Whole Foods Market on Bellaire Boulevard (Houston, Texas)

This entry was previously found on Carbon-izer (this page, originally--archived here) with updates.

The Whole Foods Market at 4004 Bellaire Boulevard has an interesting history. The first recorded tenant for this address was Henke & Pillot (#17) back in 1949. In 1961, Henke & Pillot closed the store down (big changes were coming for Henke & Pillot—by the end of the 1960s they would take on their corporate parent's name...Kroger!). In 1963, it opened as FedMart, which by this time had dropped the membership requirement from its foundings back in California. The Bellaire FedMart was different from the Mykawa and Wirt stores in the early days. It had different times of operation (opening and closing earlier in the day), smaller (and had less advertised items available), and lacked a rail spur, which the other two had. The store closed around 1979 (FedMart would leave Houston and go out of business within a few years after that). In 1980, "The Grocery Store", a locally-owned discount supermarket opened in the space. The store was a bare-bones discount grocer, it didn't accept checks, had no perishables, and bag-your-own groceries and survived most of the 1980s. (Houston Historic Retail later covered The Grocery Store in more detail).

The Grocery Store talked it up in advertisements. (Houston Chronicle, 4/16/86). Ye Seekers (also known as Seekers) opened in 1991 (1992?). This full-service natural foods store featured a meat department, deli, bulk foods, cosmetics, beer & wine, seafood, bakery, and even a restaurant. Around 1998 it closed, and in 2000, it was absorbed, along with a defunct exercise gym and a Discovery Zone, into a Whole Foods Market, which also adapted the marquee of Bellaire Theater (in the same strip center) as part of the supermarket's signage. This was the most significant change 4004 Bellaire had ever seen, with its outdated loading facilities also rebuilt.

Google Street View can be found here.

UPDATE 08-21-2025: Advertisement added as part of site upgrades.