Former Randalls #1013 - Houston, TX

1407 Voss Road • Houston, TX
Built in 1973 (according to HCAD), this store has a somewhat long and storied history, but not always as a Randalls. This was built as one of the earlier Handy Andy stores in Houston. Based out of San Antonio, the grocer was a far cry from the dying small-town grocery store purchased by Arlan's Market in late 2012.

Back in the early 1970s, Handy Andy ruled the San Antonio grocery market, with gourmet foods, including European meats and cheeses and far more modern than H-E-B was (given the grocery market in San Antonio today, this may considered ultimately a tragedy), and tragedy it was as even though Handy Andy grew in the Houston market to upwards of nine stores (not just four as previously found), H-E-B engaged in a vicious price war that destroyed Handy Andy.

In 1979, Handy Andy pulled out of Houston and its stores closed, despite being fairly modern with cookware departments and full-service deli departments at a time when many did not. Handy Andy would file for bankruptcy in 1981 and its stores never again a serious threat.

In 1980, Randall's purchase four stores of the chain (considered the best), including this one (it became store #13, becoming 1013 only after the Safeway purchase). In 1985, Randalls decided to renovate and expand the store into a new concept, the Randalls Flagship, expanding the lower level of the store by 15,000 square feet to a total of 45,000 square feet (the store also included an upper level to make 56,000 square feet). The new store, which debuted in November 1985, featured fresh-made pasta, a French bakery, an expanded seafood and meat counter, a salad bar, and a 24-hour full-service restaurant called The Flagship serving items like eggs Benedict and grilled snapper. The merchandise mix featured most of what could be found in a traditional supermarket (including air conditioning filters) but it also included a wide range of magazines including The Robb Report and computer magazines (almost certainly Byte), televisions, orchids, expensive perfumes, and live rainbow trout.

Of course, nothing lasts forever, and while the store did last another quarter century, the store went down with the chain as Safeway took over the chain and slowly altered the chain so it resembled just another Safeway. By mid-2013, there weren't a whole lot of nice things to say about the dying store. It was not remodeled and what was once renowned for being the best grocery store in Houston area was to be demolished, with rumors of the chain's demise swirling and getting stronger.

Today, a Whole Foods Market stands in the spot, and in many ways, represents the store that Randalls could've been. You can have an awesome sandwich made for not a whole lot more than what Subway would charge (but made with superior ingredients), drink a glass of wine after work, and peruse the bright and airy stores for WFM-approved foodstuffs (no Diet Coke or Oreos).

My references for most of this article will be posted soon (possibly as a bonus), but in the meantime feel free to comment on this.

UPDATE: Most of this article was copied over to Carbon-izer at least in its first incarnation.

Former Albertsons #4021 - Victoria, TX

1309 East Red River Street • Victoria, TX
We've done so many old Albertsons stores in Houston, how about something different for a change?

About a month or so ago I went to Victoria (for a job interview, which I didn't get to much disappointment) and while I was there, I sought out their only dead Albertsons. Victoria is an hour or so southwest of Houston (directly off of 59) and it was part of the San Antonio division (not the Houston division), which had stores from Austin to the Mexican border.

The Victoria store closed as part of a 2002 bloodbath that ended the Houston division, the San Antonio division, and generally Albertsons' shot at becoming a coast-to-coast retailer with the Albertsons flag flying from SoCal to Florida, from Seattle to Philadelphia, although if you wanted to be pedantic, it closed later that year. This article notes that Kerrville, Victoria, and New Braunfels were the lone (non-Austin) San Antonio remnants that weren't closed with the 20 in San Antonio and the stores in South Texas, and that did hold true—the New Braunfels and Kerrville stores were sold to H-E-B in 2011 with a College Station store.

I am not sure if Albertsons in Victoria opened as a Skaggs Albertsons or not when it opened in 1977, the same year as the partnership dissolved, but if it did it was a very short time and if it didn't, it sure maintains the exact same model. Stopping in around noon it was not the best part of town but the old Albertsons looked well-maintained for a building shuttered over a decade ago, but upon further examination, the building had been gutted for offices, which was strange because there was no signage on the building at all (not even a number) regarding that. I'm glad no one was there, otherwise it would've raised some questions why I was on the property taking pictures. Note the side entrance (reduced for office use) that was common to Skaggs Albertsons model stores. I have no idea what they were used for specifically. The Florida ones used it for liquor if I recall correctly, and like Texas, distilled spirits are not sold in stores. Unlike Florida, I have determined that publicly traded companies couldn't have liquor stores (explaining why Albertsons had no liquor stores at its peak). Maybe it was for the HBC side.

