Category: McDonalds

Demolition Watch: McDonald’s on Main Street, could we be getting an automated location?

Howdy, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail! Today we’re covering a topic that has had social media in a frenzy. The infamous Main Street McDonald’s is coming down. If you’ve never humbled yourself with a visit to the lowliest burger joint this side of the Pecos, well, you may be out of luck! For those unaware, the McDonald’s at 2017 Main Street has quite a reputation. Situated just between the Greyhound Bus Station and the Pierce Elevated section of I-45, this McDonald’s has seen it all. From robberies to homicides, from poor service to “traveling salesmen,” this store has …

Keep reading

A Tour of Tomball Retail in 1998

Welcome To Tomball! (Captured with permission from Dan Starr)

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Tomball might seem like just another Houston suburb today, but nearly a quarter of a century ago in 1998, Tomball was a bit of a distant place to visit even for those of us like myself who lived in the Northwest Houston suburbs in the Willowbrook Mall area. That said, I did visit Tomball quite frequently in the 1990s and through the turn of the Millennium period. Given that, what a surprise it was recently when I came across a video on YouTube posted by …

Keep reading

Vintage Texas Retail Videos in 1080p from the Jones Film Collection

Kroger Superstore Produce Department, 1977 (Image sourced from WFAA-TV/SMU Jones Film Collection, April 7, 1977)

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Those who have been reading Houston Historic Retail for some period of time know that I did a two-part series (Part I and II) in early 2021 about the excellent retail videos available at The Portal of Texas History website operated by the University of North Texas Library. Most of the videos at The Portal were supplied by Dallas-Fort Worth TV station KXAS-TV. Well, another Dallas Metroplex university library, the Southern Methodist University Library, also has a collection of videos in their G. William Jones …

Keep reading

Digging through the Photo Box: 1980s Houston Retail On Vintage Aerial

Vintage Aerial's photos may not be stored in a Kmart Focal Photo Box, but this post will contain a link to a photo of a Kmart! (Anonymous in Houston)

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 also found a large collection of retail annual reports at the Internet Archive. Friend of the HHR blog and fellow retail blogger South Texas Retail …

Keep reading

Random Retail: Two out of place Big Box Retailers, and Two former Burger Joints

The Gym and a couple of other tenants had obviously gone out of business, but most everything the the former Wal-Mart is open.

Welcome folks, today we’ve got another edition of Random Retail! This week we have a heavy emphasis on a former Wal-Mart, but not enough that it warrants its own post. If you’ve never experienced Random Retail before, well it’s basically a dump of photos I’ve taken that don’t really fit in with anything else I’m doing at the moment. A good portion of these Random Retail photos come from former Wal-Mart #597 at 7075 FM 1960 W., Houston, TX 77069. I had originally planned to go a bit more in-depth on the location, but found myself lacking any good photos …

Keep reading

Permit Roundup: New Retail Spaces Appear Throughout Town, Multiple Remodels, and New Restaurants

Welcome back to our second Permit Roundup, this week our post is a bit shorter than last week. It seems similarly to Demolitions Reports, the Residential/Commercial balance changes from week to week, again with an emphasis on the residential permits. Also, if you didn’t read it in yesterday’s demolition post, my server is running very slowly at the moment, but I am in the process of updating, so please bear with me in the meantime. Regents Square, is an in progress mixed-used development with the unique goal of “Creat[ing] Houston’s premier mixed-use development and its first truly pedestrian-oriented city district.” …

Keep reading

Resolving to have a Resolution

When the new year rolls around, it invites a certain amount of reflection. Unfortunately, I’m a procrastinator. Which means I didn’t really think of a New Year’s resolution until the end of January. This reflection led me to realize that this blog is no longer and unmonitored subproject of mine. Rather, I have at least a couple of regular readers linked via click-throughs from other blogs. So I wanted to extend a thanks to everyone who not only reads my blog, but especially to those who return to check for updates. I know they are somewhat sporadic, but I do …

Keep reading