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Randall's History


IronTiger

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So, I was re-ordering the pictures of the old Albertsons on my blog, which closed in 2011 but opened in 1991 as a Randall's. I realized that when the store opened, it did not sell beer or wine!

 

I wondered if it was originally the coffee bar or the gourmet pizza counter of the original store, which got me wondering...

 

Does anyone have any picture of Randall's in Houston before their sale to Safeway?

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Hmm I don't but I have an interesting piece of trivia! There is a Randall's on Weslayan @ Bissonnet. Under this Randall's is a basement. Quite a rare sight in Houston. It's been there at least as long as the store has. Which originally opened I believe in the 60's as a Weingartens. The basement was originally where all the offices, employee restrooms, break rooms etc where. Now it's mostly gutted although the bakery and deli are quite small and use the main rooms as storage. The only problem with this is flooding when there are heavy rains.

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That location was a Weingartens and it was around in the 50s and later was a part of Montclair Center.  They had a neat cicular "river of grease" donut machine.  How many Randall's in Houston were originally Handy Andy stiores?  My brother worked at one at Westheimer and Gesner in the mid 70s...

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I remember the Handy Andy stores, they were a really nice break from the monotony of Houston grocery stores at the time.  IIRC, they were an experiment by HEB, long before they succeeded with Central Market and the new upscale HEB stores.

 

I remember seeing Truman Capote in the checkout lane at the one on Voss, during the time when he was researching a book here.  A friend saw Barbara Bush there several times.  My mom shopped there a lot, but I guess no one recognized her :-)

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Handy Andy had to have come to the Houston market around 1971 or 72. I remember this becuase I was dating a girl in high school whose family had just moved here from San Antonio. Her and her mother were so excited about the stores coming to Houston, because that was their favorite back home. The store on Gessner was the one they shopped at.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The 1407 S Voss Flagship Randalls (former Handy Andy) is now in the process of being demolished. No idea what the plans are.  I predict they'll probably build apartments. This would keep in line with the arbitrary need to tear down apartments to build grocery stores (new Fountainview HEB), and tear down grocery stores to build apartments (the most likely fate of the old Fountainview HEB since they're not going to lease to another grocery store).

 

At least it seems like no one from S Voss lost their jobs, I've seen the old night cashier running self checkouts at the Gessner Randalls, and one of the pharmacists somewhere else, and I think this one bagger went to San Felipe I'm not sure. (can you tell I visit a lot of Randalls? they all seem to be right here and nowhere else, if I don't pass at least 1 or 2 Randalls on my way home from work, then it's impossible for me to be going home!)

 

The other really similar looking Randalls/Handy Andy store on FM 1960 was remodeled several years ago, but the original building was never demolished. Outside, it looks like a modern building, but inside you can still tell that the roof is sloped. I don't know if Gessner had the sloped roof and all of that but I have an old pic of it with a fairly modern looking exterior before it was demolished.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/28784966@N02/sets/72157635093809286/

 

I like how in the first photo there is a completely disconnected part of the wall still standing. The third photo is really interesting. You can see through the side exit door to the pile of rubble and the blue sky. They gutted out the store from the back wall it seems, but the other walls stood on their own, even without much of a roof left. Seems like it was well built. I know it held up a lot better during Ike than the San Felipe store, which if I recall was missing a big chunk out of the front.

 

I assume the whole lot is rubble or cleared off now, haven't been by there since last week.

 

I think Safeway had actually planned on keeping/remodeling 1013 because recently they did a kind of light remodel on the San Felipe store, setting up a new "gift card center", arbitrarily replacing aisle signage that wasn't very old, adding extra carts that I assume they brought over, and because some of the pallets of new stuff I saw were marked with "SEND TO 1013" quite clearly despite 1013 already being closed. Seems to me like they kind of wanted to keep that store but they either got too stingy or the landlord got too greedy. Who knows.

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Looks like Whole Foods is building on the lot vacated by Randalls at Voss and Woodway.  Moving the nearby store to a new, larger building, right across from Trader Joe's.

 

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/woodway

 

Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are headed for a death match.  In a number of places they have tended to locate very close to one another (eg Alabama/Shepherd and Alabama/Kirby).

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I'm not sure Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are in a death match......they are very different and in many ways complementary. WF tries to be the biggest "green", full service grocer at a premium price, while Trader Joe's are smaller niche stores focusing on interesting, some what eclectic products with very competitive house brands...not surprising since they are owned by part of the Aldi family.

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Well, we already knew Randalls was closing there, and of course, when I started this thread, no one could've guessed the Safeway/Albertsons merger, which will undoubtedly change the landscape of the future of the store in Houston. Will it save it? Who knows.

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Looks like Whole Foods is moving into the space vacated by Randall's at Westheimer and Wilcrest.

 

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2014/07/whole-foods-to-open-new-store-on-westheimer/

 

They'll be moving from a smaller space across the street.

