Local grocery chain Foodarama opened a new location last week at 915 North 6th St in Texas City. The store was purchased directly from the previous operator Food King and was not closed for the changeover. This newest Foodarama represents the first new location of an independent Houston grocery chain since 2015, when Pyburn’s opened its third location. As of this article, Foodarama has eight locations throughout the Houston area. Other independent grocery chains in the Houston area include Sellers Bros, with 11 locations, and Food Town, with 32 stores. Before 2015 half of the Food Town chain was owned and operated by Gerland’s, also utilizing their Food City banner. This newest Foodarama represents a re-entry in the southeast after closing their Old Galveston and Sabo Road locations. According to Kim Aleppa, President of Foodarama, their new Texas City store will receive a formal grand opening after receiving some much-needed updates. Ms. Aleppa also assured me that the great ceiling tile mural above the registers will remain in place, albeit with upgraded backlighting. Foodarama’s new Texas City store originally started life as a Weingarten’s, before later becoming a Safeway and then an AppleTree, before being becoming a Food King in 1992.
the foodarama on west bellfort @ south wilcrest, was a safeway & apple tree markets, along with the ella location, as you mentioned old galveston.
Foodarama is most likely going out of business I believe. The owner and founder of Foodarama, Mr. COX passed the day after Thanksgiving in 2022 I believe. The stores are in steady decline. The three locations, Ella Blvd., Old Galveston rd and the one @59 and Wilcrest all shut down. The one at Texas Pkwy and Cartwright has been downsized considerably and doesn’t look like that it will last much longer. It used to be a Randalls back in the 80’s.
I don’t think Foodarama is in any immediate danger of shutting down. I also visited Missouri City recently, and while I did notice they enclosed the former Deli/Bakery, but this wasn’t operating. The other side was the former Pharmacy and again, wasn’t in use by Foodarama, it was already covered up and used for a soda corner. This store also had a bulk aisle that felt really out of place to makeup for the empty spaces in the corners. Honestly, I think it looks cleaner this way.
beechnut
I’m pleased to see that the Food King is staying in business and will seemingly continue to do so with some of the retro touches. It’s also nice to see Foodarama expand again after they closed a number of locations around 2020 or so. Given the service departments this store had, someone like Foodarama or Arlan’s make sense to continue this store as compared to, say, Food Town or Sellers Brothers. While I’m sure Arlan’s would have done a fine job running this store, just like they do with the Clear Lake store that was featured on HHR earlier, I’m sure Arlan’s would have wanted to put their standardized decor in this store. With that in mind, perhaps Foodarama was the perfect partner.