After nearly 85 years of operation, the final Rice Grocery store will close its doors for good today. While this isn’t coming out of the blue, it’s still a sad event to have to witness. While many of us remember Rice as the exotic Epicurean chain, the company served many people of many different backgrounds under many different names during its tenure. The building that housed this final Epicurean location will once again find another use, this time as a Spec’s location. Rice staff had mentioned there might be something special about this new Spec’s, but what exactly it is, we have yet to find. Even if you weren’t a regular Rice shopper, it always cuts deep to lose a local. While I hope for the best with the new Spec’s we’ll miss you, Rice! I’ll cut this one short to leave you with some photos from the “closing party” that Rice was nice enough to invite the community to.
As sad as it is to lose these stores such as Rice and Belden’s a few years ago, at least Rice has embraced their history and had this little celebration. Those are certainly some very interesting photos. Rice Epicurean especially brought some class to Houston and they will be missed.