Former Albertsons #2726 / Randalls #2671 - Katy, TX

525 South Fry Road • Katy, TX
First, I would like to say welcome back. I know I said 2016, but that's when the blog will be operating again. Let's start by showing off a reverse of our first post ever by showing an Albertsons turned into a Randalls, with pictures and information from October 2015. This has the added benefit of essentially becoming an Albertsons again, although it's just not the same.

I can't figure out when the store opened originally, but it closed in 2002, and the Randalls must have come soon after. I should also note that the facade looks to be significantly modified...in fact, you can even see the original walls (white) coming off the sides of the tan Randalls.

The arrangement was probably unaltered from the original Albertsons, with the florist to the left when you stepped in, then passing by the bakery on the left, the deli on the right, as you headed into produce, then the butcher area in the back (there's also a bread alcove area near here). What I tried to do was do some searching that Albertsons was in control. Besides the "it's just better" branding now common to all the Albertsons Companies brands, the only reference to their once and future parent company was a sign advertising hiring. The gang's all here, from ACME in the northeast to those few remaining Super Saver stores in Utah.

There was a large segment of the floor being replaced, the original tiles were being replaced. I'm guessing the ugly not-white tiles are the ones being replaced, though I can't imagine them even being for Industrial Circus, the late 1990s Albertsons décor with corrugated metal.

The integration with Albertsons seems to be coming along. Quite a few Safeway-branded items were still on the shelf though they were being replaced with Signature in many categories.

One thing I noticed that probably other Safeway/Albertsons watchers may not have noticed is that "Better Living Brands LLC" has the exact same phone number and address as Safeway. Some quick Google searching revealed that Safeway Inc. wasn't surreptitiously renamed, but it was originally a name designed to market Safeway brands like O Organics to other stores, which is why you can find a Flickr picture of O Organics showing up at an Albertsons several years before the merger actually happened.

The other big thing I noticed was that the deli is now selling a lot of Dietz & Watson meats and cheeses (as well as "accessories" like spicy mustard), with the deli counter now about two-thirds Dietz & Watson (Primo Taglio seems like its on the way out, happilly). It seems like Albertsons is taking things with Safeway slowly, which is a good thing, considering how "Albertsons"-izing American Stores was largely a disaster (rebranding Lucky within six months being the big one).

The card is still unfortunately in effect, a lot of "Card Price" signs were out, but there were also a lot of "Everyday" prices too. One hopes that the Remarkable card (compatible with other Safeway cards, but had been around almost a decade before the purchase) will just become a rewards card instead of a necessity. Another "good sign" was a paper bag with just the Randalls name...which I didn't take a picture but I have bags from late 2014 that had ALL the Safeway brands post-Dominick's (Tom Thumb, Randalls, Vons, Pavilions, Safeway) on it, so at least Albertsons is giving the Randalls division an identity.

One of the things I noticed is at least with the drop ceilings, it's surprising how dark the Lifestyle stores really are. Albertsons has not added any additional lighting here.

In terms of features, the store is a bit light on them. It has the "Signature Café" sandwich bar (closed for the day, I came in mid-afternoon) and a soup station, as well as a little area near the front to eat products from the deli or bakery. It does not have a Starbucks Coffee, or any other place to get coffee for that matter. The bakery seems pretty good. I got a donut there for 50¢, and it was 10¢ cheaper than Kroger and didn't make me sick either (I've had terrible luck with Kroger's bakeries).

Now, the big question is, what did the Albertsons look like here when it was open? It's relatively low store number (#2726) and likely part of the "first circle" strategy (planting in the distant small towns orbiting Houston, then going for the throat, H-E-B Pantry did the same thing but to great success) so I would guess that it would be 1996, the same year the distribution center (also located in Katy) did. The only hint I got was the fact was the old floor tiles, which might've been with the "Industrial Circus" décor but I don't really know.

I left with a twinge of disappointment, not because I couldn't find any Albertsons leftovers, but because Randalls seemed to never amount to much anymore, and it was easy to see why rumors of its demise had swirled around for years. Despite the push with big 70k+ square feet "New Generation" stores (of which this one isn't, this was built post-acquisition), stores like this (or worse, former AppleTree conversions) aren't very big, their private brands still seem lacking (even to H-E-B), though to Safeway's credit, I'll take "The Snack Artist" over Kroger's packaging anyday, they still can't yet compete with Kroger on price, and the "lifestyle" décor is just the worst...bland, boring, and generally too dark. No wonder they went on the sale block.

