Year: 2018

My take on a “Broken Chain”

To kick off the new year, let’s try something new. We’re going to take a look at a Broken Chain. I was inspired to do this by my friend Zap Actiondowser who runs the blog Broken Chains, which I highly recommend all my readers go check out. A while back he featured a blog post on the Frostop Root Beer chain of restaurants. Admittedly I had never heard of the chain prior to Zap’s post. …

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HHR December Update

Greetings loyal reader, I’m glad you’re back! It’s been too long since I’ve written an update for the blog section of Houston Historic Retail. Fear not, as more blog updates should be on the way soon. However, that isn’t to say that updated have not been made to Houston Historic Retail. Most of the updates made were located in the pages section. You can access them through the menu above. The updated include, a new …

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Welcome to Houston Historic Retail!

Welcome to Houston Historic Retail! If you’re here from the KPRC news article on Dying Malls let me introduce myself. My name is Mike, and I run this blog. If you’re interested in current going on’s in my research, and other modern retail topics I find interesting then scroll down this page. However, if you’re more interested in the history of Houston’s Retail Scene, click through the menus above. If you enjoyed this please leave a …

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Former Big Kmart, Mercado 6

Around 2000 my family moved to the far west side of town. Getting from the loop area out to where we lived wasn’t an easy task. Your choices were basically either Westheimer or Richmond Avenue. Alternatively you could use highways like I-10 or 59. All of your options were linked by Highway 6. Driving up and down Highway 6 in the early 2000s was an incredible thing. One of the stores I would often pass …

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What’s Going on at the former Fuddrucker’s on Kirkwood

I moved recently! I relocated from the center of Houston, closer to my job on the west side of town. During one of my many trips moving things back and forth, I noticed a recently closed Fuddrucker’s at 2475 S. Kirkwood . I had been to this location a few times, when I was child. My parents had at that time also moved to the west side, and we would “meet in the middle” for …

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A Haunted H-E-B

I recently had the chance to stop by an H-E-B that I had heard from a friend might be, haunted. I’m not the biggest believer in ghost, ghouls, or goblins. However, I thought it would be fun to stop and take a look. This is the Royal Oaks location 11815 Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX 77077. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything, but boy was I wrong. I stopped by on a chilly night in late …

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Checking out a former Cici’s Pizza in the shell of an old Burger King.

First off, welcome back loyal reader(s)! I’m sure there’s gotta be at least two of you. Sorry for the delay in updates, but I’ve been extremely busy lately. During my recent hiatus I continued to take photos, and I’m only now working through the backlog. One of these photo sets was taken during a visit down S. Post Oak. I’m always interested in this part of town due to the history of the canceled Bay …

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A photo of the first Souper Salad location with manager Robert Mathis in 1983. Photo Source: The Bellaire Texan

Houston’s vegetarian friendly restaurants from 1995

Well after an impromptu hiatus I am glad to say I’m back. The post I’m bringing you this time is not picture based, but rather text based. Sometimes when researching things, you go off on a tangent. Most of the time this leads to two half written articles. However, this list was too interesting not to post. I found the following listing of vegetarian restaurants, heavily heavily buried, while looking for On the Border Grill …

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Random Retail Photos

This week’s post is a bit late. However, it’s unique! It’s a collection of Random Retail Photos, I have taken over the summer. I’ll try to provide a bit of background for each photo, but there’s no overall theme. Let me know if you guys enjoyed this. I’ve always got tons of Random Retail Photos I never post. Timmy Chan Restaurants 2606 Fannin Street | 3700 Buffalo Speedway I snagged this photo of an old …

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The Incredible Shrinking A&P

Excuse the brief update. I have had quite the busy week! More content should be coming soon, including a small retrospective of pictures that don’t really fit anywhere else. For now though enjoy A&P.   A&P is not a well known grocer in the Houston area. They never had their own division, and were based out of Dallas. The number of stores I have seen varies somewhat. My estimation has it around 5, no more …

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