Groceteria.com

retail_person_247 wrote: ↑06 Oct 2023 21:29 However, I couldn't find the exact address of the building, just the fact that it was located somewhere on US-264 ALT

600 SE Greenville Blvd

https://www.groceteria.com/place/north- ... reenville/

Found another one somewhere in Fayetteville, AR

https://www.newspapers.com/article/nort ... 138448721/

Greenville is not recognizable at all:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/7AxozTRfRckqfNyq7

The Fayetteville store is not recognizable from the road, and Historic Aerials only goes back to 1980. But it is located at 3340 N College, roughly what would have been between Fayetteville and Springdale at the time:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9h9SeBnSQqNVJDtj6

Kroger appears to have also tried out the Family Center format with their Henke & Pilot stores:

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1585986/

retail_person_247 wrote: ↑22 Feb 2024 14:50 Kroger appears to have also tried out the Family Center format with their Henke & Pilot stores:

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1585986/

Better quality image:

https://www.newspapers.com/article/lake ... 109375350/

retail_person_247 wrote: ↑22 Feb 2024 15:01

retail_person_247 wrote: ↑22 Feb 2024 14:50 Kroger appears to have also tried out the Family Center format with their Henke & Pilot stores:

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1585986/

Better quality image:

https://www.newspapers.com/article/lake ... 109375350/

Correct. Several of the originals were indeed Henke's Family Center, including Lake Charles, from the ad, and Orange, which is supposedly the original. I've been to Orange, and it doesn't have the exact layout as most of the rest - it's close, but more compact.

The Houston division seems to have been the largest pusher of Family Centers. They had stores in the Valley region, up the Gulf Coast almost to New Orleans, and several (that are all still open) in northeast Texas. Easily 70% were controlled out of Houston alone.

wnetmacman wrote: ↑29 Feb 2024 18:19 The Houston division seems to have been the largest pusher of Family Centers. They had stores in the Valley region, up the Gulf Coast almost to New Orleans, and several (that are all still open) in northeast Texas. Easily 70% were controlled out of Houston alone.

Technically northeastern Texas belongs to Dallas. Of course the Houston/Henke & Pillot division was the birthplace of the Family Center, but those I believe were always grouped with the former Wyatt stores.

That being said - this thread does need a merger with the one in Southeast...

Spotting the Burnet Rd Kroger Family Center in Austin is very interesting. I remember going there in 1975, but my visual memory has never been that great, so I mainly remember the inside. I could not spot the covered walkway and Chuck E. Cheese, so I could be looking at the wrong building, but the arches are there.
One thing that puzzles me is the address of the Austin store. The Ross store is oriented with its face towards Burnet Rd, but it is roughly 1200 ft, or four football fields, from Burnet Rd. The building is the right size, and with some arches and so forth. Yet its address is 8100 Burnet Rd, as though it was on Burnet Rd instead of a quarter mile back from it. The Austin Subaru dealership is also listed at 8100 Burnett Rd, but it is actually at the road, with a parking lot in front of it, not 1200 ft. back, and it is also a block or two farther out Burnett road. Odd.
Does all this mean that some developer got the post office to assign "8100 Burnet Rd" to a vast area in what was then the farburbs of Austin? That seems odd, but don’t know anything on the topic of addresses and new land development. There has to be some explanation for so many 8100 Burnet Rd addresses.
There was also a Kroger Family Center in Conroe, which was in 1975 a small rural town just north of Houston, long since a Houston suburb. And there was Kroger Family Center in Victoria, Texas maybe 100 miles southeast of Houston. All these and others were controlled out of Houston. I attach a picture of the Hobby Lobby in Conroe, TX, which was originally a Kroger Family Center circa at least 1975. It seems to have a highlly preserved original exterior, based on the picture.
The Kroger Family Centers could in theory have beaten Walmart to the punch, expanding in rural areas from food to dry goods, instead of the Walmart way, expanding from dry goods to food. In that case, "KFC" would have a second meaning.