One more thing for you: Victoria also has a relatively untouched (exterior-wise) Kroger Family Center! This closed in 1986 but spent the next 7 years as three different brands (see my post on Groceteria).

Former Albertsons #2701 - College Station, TX

January 2011. The Albertsons had been closed for about 13 years by this point.301 S. College Avenue • College Station, TXI originally covered this subject back in 2011 on my other blog, Brazos Buildings & Businesses. This store is a little bit weird. It was #2701, the "first" in the Houston division...though it actually opened in 1992 as an Albertsons after #2702 opened in 1991. It was also #2797. And yet, it was not. Read on.

For those that don't know, this began as a store called "Skaggs Albertsons". One of the more interesting partnerships in supermarket history, Skaggs Drug Centers ran a highly successful group of drug stores. It was only natural that they would team up with a respected (but regional) name to create a chain of large food and drug combos when such a thing was more of a novelty than something expected, and Skaggs Albertsons was born.

Courtesy John Ellisor

The store opened in July 1971 and remained through the years with minimal exterior changes except in the front facade (the side entrance would remain the same, though it was eventually sealed). In the late 1970s, Skaggs and Albertsons split ways, and while Albertsons would rebrand their stores in other markets (San Antonio, Florida, and a few others), Skaggs would keep theirs. A few stores briefly got rebranded to Skaggs SuperCenters, but this store was spared and in November 1979, a full page advertisement in the paper announced that the store would be changing to Skaggs-Alpha Beta, facilitated by buying the Alpha Beta name with purchasing the American Stores grocery chain that same year (it would also change the corporate name to American Stores).

The new "American Stores" company continued to manage this store until it rebranded it as Jewel-Osco in 1991 (giving it a minor renovation in the process). Shortly after, American Stores sold the remaining Jewel-Osco stores in Florida (these were new-builds), Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma to Albertsons, as well as a dry goods distribution center in Oklahoma.

It was soon closed and reopened as an Albertsons, giving it another remodel, the "Blue & Gray Market" as Albertsons Florida Blog calls it. I don't know what the original store number under Albertsons was, as it was opened after 2702 and renumbered as part of the Houston division later in the 1990s.

And so from about 1992 to 1997, Albertsons managed a store on the corner of College and University. However, Randalls, an upscale supermarket further down University, sold its store to Albertsons, causing the small supermarket to quickly be abandoned (it closed in November 1997, according to sources I've heard), and it continued stand for nearly another 15 years, longer than it had been any name. Amazingly, something almost happened that would've prevented that fate.

Albertsons must have had second thoughts about closing down the store, as the store had been popular (24 hours!) despite its obvious age, so in May 2000, they filed plans with the city to re-open the store as Albertsons #2797. This time, the Albertsons would gain a fancy "Albertsons University Market" branding and come complete with a Starbucks and "J.A.'s Kitchen", a deli concept (JA stood for Joe Albertson) that Albertsons played around with for a short while in smaller stores (from what I can tell, it was just the regular deli usually placed in smaller stores or drug sores).

This never got off the ground, obviously, and it remained vacant for over the next decade, despite some plans tossed around for redevelopment. Of course, a vacant building won't last forever, and in 2012, it finally began to come down, with demolition halting for months but continuing about a year later. The north wall stood for a long time, revealing that there was a second floor holding offices. While the demolition was intended for redevelopment, it and about half of the remaining shopping center just ended up becoming a field for a nearby apartment complex located behind the strip center.

An ad from the brief Jewel-Osco days. Note the "Special Supplement to The Eagle" to the left.

There's even a shot of a Sunny Delight bottle as I remember it, before they changed it to "Sunny D" (and later "SunnyD"). Tangy Original was called "Florida Style" and "Smooth" was "California Style".
Other shots, taken January 2011...






Regrettably, I couldn't get any of the interior on that shot, or any other time: the windows were painted over, and my one shot of the interiors was kind of messed up by the flash, and while it did capture some of the interior in a blurry configuration that revealed rows of fluorescents and columns, it mostly created a reflection of me, which, of course, I'm not posting.


