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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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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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. …
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This Week in Demolition: While Disco Kroger boogies out of Montrose could an apartment tower be making its way in?
This Week in Demolition, we take a moment to ponder what it means when losing Taco Bell and Kroger sever your emotional ties to an area. Earlier this week there was a big buzz in local social media over a photo of the Taco Bell on South Shepherd being demolished, followed shortly after by a photo of an excavator sitting in front of the former “Disco Kroger“. The comments on the social media site I …
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Exploring Vintage Ads: AIMing For The Best
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston We aim to give you, the loyal reader, nothing but the very best content here at the Houston Historic Retail blog. With that in mind, here is the first entry in what could well be a new series where we will explore some vintage retail ads that are interesting and perhaps even relevant to Houston retail history. I thought it …
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Retail News: Ollie’s Bargain Outlet comes to Houston!
Good Stuff, Cheap will soon be available in Northwest Houston as Ollie’s Bargain outlet prepares to open their first Houston location sometime this summer. While no official statement has been made by the company, a newly hung banner has confirmed online suspicions that an Ollie’s location will soon fill part of the former Target in the Steeplechase Center at the intersection of Jones Road and F.M. 1960. Anonymous in Houston also found online job postings …
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What was Ashcraft European Bakery?
I was driving through Stafford the other day for an upcoming post, and happened upon a building I didn’t recognize. Generally when I drive around I have a nice mental GPS going, if you will. I can envision what buildings, landmarks, etc.. are coming up and surrounding me. Not an extraordinary feature by any stretch of the imagination but as you can assume retail enthusiasts’ mental GPS’s have far more information related to buildings and …
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Through the Annals: A Guide to Retail History in Annual Reports
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest submission from HHR’s good friend Anonymous in Houston Researching the operations of a publicly traded company here in the 21st century is most certainly not a very difficult thing. After all, there are numerous reports about companies available through their own websites and through various websites that can all be accessed very quickly. However, those who were around before the rise of the World Wide Web might remember …
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Random Retail: 4 Gas Stations, and Quite a bit more!
Welcome back to another post loyal reader! Oh man, it’s really been a while since we’ve done a Random Retail post. For anyone new here, Random Retail is essentially me going through my camera roll and posting anything I had a chance to take a photo of but have not had a chance to post. This quite often proves to be a reader favorite since, you never know what you’ll end up with! Well lets …
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