The Katy Randalls is nice but we never actually go inside. It's definitely worth taking advantage of their digital deals. You can find some really good savings.

The main things for me in a grocery store are the Meat Market and Produce. If those are good - I don't really watch the price on other items. When Kroger Signature stores opened in Houston they had good Meat Markets and produce. HEB came in and it seemed suddenly the Meat Market and Produce departments at Kroger went downhill. I absolutely hated the toy section of HEB when my kids were young - I have a problem saying no! Like others have mentioned, I don't like the change HEB is making by clearing out name brand products and substituting HCF and HEB brand stuff - some of it is close but there are noticeable differences. Randalls, Tom Thumb - really becaome like Safeway or Food lion and they couldn't compete. I have a Kroger less than 1 mile from the house only shop there for quick needs - I wind up driving 3 to 4 miles for HEB.

Diggity said:

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My first job in high school was at the Randall's Flagship in Katy. That store was the **** back in the day.

Drove by there not long ago and was surprised at how nasty Mason had gotten. Guess Cinco gets all the nice stores now.

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Mason was teetering on going full on nasty for at least a decade or more. Once all the fast food and chain restraurants started popping up in or west of cinco, the cinco people no longer had a reason to venture north to mason for anything. From 10 down to highland knolls is just endless strip centers. At least you have options on where to get your vapes from. Einsteins and Mo's are still around though if you want to take a trip back in time.

I wonder if the same degenerates from THS are hanging out at Einstein's, or if they've moved on to something newer.

IF they ever move on, I can see them making their way to Stars on Grand Parkway.

RustyBV said:

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On that note, we need a new HEB in 77079, it's crazy there is not one...wish HEB wasn't so picky on sites and would just pick one ha.

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Wow. That is surprising. Isn't 77079 one of the richest zip codes by household income outside of the Beltway in the whole greater Houston area.

That is Memorial correct?

Surprising HEB wouldn't build in that zip code where they could make a bunch of money since that zip code is so rich.

It looks like you just have a Randalls and Kroger.

Whole Foods and HEB should open stores in 77079 because they would make a ton of money there.

At least you are relatively close to one of the best malls in the state of Texas in Memorial City Mall and one of the best outdoor malls in the state of Texas CITYCENTRE and Town and Country Village.

YellAg2004 said:

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cajunaggie08 said:

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Diggity said:

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Randall's and Kroger tend to have much better meat specials (depending on the week), so if i'm going to buy a crap ton of meat to smoke, I'm usually looking there first. HEB has good meat, but they rarely seem to have sales on it anymore.

As someone else mentioned, we usually have our weekly staples delivered for free from Walmart and use HEB to supplement some of the stuff that Walmart doesn't do as well.

If you play the special/coupon game both Kroger and Randall's are going to end up cheaper than HEB.

I love HEB, but it's crazy what they charge for certain things now. I think they realize they now own the market so not as worried about competing on price.

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Not only does HEB realize they own the market, they have the market trained to buy HEB generic items. The Hill Country Fare stuff is usually still very low cost, but the HEB branded items are just slightly below name brand which makes the name brand stuff cost more than what you would find at Kroger. Now, the HEB brand stuff is pretty good but its getting harder to do an apples to apples comparison with Kroger.

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This is one area that has been a source of growing frustration. It seems like sometime in the past 1-2 years, HEB has shifted from providing name brand alongside the HEB/HCF brand options. Now we have come across several items where the name brand is gone and you only have the HEB/HCF option. There are some items that we have no issue buying the "value" brand on, but there are some items where we want the name brand and it isn't available anymore at HEB.

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Yep. There's already a couple things in our rotation that are missing at HEB. They keep it up and we will stop going there.

The H-E-B at 99 and Rayford is just a bit plain, especially since there is a great Kroger at the next exit off 99. That said, I still almost never go to Kroger.

I'm convinced the office building is half the traffic the San Felipe Randall's gets.

And my first job was also Gerlands. 2 years and every department basically.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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The old people who actually shopped in Randalls all died.

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It was great during the height of COVID. People would be scrambling around HEB. Fighting over the last roll of toilet paper while Randalls had full shelves.

Booma94 said:

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schmendeler said:

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Yep. There's already a couple things in our rotation that are missing at HEB. They keep it up and we will stop going there.

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No you won't. You'll keep going and like it.

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HEB is more expensive than Kroger.

The complete answer to the OP's question is that the Onstead family (Randalls) and HE Butts (HEB) had a gentleman's agreement for many years to not open any stores on the opposite side of the Colorado River from their home turf so as to not directly compete with each other. At some point, Randalls supposedly "broke" the agreement I think by acquiring some stores from another brand in the Austin area.

