Houston has been a stable market for H-E-B for many years now. While the early years were a bit touch and go at certain times overall HEB could be considered one of the more stable grocers in the Houston area. Even towards the end of the Pantry Foods era, HEB’s success in Houston was measurable. It came to the point where the company felt brave enough to open a “concept store” here in town. Located …
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Posts Relating to Grocery Stores
Safeway, to David’s, Come in Gerland’s, Do you read me? This is Food Town!
Howdy Folks, in preparation for Thanksgiving we’re taking a look at somewhere you’ve probably stopped this week, a grocery store! Specifically we’re talking about 1455 Wilcrest Dr, Houston, TX 77042 which as of 2021 is a Food Town. However, it has been at least 3 other grocers over the past 47 years. The location originally opened in 1974 as a new build Safeway for Houston’s rapidly developing Briar Forest neighborhood. At the time, the Westchase …
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Online shopping at Gerland’s and other unique Houston grocers from 1989-90
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 …
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Weingarten Realty’s Annual Reports, a look into our not so distant retail past
Howdy folks, how many times have you encountered the word “Weingarten” in your life. If you’re a native Houstonian, then you probably know the name, to say the least. Houstonians of a certain era, will obviously remember the J. Weingarten grocery store chain. One of Houston’s first true supermarkets, starting out in the 1930s, Weingartens experienced an explosive growth post World War II. The family, who had initially only built freestanding grocery stores, quickly jumped …
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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 …
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Houston’s oldest TJ Maxx is in a former Weingartens
Rummel Creek Village is a very interesting shopping center. With wooden shingles, ample trees, and vintage facade, you almost feel closer to the Hill Country than Houston here. Despite fitting stylistically with the surrounding Memorial Villages area, Rummel Creek Village is actually entirely within Houston. It’s anyone’s guess as to how it has survived unchanged for so long, but thankfully with age the design has only gained charm. It almost looks like something that would …
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Digging through the Photo Box: 1980s Houston Retail On Vintage Aerial
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Every so often, someone in the retail enthusiast community will stumble upon great sources of retail history in unlikely or hidden corners of the Internet. Loyal Houston Historic Retail readers will know that in just the last few months, we’ve managed to find a large repository of retail news videos clips at The Portal to Texas History website and we …
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The one where Safeway and H-E-B made the exact mistake 10 years apart
In late 1982 the Houston Division of Safeway opened a brand-new store to serve the growing Alief, and Mission Bend areas of far West Houston. At the intersection of Bellaire and Synott the modern round edged store opened as the anchor tenant of the shopping center along with an Eckerd. While far from being the last Houston Safeway to open, this would be one of the last built, as most “new” stores going forward would …
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The best Foodarama I’ve ever been to: Randallasarama!
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today we begin by adding another definition to the HHR Dictionary, with the new term Randallsarama. Randallsarama- (Noun) A Foodarama location occupying a former Randalls Supermarket. “Great news, the Randallsarama had discounted chocolate cake!” Now that we’ve got the taxonomy out of the way, let’s get into the history of this store. We’re talking about Foodarama at 1603 Cartwright Rd, Missouri City, TX 77489. Originally opening …
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What makes a Krogerstons special?
Howdy Folks! Hope everyone is doing well today, today let’s start off with a small vocabulary lesson. The following word was coined in conversation with a friend on mine. Krogerstons- (Noun) A Kroger store operating out of a former Albertsons; Esp. Those in the Houston Division. “Hey man, I saw Ray Childress down at the Krogerstons on Louetta, screaming something about cash for clunkers, and waving around a muffler”. Krogerstons make up a large number …
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