Food Town Albertsons New Caney

Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today, we’re checking out a Food Town at 20851 FM 1485, New Caney, TX 77357, way up on the Northeast side of town. This store, like a few other Food Town locations featured on HHR, originally started out as an Albertson’s. In general, I tend to hold a Food Town conversion of an Albertsons in pretty high regard, and this location is no different! First, though, let’s start with a bit of history. This store opened as an Albertsons on February 1, 1997. According to company reports, it was the 18th store to open within the Houston division. However, from what I understand, a handful of locations in the Houston area had already opened via the company’s DFW division, putting this store closer to the twenty-second location in our area. Nevertheless, it was a nice store from the day it opened and received a positive reaction from the community. Even today, New Caney is still a relatively rural location, but 28 years ago, this portion of Montgomery County was still the boonies! Heck, the only other real supermarket competition would have been the old Brookshire Brothers, which was already 15 years old when Albertsons came to town. Things looked easy for the new store until they weren’t.

In the 90s and 2000s, things changed for Albertsons. The company had primarily purchased overlapping locations owned by American Stores Inc. and 1998 purchased the remains of that company, increasing its store count into the thousands but also increasing debt. To fix these issues and prevent an implosion of the company, Albertsons decided to start closing divisions in which they were not in first or second place for market share. Albertsons had long been battling for third against HEB, Fiesta, and decided to leave Houston. While Albertsons could have likely bumped up its place by building more stores, this move put Houston in an unusual spot. A high-level national grocer had just abandoned these stores, which was too much for the competition to handle. Even other nationals like Kroger and Safeway-owned Randalls had to turn down stores, leaving a handful of locations for locals to pick up. Gerland’s would purchase and reopen this store under their Food Fair banner. The store would be pared back with the service departments closing, but the pharmacy stayed open. In 2015, as part of a broader move, this store came under the ownership of Lewis Food Town. The pharmacy would close, but the company would agree to lease the bakery space. Over the last 10 years, many changes have occurred in the New Caney area. The biggest of which is a boom in development and, as a result, the population. Many other grocers have encroached on the territory with a Walmart opening right across U.S. 59 in 2017. Still, Food Town has maintained its position since Albertsons opened the store nearly 30 years ago. It is an impactful local grocer, still the preferred favorite of many in the area, even still featuring essentially the same decor the store opened with.