Houston Historic Retail

El Bolillo the Mexican Bakery chain taking Houston by storm, has completed a majority of the exterior work on its new location at Fountain View and 59. The project is a bit delayed from its initial conception, with working only starting after the Mission Bend El Bolillo finally held its grand opening last November. Plans had initially called for the ex-Luby’s Bake Shop to be open by April 2023, but undisclosed hiccups pushed the date …

Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail! Today, we’re reviewing the history of the Kroger Co’s stores in Rosenberg. These stores have a special place in my heart. I grew up in Fort Bend County, and Kroger was the dominant grocer in Richmond-Rosenberg for a long time. For years, their only real competition came from independents, Weingarten’s, Fiesta, and a few Lucky 7/Minimax locations, even managing to kick Randalls out of the area …

Based on permits filed by HEB, it appears that a new Joe V’s Smart Shop location may be headed to the north side of town. It seems that the grocer is meant to take the spot formerly occupied by Fry’s Electronics in West Road Plaza. Based on the permits, the Fry’s building would likely be torn down, and a new building constructed for Joe V’s. If built this new store would not be the first …

Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Hisotric Retail! Today, we’re celebrating a business that is beloved by many in the tech community, Electronic Parts Outlet, aka EPO. Now, many loyal readers will likely ask the question, who in the world doesn’t know about EPO? Well, lots of people. If you were an electronics junkie in Houston during the 90s and early 2000s, you likely read about EPO online. Although in the days of social …

Crews have been working for the past week to complete the transition of about 20 franchised Timewise stores into Honey Farms. These changes are the result of Timewise selling off 64 locations after the C-Store business was purchased by Shell nearly two years ago. The company converted some locations to Shell but had multiple sites still under contract to sell Exxon-branded fuel. The decision to jettison these stores landed them in the laps of Massachusetts-based …

Howdy, and welcome back to HHR. Today, we’re taking on new territory, responding to the factitious claim spreading like wildfire that Houston has the second highest grocery prices in the U.S., only behind Miami. Not to sound self-serving, but this is HHR’s domain, and to hear that Houstonians are supposedly paying the same prices as Publix shoppers is obviously untrue. While many sources have reported this data, I first read it in a Chron.com article. …

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today, we’re heading back to a thrift store, a place we haven’t been in quite a while! I’m a lifelong thrifter and come from a long line of thrift store shoppers. My grandparents were the most smitten with thrift shops. My grandparents, who were born just before the Depression, would often make a weekend out of hitting up Salvation Army and Goodwill, in addition to many independent and …

The Forever 21 in Memorial City Mall is preparing to close for Houston’s first Uniqlo location. The store is a Japanese-owned casual wear outfitter which only offers private-label merchandise. The retailer has been on an aggressive growth path over the past few years and initially filed permits to open a Houston store at the Galleria in Fall 2020. However, these plans obviously fell through, and permits filed recently indicate Uniqlo plans to renovate this soon-to-be …

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today, we’re talking about the state of Luby’s. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Luby’s on the blog. However, anyone following my social media knows I often stop by Luby’s. So buckle up for some pedantry into what’s been happening at Luby’s. Going back a few years, most of Luby’s troubles seem to have started when they began purchasing other chains. The two best-known buyouts were …