Would all Safeway signs as seen in Tyler have had the logo frame in a diamond shape? There's a Safeway/AppleTree in Houston that became a Food Town, and still uses what was clearly the original Safeway signpost from 1974, but the logo frame is a plain rectangle. Maybe that was a replacement for the original Safeway diamond, but knowing how Food Town is very careful with money, they would only perform such a replacement if the original fixture were broken somehow.
Also odd about the Cypress store is that H-E-B Pantry Foods once had a store across the street, now a True Value Hardware, as is the former Safeway in King George VA. I wonder if this store could have been built from the ground up as H-E-B Pantry Foods, but that would be strange because the company missed the opportunity to buy the former Safeway/AppleTree. It seems like H-E-B bought several former Safeway/AppleTree stores in 1992, a year before AppleTree was completely dissolved, but bought none of the stores that went up for bankruptcy auction in 1993. Perhaps the Pantry Foods in Cypress was originally a Weingarten's that closed because Safeway bought Weingarten's in 1984, as this store would have overlapped with the perhaps newer Safeway across the street?
Ironically the former Safeway/AppleTree at 249 and Louetta in Houston, which opened as a new construction in 1984 as one of Safeway's last new stores in Texas, became a Randalls in 1993, but that closed sometime before Safeway bought Randalls in 2000. Even stranger is that it became an H-E-B Pantry Foods around 2000, but that also closed in 2002 even though a bigger, more modern and upscale H-E-B waited many years to open across the street in a brand new shopping center. The old store became a Stein Mart around the same time the new store opened. An identical Safeway was built in Chester, Maryland in 1985, which moved across the parking lot in 2002. From what I gather, the old store still sits empty. It isn't terribly far from the Virginia border and King George, but I doubt it would become a True Value or anything similar, even if True Value were looking to open a new store in the area. The center is just a little bit too upscale for a hardware store.
There also is what looks like it was a Weingarten's (now a Food Town) in Spring, across from a store built as Safeway in 1976, which was then AppleTree, then H-E-B Pantry Foods, then was bulldozed for a new H-E-B in 2005. This is also how the former Safeways in Tomball and The Woodlands ended up.
Both a Safeway and a Randalls have closed at the intersection of 1960 and Kuykendahl. What's weird is that a former Woolco there became a Fiesta, then a Randalls that opened less than a year before Safeway bought the chain, but closed less than a year later. It still is sitting empty, and since the former Albertsons down the street at Kuykendahl and Spring Cypress in Spring became a driver's license center, has sat empty longer than any of the former Albertsons in Houston.
And in 2002, Safeway chose to build a new Randalls from scratch in Cypress across from a former Albertsons that was sitting empty, but then the Randalls also closed in 2005. The Randalls was later split between Ace Hardware and Planet Fitness, and the Albertsons is several different offices. Kroger would have probably bought the Albertsons had one of their Signature stores not have already been close by.
The former Safeway/AppleTree on 249 a few miles east of Willowbrook Mall (in a run down industrial area) looked just like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16441604@N07/4120633523/
Yet it was the ONLY AppleTree to close in 1993 and sit empty, and it sat empty for over 15 years, even though the Safeway/AppleTree in Tomball was down the street, and has been a very successful H-E-B for many years. H-E-B still uses the Safeway diamond in Tomball today, yet the diamond was erased from this store east on 249, which became a "Family Thrift Center" not too long ago, as did an identical former Safeway/AppleTree on Highway 6 in Copperfield, next to a former Kmart which now is split between Sears Outlet and Forman Mills.
Considering Randalls bought the AppleTree at 249 and Louetta, along with a former Safeway/AppleTree in Pearland identical to the one that was empty so long, it's a shame neither Randalls nor Fiesta nor Food Town nor H-E-B opened at the site. Unfortunately, Kroger was planning to buy this one, but backed out. Big Lots takes up the whole of the former Safeway in Farmers Branch, and Office Depot takes up the whole of the former Safeway at Edgebrook and I-45 in southeastern Houston, so it's odd the two companies split the former Safeway/AppleTree/Randalls in Pearland. Perhaps this store closed as Randalls as soon as Safeway bought the chain?