Whoa, Albertsons was open 24 hours! Must have been super-convenient, relatively rare (I don't think even H-E-B did when it first opened), and must have been fun to see at night when the bars had closed for the night.


What was left of Albertsons after the first major demo.


The first Christmas at the store.


Albertsons interior. This looks like the "Blue & Gray Interior" (Official Stalworth Picture)


From The Eagle, shortly after the demo began.

Former Safeway #714 - College Station, TX

Safeway and later AppleTree was right in the middle of these two stores.

1725 Texas Avenue South • College Station, TX
This one was one I prepared sometime last month: it's the Safeway in my home town. Safeway's Texas expansion was still on the upswing in the 1970s, and in 1976, College Station, Texas got its very own Safeway store (there were two in Bryan), anchoring the large Culpepper Plaza shopping center, with a lease that lasted the better half of a century (I don't recall exactly, but it was in the ballpark of 60 years). The store wasn't all that large by modern standards but adequately sized for the mid-1970s at a size of 40,000 square feet.

What was remarkable about the Safeway was the competition it weathered over the years. I believe by that time, a Piggly Wiggly (originally Brookshire Brothers), arguably the first full-line supermarket in College Station proper, had already closed. It became an AppleTree in August 1989 with the renaming of the Texas Safeway stores, and because I don't have any interior pictures (when it closed I was still fairly young and certainly not old enough to think about taking pictures).

Here's a chart to show exactly what the store was up against. The distance on the main stretch is 2.75 miles between Farm to Market Road 2818 and University Drive, and I've marked some 10(!) competitors besides our store, though luckily none of them competed all at the same time. You'll have to see it at full size to see what I'm talking about here. The map is arranged so to the right is actually the south.

At the time, I'm not sure if the Redmond Terrace Piggly Wiggly was still there (at the southeast corner of Texas Avenue and George Bush Drive, though of course it wasn't called that at the time, and before you ask, it's named after H.W.), but competition included the Skaggs-Albertsons (soon to be Skaggs-Alpha Beta), located at "9", the Lewis & Coker near Kmart (at "8") which would soon be another Piggly Wiggly by 1977, and FedMart (located at "2). The Safeway is marked on the map with a red "S".

In the early 1980s, competition would begin heating up with a Kroger (6), a short-lived Weingarten (3), and a Winn-Dixie Marketplace (5). During that time, FedMart would close, but just as well since our store had bigger problems. Toward the end of the 1980s, Piggly Wiggly would close as well (so at 1989, 9, 5, 6, are all still open).

The early 1990s brought the opening of a massive Randall's (1) and Albertsons (7), but also H-E-B Pantry (4), the no-frills H-E-B spin-off that lacked pharmacies or full-service departments. During all this time, AppleTree at the corporate level was "dropping apples" rather quickly in Houston and those were carted off by competitors by Fiesta, Kroger, Randalls, and independents.

However, this AppleTree stayed open and continued to fight off its competitors, even managing to outlive Winn-Dixie, which closed at some point in the 1990s. By 2000, there were two Albertsons (7 and 1), a dated Kroger (6), and the H-E-B Pantry (4). Another Kroger opened that year, but it was even more toward the south. There was also another Winn-Dixie more toward the north that remained open all the way up to 2002, but these two stores were far away from AppleTree.

Then, in 2002, it happened. A huge H-E-B (10) opened practically across the street from AppleTree (one stoplight up), which had the advantage of being newer, bigger, cleaner, cheaper, fancier, and overall better. Despite decades still left on the lease, AppleTree closed within 9 months of the opening of the H-E-B. Notice that the AppleTree did not compete with a Walmart Supercenter, the Wal-Mart in town wasn't a Supercenter until well after AppleTree closed for good.

I remember that AppleTree remained standing with the logo on the side of the building advertising space for lease, but what would end up happening is that around the mid-2000s, it would be partially demolished for two new stores: a Spec's Liquor and an OfficeMax (the facades have absolutely no trace of the 1970s Safeway design), though the latter would open several years later (the OfficeMax is the one that holds the original Safeway/AppleTree address). This was in conjunction of a redevelopment of the whole shopping center that would tear out the center of it for a Kohl's.

I say partially demolished because the footprint is the same though the facade is totally different, the south wall is totally different, and the back wall is totally different. There used to be extra walls that jutted out behind the AppleTree (see page 6).

