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.

Albertsons Memorabilia!

Even though I've admitted that my family were never Albertsons shoppers and even up until recently I tended to view Albertsons as a more expensive version of Kroger, which due to various reasons, I didn't like at the time (that opinion has changed too).

That being said, I do have some miscellaneous Albertsons memorabilia.

This first one is the more ancient one (an old jar of alum in the pantry), and while it does say the company name on the sticker, I've figured it had to have come through a former Skaggs-Albertsons when it dissolved in the late 1970s, as my mother did live in Florida at the time. I'm almost certain that it came from #4314, the Gainesville store that lasted up until 2011.

The second one is more decidedly modern, an Albertsons Pharmacy dropper, and I'm guessing that it came from the local store, #2702, because if we were going to Albertsons, that's the one we'd go to.

Randalls #1857 - Houston, TX

An unremarkable store? (Photo by me. I'm not sure what thing is in the NW corner)
Randalls #1857
Address: 12312 Barker Cypress Road
Cypress, TX
Opened: September 2001

So it's here. Randalls, Tom Thumb, and the entire Safeway family are now married into the Albertsons family, which recently got back together from a painful divorce and the former American Stores rescued from their abusive stepfather SuperValu (okay, I'll stop with the analogies now), but that wasn't yet the case when I stopped at this Randalls after a job interview in the Houston area.

Sadly, I didn't pull out the camera inside for reasons unknown, but I did sample something from the bakery (a chocolate chip cookie baked onto a brownie!) and bought a coffee with the last of my Starbucks card. A bit about this store is that it was built in an era where Safeway had purchased Randalls and was still opening stores before changing gears around the start of the "Lifestyle" era and closing a bunch of Randalls stores in 2005 as market share deteriorated and a market pull-out seemed imminent. I visited this store hoping it hadn't yet been remodeled to "Lifestyle" yet (unfortunately, all of the remaining Randalls did get the do-over), but it was, and altogether wasn't a bad look. Because I didn't actually take any pictures inside, this post is going to be pretty brief.

When the Randalls opened in 2001, there wasn't a lot in the way of grocery shopping in the area. It was the last grocery store along the 290 corridor before a rinky-dink store in the Hockley/Waller area, but even in those halcyon days, Randalls wasn't bursting at the seams. The only other thing close was a 1999 H-E-B Pantry, a small-format store that lacked a pharmacy, deli, and fresh bakery (at least that was the prototype).

Randalls by itself in 2002

Even though the trade area continued to grow with subdivisions continuing to sprawl outward, the greatest threat to Randalls' well being happened in 2007 when H-E-B decided to replace a Pantry store a few miles away (despite the fact that said H-E-B Pantry was renovated at least once in its less-than-a-decade lifespan). Immediately, the new H-E-B zoomed to be the more popular in the area, packing out routinely. It was also larger than Randalls.

H-E-B steals the show in 2010

It's possible that the renovation came in the late 2000s to try to combat the influence of H-E-B.

H-E-B still maintains popularity

Since that time, Randalls has still held on. The H-E-B is cheaper than Randalls as well as not requiring a card, and has continued to march west with new stores while Randalls has stagnated.

If Randalls wishes to take its closest competition on, it's got to lower prices to be competitive (an impediment to the original Safeway Inc.), follow the Albertsons lead and remove the card, and perhaps cannibalize its own shopping center to expand floor space (perhaps making the store deeper by going through the back!) It won't unseat the king anytime soon...Randalls will probably never take #1 in grocery market share (behind Walmart, of course) without an expensive and aggressive building strategy, but knocking Kroger and H-E-B down a few notches will at least secure its place in the market.

As always, comments are appreciated.

Former Safeway #249 - Bryan, TX

Boring government building or a disguised old supermarket? You decide!
201 North Texas Avenue • Bryan TX

This post also appears on Brazos Buildings & Businesses

In October 1950, Safeway opened store #249 in Bryan, Texas, when they were a much smaller company than they later grew to be. It was likely from the Dallas division originally.

