[Grocery Buff]

Anyone able to identify what chain these two stores may have been when originally constructed?

-New Braunfels, TX-
Arlan's Market
559 W San Antonio St, New Braunfels, TX 78130
https://goo.gl/maps/NvjgMnU6ghpoafEDA

Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/ep9Y2hRkJSpbb7hPA


-San Antonio, TX-
La Fiesta
6103 Pecan Valley Dr, San Antonio, TX 78223
https://goo.gl/maps/wjb96ebu2nJHUQ63A

Street view:
https://goo.gl/maps/bxE63zbbVQaqcyAd8

Thanks!

[Steve Landry]

The second one is a Safeway for sure.

[wnetmacman]

Anyone able to identify what chain these two stores may have been when originally constructed?

-New Braunfels, TX-
Arlan's Market
559 W San Antonio St, New Braunfels, TX 78130
https://goo.gl/maps/NvjgMnU6ghpoafEDA

Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/ep9Y2hRkJSpbb7hPA


-San Antonio, TX-
La Fiesta
6103 Pecan Valley Dr, San Antonio, TX 78223
https://goo.gl/maps/wjb96ebu2nJHUQ63A

Street view:
https://goo.gl/maps/bxE63zbbVQaqcyAd8

Thanks!

The first store, at least in 1980, was Wuest's Market.

The second store was Handy Andy, per Newspapers.com.

[Steve Landry]

Wow.....................it sure looks like a Safeway.

:-)

[Grocery Buff]

Thank you!

I found out from a person that lives in that area that it went Wuest’s, then Handy Andy, then Arlans (when Arlan’s bought the remaining Handy Andy stores).

A local San Antonio newspaper did a good article spotlighting Kroger’s history in the city. https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/a ... 021276.php
It sounds like they were having success until a union negotiation caused issues. The newspaper did the article because Kroger is moving back into the region but with delivery only, no stores.

I discovered one of the Kroger locations in now a La Fiesta and still has the originally cube Kroger sign in the parking lot (at least in Google Maps street view). https://goo.gl/maps/VqSFTKDzv7st7xdL7

[bigbmanb]

I still live in DFW and remember to this day when Food Lion announced that they were coming to Texas and specifically DFW. One of the heads of Kroger said that it would never work out. That Food Lion had no idea what it would take to "entertain" the DFW grocery shopper. There is a truth in what he said. The shopper has to be entertained.

I entered my first Food Lion in Lewisville TX in early 1990's. There were pictures of "meat", "eggs" and "milk" on the walls in the appropriate locations. However, the pictures were faded and looked like something from the 1950's print adds. In fact, everything in the store looked like it was from the 1950's. The most boring store I had ever entered and have ever entered.

I would like to thank Food Lion as most of their stores have turned into thrift stores, school admin buildings, and city service buildings. And I bet the door did hit them on the way out.

[wnetmacman]

I still live in DFW and remember to this day when Food Lion announced that they were coming to Texas and specifically DFW. One of the heads of Kroger said that it would never work out. That Food Lion had no idea what it would take to "entertain" the DFW grocery shopper. There is a truth in what he said. The shopper has to be entertained.

I entered my first Food Lion in Lewisville TX in early 1990's. There were pictures of "meat", "eggs" and "milk" on the walls in the appropriate locations. However, the pictures were faded and looked like something from the 1950's print adds. In fact, everything in the store looked like it was from the 1950's. The most boring store I had ever entered and have ever entered.

I would like to thank Food Lion as most of their stores have turned into thrift stores, school admin buildings, and city service buildings. And I bet the door did hit them on the way out.

Food Lion would have done slightly better and might still be in Texas had it not been for Dateline NBC exposing some shady practices. I remember seeing these things happening in other stores - repackaging meat, unsanitary conditions, etc.

The timing of the report coincided with the opening of the first wave of stores. I remember that when they opened, I was still living in East Texas, where there were two stores in Longview. Prior to that report, even though small, they were wildly popular. On the day after, crickets.

Brookshire Grocery bought several of them and still successfully operates them today, including one of the two in Longview.

Now having said this, I'm not too convinced that a concerned competitor didn't have something to do with the leak....

[SoleOwnerOfMyName]

This was interesting.

1986 Dallas gives about as good a snapshot as you can get into Safeway's operation near the end of their presence there. They announced the decision to close the Dallas Division on April 24th 1987.

This Tom Thumb was particularly interesting. Does anyone know the story of it?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tom+T ... 96.8049312

The spreadsheet shows Tom Thumb having been in the building that is listed as a Barnes and Nobel on the right.

That looks like a Safeway Marina store to me. Going down at street level it looks like a pretty old structure:
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.8966464 ... 312!8i6656

It also resembles a Penn Fruit or White Front. It would be interesting to know what it was.

I'm not feeling Safeway on this one. It looks too big and there was also a Safeway across the street at 10740 Preston Road from the late 1960s on. I'm thinking it may have been a discount department store, which would make sense with the Tom Thumb originally being in the smaller adjacent space.

The Tom Thumb at the Northwest corner of Preston and Royal was built as a Tom Thumb and opened December 1, 1958.

It does have a similar appearance to a Marina Safeway. Here's how the planned store was described when it was announced in the March 16, 1958 Dallas Morning News.

"The new store, with 24,000 square feet of area, will be of advanced design with an arched steel Lamella roof. Lamella con­struction consists of a network of short open web steel joists shaped to the roof contour, which, in this case, will he 25 feet high at the highest point.

This will provide a sales area of 18,000 square feet entirely free of columns."

The article describes it as the largest in the Tom Thumb chain and one of the largest supermarkets in Northeast Texas. It mentions it is one of three new Tom Thumbs on the drawing board for construction that year, which will bring to 19 the number of stores in the Dallas area. It also mentioned that it operated stores in Tyler, Athens, Cleburne and Gainesville.

It mentions that it will have a meat department with 150 linear feet of display refrigerators and that its frozen food displays will extend 145 feet, the largest in Dallas to date.

At the Southeast corner of the Preston/Royal intersection is the previously mentioned Safeway. It opened on November 16, 1965. In 1992, Borders Books and Music opened in the building after an extensive remodeling, which completely covered up the Safeway Marina design details both on the exterior and interior. After Borders went out of business, Central Market took over the building. When Central Market remodeled the building, they uncovered and preserved the Marina roofline, as well as the curved ceiling and wooden beams on the interior.

In October 2019, just a few months after its original mention in this thread, the entire shopping center at that corner of the intersection was heavily damaged by a tornado. The Central Market/former Safeway was repaired and reopened. But what remained of the rest of the shopping center was demolished and rebuilt from scratch.

Here are links where you can download the relevant Dallas Morning News articles about the Tom Thumb store:

March 16, 1958 article announcing the store.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i-0vbv ... sp=sharing

An October 2, 1958 article about the yet-to-be-opened store:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R4PYAQ ... sp=sharing

A November 13, 1958 Tom Thumb advertisement about the store which includes a photo of its facade under construction:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qq-zSm ... sp=sharing

A December 1, 1958 Tom Thumb advertisement about the store's opening which includes a photo of the completed facade:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jX4cdS ... sp=sharing





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