Anyway, I do hope to have a living Albertsons on this site soon, unfortunately, it's a little outside the focus of this blog, technically...

News / Off Topic Supermarket Discussions - June through December 2015

Self-explanatory. This will remain up for a few months, have fun.

The Last AppleTree - Bryan

A brief stay as "Food City". Picture from Stalworth Online. This is after a repaint.

Safeway #736
Address: 2001 Highway 21
Bryan TX
Opened: 1986
Became AppleTree: 1989
Closed: 2009?

Rounding out the four Safeway stores that died as AppleTree in Bryan-College Station, today we have the fourth. Originally written as a post on Brazos Buildings & Businesses, this was one of the last group of Houston Division Safeway stores to be built, and the very last AppleTree store to close.

With the larger Weingarten store in the Safeway family just a few miles south, a decision was made to close the original downtown store, and have it replaced with a larger store a few miles north, giving it some more distance from the second Safeway (a third Safeway in town was more toward the east part of town by then).

This particular Safeway opened in early 1986 as store #736 and the anchor of the small Culpepper North, a shopping center at Highway 21 and Texas Avenue. It replaced the store at Texas Avenue and William Joel Bryan (#294, that's now the Health Department). By 1988, however, Safeway had already spun off the division, and in 1989, the new company had changed names to AppleTree.

Almost immediately, of course, AppleTree began to suffer, and the "apples" began to fall. Declaring bankruptcy in early 1992, one of the first to go was the former Weingarten store, and within 24 months, the chain went from 95 to about 6. The new independent chain lost its last stores in Houston and Huntsville within a few years after that, but the remaining few stores soldiered on. The first signs that AppleTree was about to go away forever was in 2002, when the College Station store closed, unable to fend off a huge H-E-B that opened a stoplight away. The Briarcrest store, having been replaced in the late 1980s and one of the most modern, up to date stores in the chain (though hardly up to date or large in modern standards), went next, selling the store to the landlord when the lease ran out, who kept it open and renamed it. Finally, this one was left, and remained until around late 2009 when the AppleTree letters came off in favor of a store called "Super Canasta", which was a Hispanic supermarket (there is a color AppleTree picture on Yelp, albeit tiny).

No bravado followed this passing of the AppleTree name, and for all intents and concerns, AppleTree had been dead for years, just another no-name company that was a client of Grocers Supply Co. in Houston. Super Canasta soon gave way to Food City (owned by El Ahorro) which gave it its own name in a matter of months. Food City/El Ahorro was the first to do away with the old Safeway/AppleTree décor, and in summer of 2013, El Ahorro sold to La Michoacana Meat Market, which downsized and didn't use all the store space (it wasn't very large to begin with). You'll notice that all the stores are supplied by the same company, so the store names still have the same trucks coming in. In the same plaza, there's also a Family Dollar (since day one?) and a few other stores.

By the way, until a few years ago, there was an AppleTree in San Diego, which had been there since at least 2005-2006. The sign looks slightly different than the Bryan ones (looks they painted solid colors over the apples and the logo), but there's no relation, and it's likely they bought the sign from Texas. It's worth wondering about: there were once nearly 100 of these things, some sign exists somewhere.

Finally, here's an article and some small black and white shots of some of the Bryan AppleTrees from a 2004 BTU article. What's interesting is that every single mainstream Bryan supermarket has closed or moved since 2004. The AppleTree on Briarcrest was the least affected, and it closed and reopened with a different name. Everything else moved (Kroger, H-E-B), or flat out closed (Albertsons, the other AppleTree in Bryan).

