avexhype

I agree it wasn't that depressing at first, although I didn't care for the warehouse grocery store concept and still don't. I also remember early on the Express Check-out was a minimum of 35 items. Later they knocked that down to about 15 and opened more than one. I just never had the need to pick up some groceries, milk, produce, canned goods, a set of tires, a mattress, some clothes and a new TV all in the same shopping trip so I didn't get that all-in-one shopping thing. Some people did, apparently.

Years later I learned it had a very good cheese department with good specials, lots of unusual produce, always labeled in English, and a very good selection of beers, import and small brewers like Celis out of Austin, at the best prices anywhere. There was also a pretty good in-store bakery and I bought a couple of name-brand counter top kitchen appliances at excellent prices and a two-wheel utility cart at about 1/4 what it would have cost at HD. Their electronics tended to be off-brand names.

If you want to get an idea of how big it was visit the FoodTown in the same location, between Beechnut and Bellaire on the southbound BW8 feeder; FT occupies about half of the building that housed Auchan and the FT is a very big grocery store. I'd rather have the Auchan back.

I think the main thing that did them in was the big advertising budgets of Walmart and Target; I think they planned to add more stores in Houston which would have justified a bigger ad budget but they waited too late to make their move. A Super Wally World has gone in on the next block along the feeder and I'm surprised FoodTown has survived the competition; there's also a big HEB at Beechnut and a big Viet grocery store, too.

Yes, the Food Town now use to be Auchan. The building is very big. Now part of Food Town is a furniture store. There use to be a McDonalds by the entrance, then a small food court, with Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and a few other restaurants. The bakery department at Auchan was good, their food was always fresh. Food Town still has the ceiling lights auchan had, some rectangular type light. Very late 80 type lights. Its Nostalgia for me.

some photos of how it looks now:

This sign use to show what movies were being shown at the cinema, they cut it in half

T&C was one of the malls where I was asked to stop video taping. In the early 90s I started a project to video tape all of the malls in Houston. Turns out they don't like that.

still got the footage? can you share pleasE?

There is a similar internet forum where a photo of Westheimer is being presented as a negative portrayal of Houston. It is a poster from Dallas who keeps posting it. There are accusations the photo has been altered (with clutter added) because the highrise is too close in the photo, and the intersection doesn't look the same on Google maps street view (location on Westheimer @ Lazy Hollow, approx 8650 Westheimer).

Can some experts weigh in on their opinions?

http://www.city-data.com/forum/7150406-post242.html

http://www.city-data.com/forum/general-u-s...-cities-25.html

http://www.city-data.com/forum/7141406-post38.html

isnt that photo from 1994-1998?

I remember the Foley's at MCM, it was an old gray building. I think they tore it down in 2002. Then they built that newer yellow Foley's which is Macy's now. Im barely 19 too.

I saw a few movies there before they shut down ('99-00?). After that I started going to the one on synott and westheimer. It's been a while, but I recall seeing the same people behind the counter at the windchime on synott that were at the dollar 8 so I assume they bought the windchime. It's a bit more visable from the road than the dollar 8 was (and maybe larger, too).

thanks for the information.

The one you are talking about is still in operation. I go there alot. But the one Im talking about is closed down. There is a Omni Banquet Hall there now. There was an arcade where the hall is now.

I remember Exhilarama. It was so cool. It was an arcade and back then Mortal Kombat 4 was so popular everyone wanted to play it.

The Luby's is still there, and now there is a Pappadeux restaurant in the same parking lot that use to be a DENIS seafood place. How its changed. There is also a new phoenicia foods store there. I use to go there around 1997-2000. I remember watching Mortal Kombat Annihilation there. So Lately I have been going there and just standing in front of the box office, the numbers are still there and the doors still have letters on them. You can see spiderwebs from the outside that are on the inside of the doors. I think now its a storage place because I saw some people walking in there so I walked in there too for about 20 seconds and saw the big screen and lots of building materials there. Maybe next time Ill bribe the guy so he can let me all the way in.

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