Street View from 2018. The old Safeway "Food" and "Drug" signs were removed by 2022.
Outside of Houston, Dallas, and their immediate suburbs, Kroger supermarkets become quite rare in Texas, especially heading into the East Texas/Davy Crockett Forest area. So it was a bit of a surprise to come across a Kroger in Henderson, Texas. It didn't look like a Kroger initially; my suspicions it was a Dallas Division Safeway that was sold to Kroger in 1987 were gradually confirmed. I later found out the Safeway opened in 1980, relocating from an older 1960s store at 102 Richardson Drive which in turn relocated from an even
older store at 212 Van Buren.
I took a few pictures (I didn't actually buy anything initially, though I did end up buying a new and overpriced USB/Thunderbolt cable here (still overpriced) as mine in my car decided to stop working.)
The Safeway "roundel", as
Houston Historic Retail would call it, was filled in with a Kroger logo (the good one that was retired a few years ago).
For a 44 year old building, it's still in fairly good shape. With the exception of the interior, it appears that all other Safeway elements have been removed. The ceiling transition used to have angled yellow tile instead of the abrupt transition it now has. Guest Care was in a booth - the area it's in now was the photo center. The alcove at the back of produce was floral. Since Brookshire Bros. left Henderson over a liquor license dispute (too close to a school) and WD left the area, this is pretty much it other than Walmart for them.
ReplyDeleteI failed to mention - my family shopped here a lot when it first opened. We went the first week after they moved from Richardson Dr., which ironically became Brookshire Bros after they moved from the original Safeway on Van Buren, before they moved down the hill to the former Kmart.
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