Former Albertsons #2705 - Houston, TX

Albertsons #2705
7530 Westheimer Road, Houston, TX
Opened: October 18, 1995
Closed: April 2002
What's There Now: DSW, REI

One of the first Houston locations of Albertsons, the Westheimer at Voss location of Albertsons was a bit of an oddity. Albertsons in Houston is remembered as a disaster that would the 2700-series stores, the Houston division stores, to completely vanish except for a handful of stores in Louisiana (today, ironically, part of the Houston division of Albertsons/Safeway). Like what most chains would do, Albertsons decided to start in the suburbs, but it also decided to simultaneously take on more urban areas. While hardly it was "inner city" (it was a few miles out from the Galleria mall and Uptown district, which was just outside the 610 Loop), it had tough competition. Just about half a mile north on Voss, there was a Kroger Signature store (still there), and a bit farther beyond that, a Randalls Flagship (closed and torn down a few years ago for a Whole Foods).

Clearly, the idea of doing battle with entrenched competitors has worried Albertson's, which postponed its Houston invasion for years. Before it pulled the trigger on expansion, the company interviewed hundreds of Houstonians about their shopping preferences. It asked local shoppers if they would accept Albertson's, despite it being a newcomer to Houston and that it is based thousands of miles away in Boise, Idaho.

"We did a lot of research, and people said, 'We don't care where you're from. What are you going to do for us today?' " - Houston Chronicle article from 1995

Of course, we all know the ending to this story, faced with a mountain of debt from the American Stores acquisition, and facing a competitive market, Albertsons pulled out of Houston leaving behind dozens of stores in its wake to be picked up by competitors or simply abandoned. But even in the pre-ASC, more optimistic times, already Albertsons didn't have the size of the Kroger near them or the cachet of Randalls, though it did still have everyday low prices competitive with others and no card (this probably allowed them to replicate in Houston in better times).

The other thing that Albertsons had that its contemporaries didn't was that this wasn't just any street corner, this was Westheimer and Voss, the busiest non-highway intersection in Houston. More than 105,000 cars passed by everyday, and the center where Albertsons was in, the new Westheimer Crossing, was anchored by a Venture, an upscale discounter from the north that was bullish on building stores in Texas.

While Albertsons competed with Randalls and Kroger, Venture competed with Target and Kmart. It was the perfect environment and only Westheimer Crossing had both a large discount store and a supermarket. The Venture didn't last long, however, and closed around 1998. It was not one of the stores that Kmart picked up, as there was a Super Kmart and a Target down the road. With no discount store to replace it, the Venture ended up becoming an Academy. Likewise, Albertsons would have a similar fate. It would close here in 2002 (according to a news article). This particular Albertsons didn't get a replacement grocery tenant, for good reason: H-E-B had just built their first full-line store in Houston just a mile east (the store has since moved to an even bigger location) and of course, Randalls and Kroger had their spots (the Randalls has since been torn down for a Whole Foods, and is right across from a Trader Joe's now).

Albertsons was divided between two new stores, a Linens N Things and a REI sporting goods store (REI is different from Academy, while Academy focuses on things like athletic clothing and a limited supply on fishing and hunting, REI is more outdoors-oriented with mountain climbing and more upscale). Linens N Things went out of business in 2008 and was replaced with a DSW.

I actually went inside the REI in December 2013, and wondered what it must have been like as Albertsons. The backroom (where there was a large sale) didn't have any trace of Albertsons, and frankly, it was a bit hard to get a feel for it when it was half a store (likewise, another trip to an old Albertsons, which I DIDN'T realize was one at the time, happened in March 2014 with the half being a Sprouts that time).

EDIT: I should mention that the facade was completely reconstructed when the two stores came in, originally the entrance (where REI is now) bumped out a bit more.

A bit on Simon David

I apologize for not having a lot of posts on the backburner, most of which what I do have is some old Safeway/AppleTree type posts, and those don't have any good pictures. So, while I am working on the Westheimer/Voss Albertsons and try to get more content, here's an article on the new 1985 Simon David, which was sadly demolished in 2010 for a Tom Thumb Flagship. Simon David was the "upscale" brand that Tom Thumb owned (as if Tom Thumb wasn't already upmarket), which languished under Randalls ownership (a failed attempt to expand the SD brand was replaced with the "Tom Thumb Flagship" name, and under Safeway ownership, Simon David would vanish completely).

