Author: Anonymous in Houston

"A qualitative leap into the world of super fidelity...." Foley's price for this JVC CD player was a bit on the high side even for 1983 given some of the other options presented here, but those other CD players didn't promise 'super fidelity'! Houston Chronicle, October 4, 1983

Vintage Ads: Compact Disc Arrived at Houston Retailers 40 Years Ago

15 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston In 1983, the home entertainment options most American households had were quite limited compared to modern times. Most homes had televisions in 1983, but most people could not do much more than receive local broadcast TV channels on their TVs at that time as cable/satellite TV was still trying to establish itself. There were video games and other home computers …

Read more
The windows of the grand entryway looked quite grand at night!

Here Everything Was Remarkable: Remembering The Jones & West Randall’s

7 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike Richardson I must say that it has been a while since I’ve had a guest post here at Houston Historic Retail which has not been about a Kroger store! That said, today’s post is related to March’s The Year of Kroger post about the Kroger Signature store at the corner Jones Rd. and West …

Read more
Kroger Family Center stores in the 1960s and early 1970s had unique designs from their regular Kroger counterparts. The arches here are an example of that while the 1960s stores, like the one in Orange, have more of a zig-zag pattern. Also, check out that ‘Welcome’ sign which is part of the Banner décor package! These are normally inside the store, or in the vestibule, but here it is on the outside of the store.

Over 50 Years Later, Baytown’s Kroger Family Center Is Still One Of The Houston Area’s Most Unique Kroger Stores

5 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike In April’s The Year of Kroger post here at Houston Historic Retail, we took a look at the Texas City Kroger, the second oldest still-operating Kroger building in the Houston area. If you think that store is unique, we have a special treat for you today. As promised in February’s The Year of Kroger …

Read more
This image shows how much natural light makes it into the store through the Greenhouse. These are certainly much brighter stores via natural light than most modern supermarkets. This view also provides another look at the vending machine area. We can also see the customer service desk at the front of the store. We’ll get a closer look at the customer service desk later in the tour.

4000 Polk, Houston’s 90+ year old Henke & Pillot Kroger location

8 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike Welcome to the latest installment of The Year of Kroger here at Houston Historic Retail! After three consecutive months of looking at early examples of Kroger Signature stores, this month’s The Year of Kroger post will take us to a Kroger that is the opposite of a Signature store. Those who have read the …

Read more
From the outside at least, it would be hard for one to guess that this supermarket is 50 years old!

The Texas City Kroger’s Golden Anniversary

21 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike This month’s installment of The Year of Kroger will be an anniversary celebration. 2023 is the 140th anniversary of the formation of Kroger, but that isn’t the Kroger anniversary we will be celebrating in this post. Instead, we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Texas City Kroger located at 3541 Palmer Hwy, …

Read more
Here’s another look at the power alley, but this time we see the Bakery as well. Note that even with the compact installation of Bountiful, the power alley does still have some of Bountiful’s ‘basket’ signs. Also note the checkerboard flooring tiles. Some of those bakery display carts would have been replaced with tables and chairs back when this store was new and still had the fast food food court.

Powerful Kroger Signature Stores Gain A Power Alley

11 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike In last month’s The Year of Kroger entry, we explored a very early Kroger Signature store built in 1993, the Cypress Station store. In this month’s The Year of Kroger post, we will explore another early Kroger Signature store, Kroger HO-311, the Jersey Village/Steeplechase store located at the intersection of Jones Road & West …

Read more
By 1993’s standards, this would have seemed like a very large supermarket!

A Sign of the Future: Kroger’s Dominating Signature Format Turns 30

4 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike In last month’s The Year of Kroger installment, we took a look at a north Houston suburban Kroger, the Kroger on Veterans Memorial. This month’s installment of The Year of Kroger will keep us in the north Houston suburbs and the general FM 1960 corridor. In this edition of The Year of Kroger, we …

Read more
Here is a more distant view of the store. As one can see here, this store does do a fair amount of business. One can also tell from here that the parking lot is not in the best condition these days.

A Warm Greenhouse Welcome to the Year of Kroger here at HHR!

10 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos taken by Mike Happy New Year and welcome to 2023, Houston Historic Retail readers! We have many interesting things planned for this year. One of our goals for the year is to cover some of the most interesting Kroger stores in the Houston area. With that in mind, we plan on posting one Kroger post a month …

Read more
Here is a drawing of Houston’s newest ‘mall’ in 1971! The Bellaire Texan via The Portal to Texas History, July 7, 1971

Vintage Ads: Celebrating the 1971 Grand Opening of Braeswood Square

12 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston This edition of Vintage Ads will take us back to the grand opening of the Braeswood Square shopping center near Bellaire in Southwest Houston. Braeswood Square’s grand opening was on July 8, 1971 and we’ll be looking at various ads from the July 7, 1971 edition of The Bellaire Texan newspaper which is freely available to read at The Portal …

Read more
Here's a sign in the mall advertising the Mainland City Centre redevelopment.

Redevelopment of the Mall of the Mainland continues in 2022

5 comments

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston with the photos being taken by Mike. The topic of today’s post takes us back to Galveston County for a quick update about a bit of a Houston-area retail comeback story. The Mall of the Mainland in Texas City, TX has long stood for failure and broken dreams. While plenty of malls around the United States, and Houston for that …

Read more