Louis24 wrote: ↑18 Oct 2024 17:58 Spotting the Burnet Rd Kroger Family Center in Austin is very interesting. I remember going there in 1975, but my visual memory has never been that great, so I mainly remember the inside. I could not spot the covered walkway and Chuck E. Cheese, so I could be looking at the wrong building, but the arches are there.
One thing that puzzles me is the address of the Austin store. The Ross store is oriented with its face towards Burnet Rd, but it is roughly 1200 ft, or four football fields, from Burnet Rd. The building is the right size, and with some arches and so forth. Yet its address is 8100 Burnet Rd, as though it was on Burnet Rd instead of a quarter mile back from it. The Austin Subaru dealership is also listed at 8100 Burnett Rd, but it is actually at the road, with a parking lot in front of it, not 1200 ft. back, and it is also a block or two farther out Burnett road. Odd.
Does all this mean that some developer got the post office to assign "8100 Burnet Rd" to a vast area in what was then the farburbs of Austin? That seems odd, but don’t know anything on the topic of addresses and new land development. There has to be some explanation for so many 8100 Burnet Rd addresses.

8100 Burnet goes to the car dealership because the Kroger Family Center building is the Subaru dealership. You can see it in the 2011 Street View. Chuck E. Cheeses was off to the left.

Ross Dress for Less moved to its current location (2531 W Anderson Ln) somewhere in the early 2010s, and that store was built as a Conn's Appliances in 2003.

Thanks, you are surely correct. I had previously decided that the current Ross building did not look right at all, and I had wondered about the Subaru dealer, but the front paved area looked smallish. But my memory played tricks on me on size, I guess.

wnetmacman wrote: ↑03 Aug 2023 11:27

wnetmacman wrote: ↑06 Oct 2012 12:14 Since you seem not to believe anything I show you, here's the indisputable evidence I gave you there too:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=8 ... 42,5251829

It's an ad from The Victoria (Texas) Advocate. Look in column three, third listing down. This is the EXACT store you don't believe me on. It's one thing to dispute when you have little proof. When you have CONCRETE EVIDENCE that shoots down your 'theory', it's not kosher to tell someone they're wrong.

And we revisit College Station again,so here's proof from a Kroger ad that I posted in 2012. It *was* a Family Center, though it opened in 1977, so it most likely did not open with everything the 1968-1972 originals had, but it did brand that way. I believe 1977 would have been after the first remix, so no auto or garden areas.

I thought I remembered "Navarro" as its street name, but your advertisement post nails it, supported further by building appearance of course.

FWIW @wnetmacman I did find that the College Station store indisputably was branded as Family Center at one time. It also expanded into the former Chuck E. Cheese's before the video store came about. I don't know what the annex originally held or if it used the exterior exit.

pseudo3d wrote: ↑26 Nov 2024 23:48 FWIW @wnetmacman I did find that the College Station store indisputably was branded as Family Center at one time. It also expanded into the former Chuck E. Cheese's before the video store came about. I don't know what the annex originally held or if it used the exterior exit.

Oddly enough, College Station wasn't the last; there was one Greenhouse-built FC in Opelousas, LA. It only lasted a year and a half.

The Kroger Family Center was a Clarks and then a Cooks before becoming a Kroger location.

From what I could find via Newspapers.Com archives, Cooks was there up until 1975, with Kroger opening up a Family Center in that location in late January of 1977 until sometime in either 1986 or 1987.

wnetmacman wrote: ↑04 Jan 2024 11:56 I think I found the missing link in Arkansas - there appears to only have been one.

Fort Smith, 4000 N O St.:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/LjyUQF5M16YhSRfL7

Currently Troung Son Supermarket and a few local stores. Heavily remodeled, and of brick construction, not the aggregate tilt wall most of the others were. historicaerials.com shows a 1971 view that looks all too familiar. I'm not sure when Kroger left Western Arkansas, but I'd bet this store went with it, as subsequent views show a different look.

I tried looking for old Kroger Family Center locations and all that I could find was ads for one of their old discount store divisions, Value Village. Value Village, along with its sister chain Thriftown, was basically a Kroger Family Center but without the groceries.