I'd like to write a full article on Simon David eventually, but settled on this because right now I'm physically exhausted from a full day of hard labor (my day job doesn't have enough hours) and I don't want to run the risk of being completely burned out from this blog. Here's an article instead from the Dallas Morning News, called "Checking Out a Ritzy Grocery Store", originally published May 9, 1985 by Maryln Schwartz. Enjoy.

I arrived at the grand opening of a North Dallas supermarket thinking I'd gotten the wrong address. It could just as easily have been a deb party.

There was valet parking. Admission was by invitation only.

BMWs, Mercedes and Jaguars were lined up around the location at Inwood Road and University Boulevard. And the women were wearing serious diamonds -- nothing I'd ever associate with buying brussel sprouts and Windex.

"Welcome to Simon David,' a Tom Thumb-Simon David employee said as he handed me a long-stemmed red rose and directed me toward a woman serving white wine.

"You will notice this is the first supermarket in Dallas to have a mezzanine,' he pointed out.

I gazed up, and sure enough, there was a mezzanine running all around the store.

"How do you haul a shopping cart up to the second floor?' I asked.

"There's an elevator, of course,' he explained.

I had come to this grand opening with a friend, but I wandered off on my own to get the feel of the glitzy new surroundings. I didn't get too far.

No strings attached

I had to stop to listen to a quartet playing chamber music and nibble on the duck pate that was being served in the store's cheese and pate bar.

"You're not going to believe this!' my friend said as she rejoined me. She was munching on a piece of almond gateau she found in the pastry area where pastry filled with asparagus also was being served.

"I know,' I said. "I've already seen the cello and the violins. You don't get many string concerts in a grocery store.

"Not that,' she said. "Look at the store directory. This grocery store has a gift-wrap department. I don't mean paper and ribbon to take home. They will actually gift-wrap your grocery purchases.'

I would have gotten more involved in the gift-wrap concept, but something else caught my attention. An employee was pointing guests to the chocolate boutique on the mezzanine.

"You can't miss it,' she said. "It's right behind the perfume boutique and the Simon David's Cafe.

"You have a cafe in a grocery store?' I asked.

"Yes,' she answered. She explained that shopping is much more pleasant when one can relax over a glass of wine or chocolate mousse.

I hopped on the elevator and went right up to check this out for myself. Not only did the menu feature mousse, but also lamb aux honey mustard, lobster and seafood Louie. And the tables were conveniently placed so diners could look over the railing and watch other customers zipping their carts up and down the aisles.

Just past the cafe was the perfume boutique -- an entire glassed-in area featuring everything from Halston to Polo.

No holds (chocolate) barred

Then I saw it -- the chocolate boutique. No Reese's Pieces or Hershey Bars here. No, there were glass cases filled with giant truffles, 15 varieties in all. There also was a potpourri boutique for custom-made sachets and a floral boutique dripping with orchids.

After strolling the mezzanine, I took one more turn downstairs and watched guests get in line to sign up for charge accounts. Then I wandered over to check out the fresh pasta bar that featured such delicacies as salmon and beet pasta.

I counted 14 different varieties of mushrooms at the produce counter and noted that fresh oysters, mussels and live crayfish also were available.

By the time I caught back up with my friend, she told me something was bothering her.

"I think it's wonderful to have duck mousse and white asparagus just a half block away from my house,' she said. "But this is my neighborhood store. Do you think they have things like mops?'

We checked. In a tiny corner of an aisle was one small rack of mops.

A few minutes later, Tom Thumb executive Charles Cullum asked what I thought of the new store.

I had to tell the truth. "If you put in condos,' I confided, "I might move in.'

Cullum smiled. "We didn't think of that,' he said, "but it might work.'

What's interesting about the store is that it many ways, it kind of reminds me of the modern-day Market Street stores, which do have gift shops on the mezzanine (or so I've heard) and several other niceties, though not nearly as over-the-top in terms of other things. However, other things have been standardized in it and other stores: a wine bar, for one, is not unheard of (Whole Foods, the late Hiller's Market).

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...

Off-Topic Supermarket Discussions - May 2015

Like what Acme Style is doing, I'm making a new thread to host off-topic supermarket-related discussions, especially since "business" is slow recently (I could go ahead and try to whip up something in the backroom soon), so a lot of those comments have been moved here.