I can't remember if HEB had already tried opening a couple of "pantry" locations in Houston by then or not, but they were not largely successful. After that, HEB moved fully into the Houston area with flagship stores and outcompeted Kroger and Randalls on price and quality. Randalls merged with Safeway (which is the death knell for any chain, including Safeway) and it has been downhill for there.

Randalls stores are now small, dirty, and expensive compared to HEB's newer stores and that is how the original Safeway lost out to Kroger and Randalls too.

Makes for a good story, but the timeline doesn't really work.

Also, if it was all about a Gentleman's Agreement, why did HEB take so long to get into DFW?

Heb started Pantry in Houston early 90s. First full one wasn't until 2000 or so. Then they expanded with fire.

It could be revisionist history, but everything I've heard from the folks at HEB is that they wait until the have critical mass to enter a major market.

The Pantry strategy in Houston was a bit of a misfire, but you can see that they're very intentional about locking up the right real estate before setting up in a new area. Seems like they have Houston well under control and DFW is the new step.

Diggity said:

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Makes for a good story, but the timeline doesn't really work.

Also, if it was all about a Gentleman's Agreement, why did HEB take so long to get into DFW?

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I heard that once H-E-B decided to expand in Houston and Dallas, it decided to pick one metro area and start there. Houston wound up being first.

Diggity said:

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It could be revisionist history, but everything I've heard from the folks at HEB is that they wait until the have critical mass to enter a major market.

The Pantry strategy in Houston was a bit of a misfire, but you can see that they're very intentional about locking up the right real estate before setting up in a new area. Seems like they have Houston well under control and DFW is the new step.

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They like to have enough mass of demand in an area to support setting up distribution and supply facilities instead of trying to build individual stores in new places that will be hard to support from a distance. Unlike Randalls, HEB likes to make alot of their branded products in house instead of relying on other suppliers or co-branding somebody else's stuff. Buying real estate strategically then building several stores in short succession along with the supply facilities is how they like to move into a new area.

txags92 said:

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The complete answer to the OP's question is that the Onstead family (Randalls) and HE Butts (HEB) had a gentleman's agreement for many years to not open any stores on the opposite side of the Colorado River from their home turf so as to not directly compete with each other. At some point, Randalls supposedly "broke" the agreement I think by acquiring some stores from another brand in the Austin area.

I can't remember if HEB had already tried opening a couple of "pantry" locations in Houston by then or not, but they were not largely successful. After that, HEB moved fully into the Houston area with flagship stores and outcompeted Kroger and Randalls on price and quality. Randalls merged with Safeway (which is the death knell for any chain, including Safeway) and it has been downhill for there.

Randalls stores are now small, dirty, and expensive compared to HEB's newer stores and that is how the original Safeway lost out to Kroger and Randalls too.

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With the decline of Randalls, I feel like Whole Foods has taken over the high end high quality market in the Houston area.

HEB and Costco have taken over the middle tier of the market.

Only 15 Randalls left in Houston area. 10 Randalls in Houston, 1 in Pearland, 1 in Galveston, 1 in Katy, 1 in Pecan Grove, and 1 in League City is all that is left.

So many good memories at Randalls. Sad to see their decline and downfall.

Supposedly H.E. Butt and Russell Onstead (Randall's father) had a handshake agreement going back many years where H-E-B would stay out of Houston if Randall's stayed out of Austin/San Antonio.

When Randall's sold to Albertson's/Safeway the deal was obviously off. Albertson's purchased the Tom Thumb chain in DFW around the same time.

Soon after, H-E-B began opening their pantry stores (dry goods only) in Houston and then the full-on grocery stores and Central Markets. Randall's has been in a death spiral ever since. Walmart opening grocery stores in Houston didn't help, either.

I'm surprised Randall's is still around considering they are expensive and their selection sucks.

ETA: txags92 beat me to it.

Any other original thoughts, Kamala?

They started opening the Pantry stores well before Randall's sold.

Circa 2008-2009 the Randalls in Sugarland was loaded with smoke shows. Sunday afternoon shopping was never more entertaining.

They aren't shopping at Randall's.

Diggity said:

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good summary

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left out the fun part of the story though.... why sell to Safeway?


Essentially, the son who inherited the business from his retiring father, thought it would be fun to see how many strippers he could bang and how much coke he could do while keeping the wife happy and kids enrolled at Ft Bend Baptist Academy.

Well, as tends to happen, that eventually runs its course, and it did. So the family decided they needed an exit strategy, and in comes KKR who buys 49% and then they go out and fleece Safeway to buy out the full ownership.

As others have said, Randall's had great margins because the stores in the late 80's and 90's were clean, always well staffed (never a wait to check out), had a great selection, and did a good job in building their stores in prime locations. We knew we paid more there, but it was worth it.

All that went away with Safeway and HEB ran over them.