Rice grocery stores had some low end stores for a while called PriceBuster. Mervyns also high tailed it outta Dodge, I mean Houston. One of my favorites was Childrens Palace. It was a toy store. There was also a Highlands Appliance & Electronics store here too. Some folks are getting takeovers/mergers/buyouts confused due to the fact that when a store pulls out of the market, there is usually a competitor ready to buy up as many of the locations as possible. A good example is Venture. When they left Houston, KMart was able to get the largest amount of locations and open their stores in them. Eagle, Gemco, Pharmor, Weiners, Montgomery Wards, Woolco, Woolworth & Globe are some of the many that just closed up shop and weren't bought or taken over by anyone.