Used to be here! (1960)

Now it's here! (1971)
In the mid-1960s, Safeway rebuilt their store directly behind their old one. The reasoning for this was never fully explained, especially since the store was only 15 years old at the time and there were no serious issues reported in the press (foundation issues, right of way clearance).

In 1986, the store closed, probably to distance from the newly-acquired Weingarten store just a bit down the road. The replacement store would last as a Safeway as just a few years before becoming an AppleTree. It would be the last AppleTree until Kubicek sold out around 2009.

Sometime within the next 5 years of 1986 it was remodeled into the Brazos County Health Department, though I could've sworn that they've done an exterior remodel in recent years--the old one was distinctly grocery store-shaped. Regardless of what they did to the front, there's some rockwork on the side of the store: that's one sign that it was a Safeway, I suppose.

Former Albertsons #42XX - Waco, TX

Car window view, because it sure doesn't look like Albertsons on the inside anymore. Here's a different shot with a closer color profile


900 Texas Loop 340 • Waco, TX

This one is kind of weird--many, many years ago, a much younger Pseudo3D was in the north part of Waco around the early 2000s (no later than 2002, but no earlier than 1999) with his mother and his grandfather. The reason has long been forgotten--it was either looking for furniture or house-hunting (probably the latter), but the point is, he was there.

During that time, the boy noticed an odd-looking church called The Church of the Open Door. He knew immediately that it was an old grocery store, after all, an old Winn-Dixie in his town became a Lacks Furniture, but he wasn't sure if it was a Winn-Dixie or not (he should have noticed that there actually was a Winn-Dixie less than a mile away, but we'll forgive him). Years passed, and the church remained, but Pseudo3D never really figured out what the Church took over.

The answer he found was well over a decade later and stumbled upon in an article--it was an old Albertsons, and a very-short lived one at that.

Existing from 1994 to 1997, it was one of the early failures of Albertsons (and a symbol of what was yet to come), even though the late 1990s seemed rather rosy for the rest of the company. By 1998, it had not yet acquired American Stores, which would put many stores into the company's pocket but ultimately spell disaster that it would not fully recover for another 15 years, and would still have stores in nearly every market in Texas.

Losing the grocery store war to Winn-Dixie? For shame!

Waco continued to have an Albertsons, operating a few miles away closer to the center of town, until it was closed in 2006 shortly after the LLC purchase. Because the existence of Albertsons predates the Internet, it's been exceedingly difficult to find a store number for this one.

Former Albertsons #2734 - Conroe, TX

3830 W. Davis St. • Conroe TX
I first noticed this store, now a Kroger, I believe in 2003, on a trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana with my family. I was immediately drawn to it by the fact that at the time it still had the classic "Loopy K" as I called it (the Loewy-designed logo), which at the time seemed to be disappearing from every Kroger I knew (admittedly, only the Houston division, and of those, primarily the two Kroger stores in College Station). Of course, it "turned" within a few years (block lettering) as well, but one thing about the Kroger was the peculiar "Food" and "Pharmacy" signs that reminded me of Albertsons.

Google Street View

Surprise! It was one just a few years prior, and if I had been paying attention on the 2001 trip, I would have seen it as an Albertsons. Kroger bought numerous Albertsons stores in the greater Houston area, including one from 2001 in Willis (which was later abandoned as it was replaced with a Kroger Marketplace). From tax records, it indicates this one was built in 1996. Things to note include the gas station, which based on the shape was an Albertsons Express gas station (convenience store and all, now operates as Kroger's "Kwik Shop"). There also appears to be a separate entrance to another part of the store, perhaps a bank (not a liquor store)

I've never gone in, so I have no idea if Kroger uses remnants of Albertsons décor package (I wonder if it received new lettering after the renovation that fully "Kroger-ized" it). It was, however, quickly reopened, and for what it's worth, I do remember the lettering being permanent, not a banner hastily covering the Albertsons signage.

If I was just imagining the older logo being on here, please write in and correct me...

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.