 years at this point. The store opened in 2009 replacing JC Penney after they chose to relocate in 2006. While ambitions seemed to be for the space to end up subdivided between multiple tenants, only Burlington ever occupied the space. Their …
Continue readingThe World’s Largest Dollar Store, was once located in a former Houston Target
Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston, GIANT, Historic, Retail! Today we’re taking a look at a bold claim, a store that was indeed once the largest Dollar Store in the World! First, let’s start off by trying to quantify this claim. We’re going to limit this challenge to the United States, not because the Dollar Store concept doesn’t exist in other countries, but rather I don’t want to deal with all that exchange rate and metric conversion nonsense… Anyways, the claim made by our friend “Giant $” pronounced “Giant Dollar” is that they are the largest dollar store in …
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