 

Now if they would just put a Trader Joes in the remaining space.  I would love that since I live near there and sometimes go to TJ's on Voss. 

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Now if they would just put a Trader Joes in the remaining space.  I would love that since I live near there and sometimes go to TJ's on Voss. 

 

That would be a great idea.  We've already pretty much got all the major grocery retailers nearby anyway.  Just need TJ and Aldi's.

 

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Do you have bring your own bags at TJs?

 

No, but you don't have the plastic option. I went to Trader Joe's Friday and got the goods (candied ginger, chocolate covered espresso beans, and the much-vaunted cookie butter) and have it all in a paper bag with handles.

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  • 2 months later...

Was the Midtown Randalls the last Randalls opened? I don't think Safeway opened anymore after the first round of 2005 closings.

 

Note: the Midtown Randalls opened in 2002.

 

I don't know if this counts, but 3 or 4 years ago the Randall's at the corner of Gessner and Westheimer was completely torn down and rebuilt.  I believe that there may have been some built in the suburbs as well.

 

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Was the Midtown Randalls the last Randalls opened? I don't think Safeway opened anymore after the first round of 2005 closings.

 

Note: the Midtown Randalls opened in 2002.

 

Opened as in whatever was on the property before wasn't a Randalls? Or opened as in a new store was built. The store at 9660 Westheimer Rd was completely torn down, and rebuilt. (I think the rest of the shopping center was rebuilt as well, although some of just may have been re-skinned).

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Opened as in whatever was on the property before wasn't a Randalls? Or opened as in a new store was built. The store at 9660 Westheimer Rd was completely torn down, and rebuilt. (I think the rest of the shopping center was rebuilt as well, although some of just may have been re-skinned).

 

Opened as in new store that wasn't replacing anything. The store at 9660 Westheimer looks like it was a former Handy Andy that they expanded later, and that was rebuilt several years after 2005. But I think the Midtown location was the last brand-new Randalls ever built.

 

New stores in the 'burbs seem dubious. Barker-Cypress and 290 opened in 2001, and the ones in the Woodlands have been there since the early 1990s. 

 

I think that's a partial reason why their market share dropped, because their stores have been disappearing faster than they've opened, and the reason why a pullout was rumored was because Safeway seemed to be in trouble, dumping their entire doomed Chicago division (Dominick's). Now that the merger is going through and Randalls will be maintained as a Houston division (at least for now, I could imagine that the divisions themselves will start consolidating), it's not quite as hopeless as it appeared to be. Restoring consumer confidence, remerchandising, and rebuilding the base should happen first. [There's still a lot to be worked out at Albertsons, including trying to work out a consistent store brand, since they outsourced a lot of their distribution. I have a feeling that Safeway's store brands may be the winner ultimately]

 

I hope that since it appears that the new Albertsons/Safeway is trying to go for everyday low prices rather than the quasi-upscale approach that the old Albertsons and Safeway took to an extent, maybe Randalls could even go into poorer areas where even the great H-E-B phones it in on. (The remerchandising of the Gulfgate store in particular).

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The first one to close opened in the late 80s and early 90s  West Bellfort and Gessner when Fondren South West started to go down hill it did not even last 5 yrs if I remember correctly nothing ever open in its place.  2nd one to close was the one Fondren and Bissonnet also in a ghetto area nothing open in it pace

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Opened as in new store that wasn't replacing anything.

 

Found one! Although it's not in Houston.. It's in the strange foreign land of Austin. Located at 5145 FM 620 Austin, Tx. While it's kind of difficult to spot in Streetview with this part of Texas being the hill country and all. You can use the historical street view to confirm that nothing was there before. It was opened in 2012, and seems to have been a sort of underwhelming grand opening. This was the only bit of "news" I could find about it.

 

While searching I also found another "newly" opened Randall's this one was opened in 2004. Also in Austin at 2051 Gattis School Road. I wanted to point this one out, because it looks REALLY nice for a Randall's. It doesn't look just like another bland Lifestyle store. Also checking historic imagery on Google Earth shows that this store did not replace anything.

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So glad the bland Lifestyle renovations that Safeway coated their stores with are going away. The new store remodels coming out of Albertsons look pretty nice (previous remodels tended to be bland or tacky) but it will take a bit to reach Randalls. Either way, despite the market share erosion, they're not down yet!

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That's good to hear, now if they can only fix the multitude of other issues with the company maybe they wont vanish!

 

I thought about this for the first time today since quitting there. I remembered how crazy they where about checkout times. I understand that they're a priority but they would do stuff like announce over the PA that customers could check out in the deli, without checking how busy we were first. They were so damn concerned about secret shoppers departments would fight with each other if it meant improving their shops...

 

Also I found some VHS's from the old Randall's Video Rental Service, I took some pictures of them to show labels/markings. I could post those if you're interested.

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