Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Houston was an interesting place in around 1989 and 1990. The economy, both locally and nationally, was a bit sluggish at the time. Locally, the area was still recovering from the problems facing the oil and gas industry throughout most of the 1980s. Given these problems, one might expect the local supermarket scene to be rather troubled as well, but …
Read moreCategory: AppleTree Markets
Safeway, Walgreens, and Kmart One of West Houston’s best preserved shopping centers
Howdy folks, and welcome back! It should be no secret by now, that I have a bit of an obsession with Safeway/AppleTree. While I don’t really remember Safeway’s presence in Houston, I do have lots of distinct memories of AppleTree. In learning about AppleTree, I’ve also learned lots about Safeway. One fact, I didn’t originally know, was that most Safeways in Houston were built with an adjacent Eckerd location. It seems that the deal allowed …
Read more
Lake Jackson just can’t keep a dang grocery store!
My heart always drops a little bit when I hear about a former Safeway shutting down for good. It’s amazing that stores built in the 1970s are still operating as grocery stores, that’s the equivalence of someone in the 2000s shopping at a store that opened in 1950, not impossible but largely unheard as by that point the supermarkets that had been built would be outsized in only a few years. The Lake Jackson Safeway …
Read more
A former Safeway with a split personality
When a grocery store closes, it’s not unusual for the space to be subdivided. Over the course of the 20th century, supermarkets became larger and larger, aiming for a broader range. Today’s example is a former Safeway located at 2028 N Main St in Pearland. Holding their grand opening November 11, 1979, the new Safeway was one of Houston’s earliest purpose built superstore locations. The breadth of items available was everything you’d find in a …
Read more
The not so great, Foodarama Shrinkorama!
Cox’s Foodarama is an independent grocery chain operating out of Houston, Texas, with 8 locations in operation as of this post. The chain simply goes by the name Foodarama in all local matters, but uses their founder’s (Carol Cox) last name to differentiate from the many other grocery stores in the U.S. using Foodarama. During the early days of the net, the confusion mostly came from New Jersey based Foodarama Supermarkets, which has since stopped …
Read more
Retail News: Foodarama sells another former Safeway, and Village Medical comes closer to achieving goal
Foodarama Sells Another Former Safeway According to the Houston Chronicle, property developer Baker Katz has acquired the former Safeway at 1805 Ella Boulevard, which is currently occupied by Cox’s Foodarama. The building was originally constructed as two separate structures, with Safeway forming the right side, and Eckerd forming the left. (Shout out to Anonymous in Houston for figuring that one out!) As such, the two properties were under separate ownership and have remained as such …
Read more
Rice Epicurean, taking the term chain to the extremes
The chain, Rice Epicurean, is the result of many adaptions and “mutations” of a family-owned grocery store originally named “Rice Boulevard Food Market”. You can read more about the history of the chain overall on my Rice Epicurean Store Page. This post takes a brief look at the chain as it stands today, with one store, and six former properties. Rice Epicurean #201 | 2500 Rice Boulevard The original Rice Boulevard Food Market opened in 1937. …
Read more
Recent Comments