Food Town is closing a store after recently opening a new location in Santa Fe. HHR confirmed with store personnel that the chain plans to shut the location at 1700 Decker Dr, Baytown, TX 77520 by October 26th, making this the third location to close in 2025. The store occupies a large portion of a massive 83,000 sq ft structure, which initially housed a Globe Discount City. Globe operated out of the building from 1969 until the parent company, Walgreens, liquidated the chain in 1978. After this, the building would sit unused until 1982, when construction began to convert a portion of the building into a grocery store. This was undertaken by T.D. O’Brien Jr., son of the founder of O’Brien’s Food Markets, an early Baytown chain. O’Brien would subdivide the building, planning to lease the space as an indoor marketplace named Peddlers Plaza. The grocery store, Super Warehouse Foods, opened in February 1983 and was massive for the time. As part of O’Brien’s ambitious plans, he reopened the gas station Globe had once used, and used some of the leftover space inside of SWF to open a sporting goods store named Sportsman Warehouse. His goal seemed to be to recreate what Globe had left behind. However, any future development was cut short when Mr. O’Brien passed away in the parking lot of his store in 1984. The store was sold to the owners of Sak-N-Save in 1985, who operated the location until 1995, when Food Town acquired it. Gone were the days of the department store, and imitations which had sat here, Food Town was strictly a grocery store, with the former Peddler’s Mall space used as a warehouse for the chain. For the past 30 years, Food Town has done a tremendous amount of business in this building and has been able to maintain a presence here longer than any other retailer. The other two Food Town locations in Baytown, at 3517 N Main St, Baytown, TX 77521, and 3002 W Baker Rd, Baytown, TX 77521, will remain open.
