Fiesta Fresh Market (Conroe, Texas)

This is from Google Maps Street View but I've decided to capture it in 16:9 to show all the details.
Fiesta Mart has gone through various merchandising and ideas over the years, including just being a supermarket focused on Hispanic foods, to being a low-price leader, to having interesting store concepts that rival Randalls and Kroger, to exploring new concepts and formats. Fiesta #81, originally branded as "Fiesta Fresh Market" was one of the last "original" Fiesta stores under the original ownership (the link talks about Fiesta #82) and was one of these concept stores. Opening in Conroe in November 2013, it was far smaller than most of the stores in the chain and was basically designed as a "specialty" Fiesta with a deli and bakery fit among its 22,000 square feet of space. Located at 210 East Davis Street it is near downtown Conroe and required a redevelopment of the block.

The buildings that were demolished included Smith's Tire & Lube (202 East Davis Street), Moore Furniture (105 E. Philips Street), and the vacant Heilig-Meyers Furniture (110 E. Philips Street, which closed in 2001).

Smith's had been there for a long time, it was built in 1966 as Smith's Mobil, became a Texaco in 1973, and shuttered in 1990 (moving to I-45), reopening as Smith's Tire & Lube in 1991. Heilig-Meyers Furniture is a visibly old building that dates back decades (1950s or 1960s but I haven't found much on it).

The logo wasn't the only thing that new ownership changed, in a nod to both older roadside attractions and in some way's Fiesta's own past, a blinking light marquee was at ground level near the entrance. This went away between 2017 and 2018.

I have not personally been to this store, unfortunately, but I remember reading about it and thinking that it was a good idea since I remember the Fiesta bakery being great--telera rolls, dirt-cheap apple fritters (25 cents, even in 2014), and a bunch of other stuff. These days probably not so much...

This entry is an expanded version of what originally appeared on this page ("Davis Street in Conroe").

Fiesta Mart #17 (Houston, Texas)

Fiesta at night (2017). This is from Google and "Yelper Lou MC". Not mine, fair use.
As part of the on-going reorganization of some of the stuff I've written for Carbon-izer, I wanted to bring up the former Fiesta Mart at 4200 San Jacinto Street in Houston, Texas.

My fondest memories of the former Fiesta Mart #17 (45k square feet) was in 2014 with its distinctive "marquee" facade that lit up the night, and even in 2014 that felt quaint and a reminder of a different time (though it did open in 1988, there were other places from my past that weren't nearly as old as I thought they were). In any case, this Fiesta closed in July 2020. The closure of Fiesta was met by dismay by the neighborhood but there were several problems, including Fiesta's new ownership remerchandising and modernizing the chain, the large homeless population that milled around the area and intimidated shoppers (sometime in 2019 a fence was erected around the property with a gate that closed nightly), the new H-E-B at McGregor Road, and most importantly--the fact that it was connected to Sears' ownership. The store had opened as a supermarket complement to Sears on land it owned formerly used for parking. When Sears closed the store in the late 2010s and handed it over to Rice, Fiesta was on borrowed time and eventually the lease ran out and was not renewed. With the former Sears becoming the core of the new "Innovation District", the former Fiesta reopened as Greentown Labs, a clean energy business incubator. It should also be noted that since at least 2007 to its closure it had a Church's Chicken inside.


Update: I have been informed that the land was originally Rice's, Sears leased it long-term.