A popular thrift store at 1811 Gessner Rd, Houston, TX 77080, has a new name, Value World. The thrift store remains under the same ownership as it had under the name Value Village. This is presumably a move by the company that owns the stores officially named “Mercantile Thrift Stores” to align their operations in Houston with their locations in Ohio and Michigan. The company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1955 and expanded to Texas in 1965 via Purple Heart Thrift Stores. Eventually, the Purple Heart name was dropped for Value Village, which was used by many thrift operators, usually in conjunction with Purple Heart or AMVETS. Although the Purple Heart name in Houston was dropped, the company continued to use the Purple Heart Foundation’s likeness on its donation side until around 2015, after a slow integration of its “DonateStuff.com” branding. Check out this article for more information on who owns these stores and how they were operated.
