Sears At 300 Baybrook Mall Dr.

[IronTiger]

I was browsing around Houston Chronicle articles, and I found this tidbit from 1991:
 

McDonald's has restaurants in seven retail stores, including two Wal-Marts, two Sears stores, two hypermarts called Holiday Plus and the Houston hypermart Auchan . Each of those stores has allowed McDonald's enough space to prepare a full menu of items.

This isn't a huge surprise to me (I had read that there was a McDonald's inside a Sears in Michigan in the 1980s), but I'm wondering which two Sears stores in town had the Golden Arches inside. I think it would be something built in the 1980s, so I'm guessing one of the three 'brook malls, but I could be wrong? Anyone remember?

[lunchbox]

Yes, I remember one being inside the Sears at Baybrook mall, in the late 80's.
It was at the main entrance, where the optometrist is today.

[iliketurtles]

Anyone have pics?

[IronTiger]

Yes, I remember one being inside the Sears at Baybrook mall, in the late 80's.

 

That would've one of my first guesses, yes. Maybe Willowbrook for the other. Here's another example of co-branding, from 1988...

 

Sunbelt Nursery Group Inc. of Fort Worth, the parent of Wolfe Nursery stores, will open Wolfe Garden Centers at 23 Sears stores in Texas within the next few months. Wolfe already has 15 locations here, and Sears stores in Houston are among those slated for the centers. Houston is the second-largest city in the nation for Sunbelt.

Sunbelt operates 123 garden centers across the country. It recently signed an agreement in principle to acquire the assets of Houston Patio & Garden Centers Inc., which has 11 locations in the city. Don Davis, president of Sunbelt Nursery Group, said, ``We are pleased to have the opportunity to serve Sears' customers and look forward to serving new customers in these Texas markets. The new Wolfe Garden Centers will be ready for the upcoming spring season.'' The Wolfe Nursery chain began in Stephenville in the 1930s. In the 1970s it opened retail outlets, and a few years later, the chain was acquired by Tandy. 

Pier 1 purchased the Wolfe chain in 1975. It added other nursery chains and spun off the group in December of 1985 as Sunbelt. Sunbelt's stock is traded on the American Stock Exchange.

Further reading reveals that the "Wolfe Garden Center" stores inside Sears leasing was a failure, and all of them closed in May 1989. There were nine Sears stores in the (greater?) Houston area alone that included it. Since Sears doesn't tend to have skylights, I can't imagine the plants being very healthy...College Station had a Wolfe Nursery (it was closed longer than it was open, and was eventually rebuilt into a Cavender's)

I wonder if anyone remembers those...

[IronTiger]

I'm wondering if those "two Sears stores" may have not been in Houston. Baybrook Mall was one in Houston, but there are suggestions that it was it:

- Sears in Ross Park Mall, PA, had a McDonald's inside (not Michigan) (link)

- The fact that they mentioned Holiday Plus, which was primarily in the North--they did not mention it anywhere else, and had to refer to it as a "hypermart" because it would be unfamiliar with Houstonians.

- McDonald's didn't sign a contract with Wal-Mart until 1993 (the article was from 1991, so those must have been anamolies).

Baybrook Mall must have been the only other one, a true rarity!

[iliketurtles]

In the latest round of Sears that are closing, Sears' parent company, Sears Holdings, has announced that the Baybrook store is next on the chopping block (while the Mall of the Mainland location continues to survive). The Sears at Baybrook has been there in its current location since the mall opened in 1978. Despite never going to Sears, it's still kinda sad. 

Does anyone have memories of this Sears? Supposedly there used to be a McDonald's inside, but I wasn't sure if it was true.

[mkultra25]

The other Texas store on the latest list of stores to be closed is the one at the former Westwood Mall site. I had no idea that one was still open - I thought it had closed long ago. 

[cspwal]

And yet somehow, the midtown sears lives?

[UtterlyUrban]

I need to go to the midtown Sears.  It must have some kind of magical essence to have survived this long.  They should package its mojo as a cure for cancer.