AppleTree as a name would cease to exist within a few years when the last two stores were sold off. But despite that, there are traces of the old AppleTree still there. When I was applying to a job at Spec's (I didn't even get an interview), I was trying to look for some traces of the old store. And sure enough, I found some! These scars in the pavement, I believe, were in fact the spaces where the doors to the Safeway/AppleTree were. Of course, today, they lead to nothing.

Between the premature loss of Randalls and the later loss of Albertsons, there's no presence of Safeway or Albertsons in town anymore, which is a shame...

Safeway's First Island Excursion, The Galveston H-E-B Pantry - Galveston

Last seen alive in August 2008
Safeway #????
6013 Stewart Road
Galveston, TX
Open: 1979?
Closed: 1987
Currently: Odyssey Academy

For all you Safeway fans out there, this one's kind of an interesting story because it's one of those rare cases where Safeway wins a part of Houston. This one was opened in the 1970s (local county appraisal district says built 1970, but ""effectively" 1979, so that would seem the date, given a 1974 aerial is still vacant) as a Safeway, the only one on the island, and for seven years (at the very least) it served Galveston Island as part of the Houston until Safeway Inc. started to run into trouble, getting the axe in 1987 as part of a round of closings that would serve as a predecessor to spinning the whole division a few years later (hence, this never became an AppleTree).

Luckily for Galveston, it did become a grocery store again, reopening as an H-E-B Pantry in 1990, as part of the new H-E-B Pantry concept introduced in 1988. The Pantry stores lacked much of the things that real H-E-B stores had, or even grocery stores of the day. The prototype had "only four departments: grocery, meat, produce, and health and beauty", so things like a deli and bakery, and even a pharmacy, were out of the question.

And so for the next 15 years, the Pantry remained. It brought a smile to my face every time we were in Galveston, because of the familiarity of the H-E-B Pantry, and even moreso (post-2002, such as 2005) after the old local H-E-B Pantry stores closed as they were replaced with full-line stores. It was still operating in 2008 (hence, the picture). But something happened in September 2008: Hurricane Ike. It flooded the store, ruining all the inventory, and H-E-B took the opportunity that a few other retail stores did by taking the insurance money and not reopening (the Dillard's at the Mall of the Mainland as well as the Macy's in Northwest Mall did the same thing). The long-rumored plans to open a full-line H-E-B on the island disappeared, leaving residents with only Randalls and Kroger to shop at.

And here's the ironic thing: Randalls, which was on the island as part of the independent chain's reach across Houston and later purchased by Safeway, was one of the first grocery retailers to reopen. As for this store, H-E-B sold the store to a charter school, which renovated it significantly, even on the outside.

Here are some aerials taken over the years. There's a smaller building adjacent to the Safeway, which I would wager was a drug store, probably an Eckerd. This is what likely sustained the strip after Safeway left (in 2007, this space was vacant and wasn't refilled until Odyssey came in).

Over the years:

1974

1982

1990: First Year of the Pantry

1995

2004. Last time the gas station shows up.

January 2008

September 2008, city evacuated

2010, newly paved parking lot

2012, front part removed

The title refers to Safeway's first excursion to Galveston Island, before anyone tries to point out that Safeway had Hawaii stores in the first part of the 20th century.

Former Albertsons #2701 - College Station, TX (Old Post)

January 2011. The Albertsons had been closed for about 13 years by this point.
#2701
301 South College Avenue
College Station, TX
Opened: 1971 (as Skaggs-Albertsons), 1992 (as Albertsons)
Closed: 1997
Demolished: 2012-2013

This post was originally based on "Skaggs Albertsons / Skaggs Alpha Beta / Jewel-Osco / Albertsons" from Brazos Buildings & Businesses

One of the more interesting partnerships in supermarket history, Skaggs Drug Centers ran a highly successful group of drug stores. It was only natural that they would team up with a respected (but regional) name to create a chain of large food and drug combos when such a thing was more of a novelty than something expected, and Skaggs Albertsons was born.

Courtesy John Ellisor

Located just north of the Texas A&M University campus, Skaggs Albertsons ran a successful store from opening in 1971 on.

Wikipedia says that the partnership dissolved in 1977, but this store (and likely the others in Texas and Florida) did become Skaggs Alpha Beta in 1979 (as the parent company, Skaggs Companies, bought American Stores, and took their name). It went straight from Skaggs Albertsons to Skaggs Alpha Beta, which I can dig up the microfilm to prove. This changeover happened in November 1979.

