According to reader reports, local chain Food Town closed its long-standing outpost at 9520 Jones Rd, Houston, TX 77065, this past weekend. This store faced intense competition from HEB and Kroger directly across the street, and an Aldi less than a block away. The corner has long been a grocery-heavy intersection, with a similar battle between what was at the time a Randalls, and Kroger, scaring away a proposed Safeway in the 80s. In 1992, Food Lion purchased the property from Safeway and constructed one of their small-format limited selection stores. The location would do better than other stores in Houston, but it would close due to pressures felt in their Southwestern Division, which included Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. After Food Lion’s exit at the end of 1997, Food Town would pick up this store and one in Baytown the following year. Anecdotally, the Jones Road Food Town had been sluggish compared to other grocers. This closure makes for the third by Food Town in the past year, the other being Webster, which closed in January, and the West Belt (former Auchan) location, which closed in March last year.
This news can certainly be filed under the ‘not surprising’ file. Although this was not the closest Food Town to me, I tended to shop here a bit more often than the Cypress N Houston & Huffmeister Safeway Town. It wasn’t because I preferred the old Food Lion store to the old Safeway, but rather because I could combine a Food Town trip with a Kroger trip at Jones & West and also the Jones & West Food Town was quite a bit less busy than the Cypress N Houston one and, maybe because of that, they tended not to sell out of sale items as quickly as the Cypress N Houston one. Also, even though the Cypress N Houston Food Town was quite a bit larger than the Jones & West one, the Jones & West one seemed to have some items the Cypress N Houston one didn’t.
Of course, as I just mentioned, the Jones & West Food Town was not very busy in recent years, and really hasn’t been in at least a decade. Although the Food Town was busy in the 2000s, shopping there in more recent years reminded me of shopping at the same building when it was a Food Lion in the 1990s. There wouldn’t be more than 3-4 other shopping parties in the store when I would shop there quite often, a far cry from what even Kroger does across the street. Shopping at the Jones & West Food Town was certainly convenient and peaceful, but there was no way that was sustainable unless rent was really, really cheap. It seemed inevitable that store would close at some point, and I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. It is rare for there to be four different supermarkets on one intersection, and somehow this Food Town lasted long enough to keep that situation going at Jones & West for quite a number of years.
Although I hold very little nostalgia for shopping at Food Lion in the 1990s, it was neat that this Food Town looked very similar inside and out as it did when it was a Food Lion. It will be missed. The shrinking footprint of Food Towns across the metro area is certainly a concern. The Food Towns which are some distance away from competitors might do okay, but clearly that wasn’t the situation at Jones & West.