A&P in Houston

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Ephrata1966
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A&P in Houston

Post by Ephrata1966 »

Did A&P ever have stores in Houston? I have never seen "centennial" stores there, but since Safeway and Kroger did, just wondering.
krogerclerk
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Re: A&P in Houston

Post by krogerclerk »

A&P had a Dallas division which had some stores in the Houston area, but A&P was a marginal operator in Eastern Texas outside the DFW metro. I believe the Dallas division began to close piecemeal in the early 70's and was gone by 1980. Safeway was a relative newcomer to Houston, arriving in the early 70's around the time A&P began to close stores.
Ephrata1966
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Re: A&P in Houston

Post by Ephrata1966 »

Apparently there was an A&P at Northtowne Plaza (which oddly enough shares its name with a very similar Norristown, PA center) at North Freeway and Tidwell. Does anyone know which store this is now? I am thinking Big Lots, which was MacFrugal's, but I'm not sure. Or maybe it was the "Fallas" which was a Factory 2-U. Also, this center once had a K&B drugstore, part of a New Orleans chain, and A&P had a large presence in New Orleans until not that long ago. Perhaps a lot of older A&Ps (that closed/moved before the chain left the area) in New Orleans became K&B. I guess the Houston K&Bs closed because Rite Aid didn't want to enter the area.
wnetmacman
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Re: A&P in Houston

Post by wnetmacman »

Ephrata1966 wrote:Apparently there was an A&P at Northtowne Plaza (which oddly enough shares its name with a very similar Norristown, PA center) at North Freeway and Tidwell. Does anyone know which store this is now?
If I were to take a guess, I'd say it's the store with the Pancho's in it, though it would have been very large for A&P for the time. Pancho's typically invaded old grocery spaces in shopping centers.
Ephrata1966 wrote:Also, this center once had a K&B drugstore, part of a New Orleans chain, and A&P had a large presence in New Orleans until not that long ago. Perhaps a lot of older A&Ps (that closed/moved before the chain left the area) in New Orleans became K&B. I guess the Houston K&Bs closed because Rite Aid didn't want to enter the area.
No. K&B only entered Texas in the extreme northeast part of the state, and only then in the 1980's with a small handful of stores: Longview, Marshall, Kilgore and a few others. Never in Houston. At the time of the Rite Aid takeover, they were only marginally in Lake Charles, about 2 1/2 hours east.
Scott Greer
Ephrata1966
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Re: A&P in Houston

Post by Ephrata1966 »

Thanks for clearing that up. Actually, I think there was an Eckerd here that moved to the parking lot (and has since been replaced by a CVS), and the old Eckerd in the plaza became a liquor store which bought the rights to the K&B name. A 1997 map of the center I found said "K&B". That was the same year Eckerd was bought by JCPenney, started moving a lot of stores (along with rebranding Thrift Drug and Fay's up north), and K&B was bought by Rite Aid, ceasing to exist. Anyway, I think there might have been a Woolworth here which might be the MacFrugal's/Big Lots space after all. The "It's Fashion Metro" store seen in Google Maps was a Jo-Ann Fabrics until not long ago. And I think it was a Cloth World fabric store until Jo-Ann bought them in 1994. This center had a fire around Christmas 1999, and the Payless ShoeSource (which I think was part of the Anna's Linens building) moved to where it is now. Also, Pancho's (the whole chain) must be gone now. Their website is closed.
proczach

Re: A&P in Houston

Post by proczach »

corner of Bissonnet and Beechnut
where the HEB is in Bellaire across from the Randall's that used to be a Weingarten's
Whole Earth Provision company on Shepherd at Alabama
on Post Oak right south of Bellfort where a Chinese buffet is
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