[IronTiger]

You know, Baybrook Mall's Sears once had a McDonald's INSIDE the store though it's been gone for years now. Anyway, as for a replacement tenant, they should go for something non-traditional. How interesting would it be if they put a Randalls in the mall, with an entrance and everything? It's a stone's throw away from the Randalls where Yeltsin visited, and it can have all the niceties that Albertsons is putting in top-tier stores these days.

[Firebird65]

On 6/25/2017 at 5:35 PM, IronTiger said:

You know, Baybrook Mall's Sears once had a McDonald's INSIDE the store though it's been gone for years now. Anyway, as for a replacement tenant, they should go for something non-traditional. How interesting would it be if they put a Randalls in the mall, with an entrance and everything? It's a stone's throw away from the Randalls where Yeltsin visited, and it can have all the niceties that Albertsons is putting in top-tier stores these days.

 

Why would you want to put a Randall's there?!? Randall's is closing stores, and likely will go the way of Sears itself soon, seeing how Safeway ruined what made Randall's a market leader in Houston before they bought it. I've never been a fan of Randall's... prices were too high, but their stores were always clean, well-staffed and their employees went out of their way for you. If you were willing to pay for it, I could understand why it was so popular. But now, all Randall's offers is high prices. That and how if you forgot the chips on Super Bowl Sunday you can go into one of their stores right before the game and not have to wait in line they are so devoid of customers. 

 

Better to put an HEB or Aldi there... someone with a pulse who's likely to stay around a while rather than someone who might well close the store at a moment's notice.

[Firebird65]

On 6/23/2017 at 3:02 PM, iliketurtles said:

In the latest round of Sears that are closing...

 

I haven't shopped in a Sears in 22 years. I only go into the one in Memorial City Mall because with so few customers, there's always a place to park in front, and that mall is ALWAYS packed. In an era when indoor malls are dying, someone forgot to tell Memorial City. 

 

I refuse to go into Sears because of their insane return policy, at least as of the last time I went there. They wanted, in addition to a receipt (of course) my photo ID, name, address and telephone number, all of which they inputted into the register. I'm not giving them my phone number or address when I have a valid, dated receipt. So I gave them an old phone number I had years before in high school. The clerk inputted it and looked at me funny. "Isabel Rodriguez?" she asked. "That's her," I said, pointing to my Hispanic wife (not named Isabel Rodriguez) next to me. "Oh, OK." I'm surprised she didn't ask my wife for ID as well. 

 

Apparently they had/have some sort of database(s), either of the telephone book or of people who have returned things. No thank you. I had a valid, dated receipt... that should have been enough for 1995. (I do understand why they may want an ID today if the return is going back on a credit or debit card, but they definitely don't need my address or phone number.)

 

I've never been back since. I don't think I've missed anything. 

[IronTiger]

7 hours ago, Firebird65 said:

 

Why would you want to put a Randall's there?!? Randall's is closing stores, and likely will go the way of Sears itself soon, seeing how Safeway ruined what made Randall's a market leader in Houston before they bought it. I've never been a fan of Randall's... prices were too high, but their stores were always clean, well-staffed and their employees went out of their way for you. If you were willing to pay for it, I could understand why it was so popular. But now, all Randall's offers is high prices. That and how if you forgot the chips on Super Bowl Sunday you can go into one of their stores right before the game and not have to wait in line they are so devoid of customers. 

 

Better to put an HEB or Aldi there... someone with a pulse who's likely to stay around a while rather than someone who might well close the store at a moment's notice.

Well, there's no Randalls stores nearby and they can rebuild their market share, it can be an attractive space rather than holding out hope for a Nordstrom or putting something like a second Macy's or Dillard's there (or outright demolishing the space), it can be an attractive and interesting addition to a regional mall, and all that. They have only closed one Houston-area store since the Albertsons takeover, and the independent division status was too small to justify (seeing as how the Tom Thumb stores were re-aligned with the Dallas offices, and the few Louisiana stores were not enough to compensate) along with the DC.

[plumber2]

Sears Holdings owns their building outright, so they will have the first (and possibly the last) word on what tenant will lease the space from them.

[mollusk]

Safeway owns Randall's, and accordingly the remaining Randall's are thinly disguised versions of the chain that failed in Texas more than once.  

 

Sorry, but it is beyond unlikely that a Randall's will put a Sears sized new store there.