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 …
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Vintage Ads: Celebrating the 1971 Grand Opening of Braeswood Square
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 to Texas History website. Braeswood Square has been in the news here at Houston Historic Retail in the recent past as the last Belden’s supermarket …
Keep readingReturn to Food King, one of the last Weingarten’s out there
Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail! If you’re a longtime reader of the blog, then you might recognize today’s location, Food King! A former Weingarten, still using much of their Grand Union decor update. This store is a gem, locally owned by a Texas City resident, and honestly pretty dang cheap! If you’re interested in the history of this store and more detailed information on decor overlap, then check out my post from earlier this year on the store. Today’s post is going to try and feature some things I missed the first time around. My first …
Keep readingA postmortem in-Spec’s-tion of Rice Epicurean
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR! Today we’re checking in on the former final Rice Epicurean. After closing late last July, Rice left nearly everything in the store without their name on it, for new tenant Spec’s. While I attempted to reach out to Spec’s about plans for their future store, I did not hear back. At the moment, nothing has been changed structure-wise, and as of this article, I couldn’t find any permits to suggest that any construction will occur. The biggest modifications so far seem to be the movement of fixtures and updating of shelving. The shelves …
Keep readingWeingarten’s lives on through Kroger in the Heights!
Weingarten’s was a grocer I never knew, and if I had to take a guess, it’s a store most of my readers never knew either. Even though Weingarten’s was long gone by the time I was around, the name was still eponymous for a grocery store in Houston. As well, despite a less than stellar exit, the opinion most Houstonians held of Weingarten’s was still overwhelmingly positive, with most chalking up those final years to poor out-of-state leadership. This was in large part thanks to Weingarten ‘keeping up’ with their stores during their tenure. With property development at heart, the …
Keep readingScarsdale Safeway The final location to open in Houston
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today we’re taking a look at the last Safeway to open in Houston. Now, it should be noted that while it was the last store to open, it was not the final location built. Rather, this store has an interesting history tied into larger troubles at Safeway that, other than the creation of AppleTree, had very little direct effect on the Houston Division. Today’s store at 10902 Scarsdale Blvd Houston, TX 77089, first opened in 1983. The location in the heart of the Southbelt/Ellington neighborhood was meant as a replacement for …
Keep readingThis former Safeway #1 in Houston, is having a Fiesta of a second life
Howdy, folks, and welcome to Houston HIstoric Retail! Today we’re taking a look at a store that has stayed a chain grocer from inception to present, somewhat of a rarity in Houston! Today’s store, located at 7510 Bellfort Ave, Houston, TX 77061, was the first Safeway location to open in Houston. The first-ever plans for Safeway’s expansion to Houston occurred on the heels of the Dallas division expanding into Austin in the 1950s. While locations were never divulged, Safeway did acquire some properties in Houston and likely planned to build some smaller Marina-style stores upon their arrival, just as they …
Keep readingArlan’s a modern take on the Traditional Independent
Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail! It’s been a while since we have done a grocery (2 weeks in fact!) store post, so make sure you’re buckled up for this one! We’re taking a deviation to the South of Houston to find out about one of Houston’s most respected independent grocers, Arlan’s Market. Now, if you’ve been around HHR for any length of time, you’ll know that overall I like independents. In the realm of the blog, I tend to focus on Food Town and Foodarama as they’re arguably the most present independent operators supermarkets in Houston, …
Keep readingRetail News: National Grocer Lands former Belden’s Spot in Braeswood Square
Update 6/13: The new grocer has been confirmed as GFS. In early 2020 Belden’s in Braeswood Square closed their doors, after nearly 70 years of continuous operations closing a long chapter in Houston grocer. While official publications haven’t said exactly who will take this new spot, it is known that Braeswood Square, will once again be host to a national grocery tenant for the first time in 35 years! Belden’s initially started off as a member of the Super Value cooperative in 1951 with a location near the Bellaire Triangle. Belden’s would quickly expand over the next few years, jumping …
Keep readingA Tour of Tomball Retail in 2000 and 1965
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Loyal Houston Historic Retail readers may recall that a few weeks ago, we published a blog post showing screenshots from a YouTube video published by Dan Starr and filmed by his wife Amy that showed Tomball’s retail scene in the year 1998. Well, Dan has come through once again as he recently uploaded some video footage taken by Amy and her father in the year 2000. This footage, which was taken right after Y2K, shows some of the retailers from the 1998 video in greater …
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