In 1991, American Stores Inc. rebranded their remaining Alpha Beta stores in the South as Jewel-Osco (a brand bought in 1984), which was strange since the rest of the Jewel-Osco stores were states away. This set-up didn't last too long, and in 1992, they sold the stores to Albertson's Inc., which would reopen the stores as Albertsons.

Albertsons had a location in College Station opened just a year prior several miles away, but College Station's second Albertsons didn't last long (why it had 2701 even though it opened after 1991 is a mystery to me...perhaps the original 2701 was cancelled, or it was renumbered?). Despite being a 24 hour location and working off a huge base of college students, in November 1997, this store closed and would be replaced by a new store in a former Randall's, and the store was left to ruin. It wasn't until 2012 until demolition began and today, the building's footprint (as well as some adjacent store spaces) is greenspace for a nearby apartment complex.

In that time, Albertsons had grown even more (if briefly), before selling itself off in 2006, dashing the last of the Skaggs legacy by disposing of its drug store chains, pulling out of numerous markets, and getting to close to buying back the stores it sold off to SuperValu.

This concludes the Albertsons in the Bryan/College Station area. There's still Safeway to go but while I still plan on featuring a very old Safeway in less than a few weeks, I'm holding off on any further old Safeway stores until the merger closes, and enough to feature more Albertsons.

The Brazos Buildings & Businesses link (and link back to the main University Square article) has more info on the stores surrounding it and even a few shots (collected) of demolition, as well as further shots poking around the exterior (like the signage where it explains that the pharmacy records have been moved to their original College Station store, and not the store it quickly reopened as a replacement (the old Randalls).


What was left of Albertsons after the first major demo. For a time you could see where a second-level office mezzanine was.


The first Christmas at the store.


Albertsons interior. This looks like the "Blue & Gray Interior" (Official Stalworth Picture)


From The Eagle, shortly after the demo began.

Former Safeway (AppleTree) #934 - Houston, TX

////THIS PAGE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION///

From Wikipedia Commons

Safeway #934 • Hedwig Village (Houston), TX
9325 Katy Freeway
Houston, TX
Opened: 1974 (according to HCAD)
Closed: January 1994 (quickly reopened as Kroger)
What's There Now: Kroger

A note about the address...this store (now a Kroger) is technically in Hedwig Village but has a Houston mailing address. This one I've actually been to, and is a bit interesting in terms of history. It was an early to mid 1970s Safeway with a floorplan of 28,000 square feet, but in 1990, AppleTree took expanded the floorplan to 46,000 square feet, making it one of the larger stores in the AppleTree stores and definitely the most modern. Unlike similar looking examples down at Gessner and Hammerly (now a Kroger) and in Bryan (later an indepedent supermarket, now closed), the store did not cluster the perishables in the center, unless Kroger reconfigured it (unlikely).

Despite the fancy signage, there isn't anything special about the Kroger today.

This store didn't originally look like this: it was a much smaller early 1970s-era Safeway until a renovation in 1990 expanded the footprint from about 28,000 to 46,000. As a result, it was one of the largest and most modern AppleTree stores in the chain, though that unfortunately didn't save it. It was based clearly after a modern Safeway prototype that Safeway had built right up to the end of when they sold out, examples exist in Bryan (now an independent supermarket) and another in Houston, also now a Kroger.

It was one of the many stores sold to Kroger in late 1993, closing and reopening in 1994. By this time, AppleTree had pared down the chain to its nicer and/or most successful stores (that being a relative term, some of the former stores were looking small and outdated even by the early/mid-1990s).

Another picture, this one I actually took. Awful shot, I know.
From about 2005-2008 the Katy Freeway underwent one of the largest widenings in freeway history, with dozens of buildings condemned, but surprisingly, this shopping center didn't get it (the Fiesta Mart catty-corner wasn't that lucky, losing a good chunk of its parking lot--although you could argue that they were looking for a way out, a product of a largely failed expansion to the suburbs, but I digress).

It was going to be expected that if the layout was anything like the current Village Foods in Bryan, it was going to have Kroger's standard décor package (there was no way that Kroger kept the AppleTree decor for the last twenty years). And I was kind of disappointed at the awkward layout of the store, though it looked like beer and wine was always on the left (no interior pictures, sorry).