Great Find

This weekend I decided to venture to the new Kroger Marketplace in Richmond. Our friend Jill said they had knockout roses for $9.99, so I took a little trip. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. This store was over the top. I got to talking to one of the employees there, and I found out it is currently the only Marketplace store in all of Texas. Richmond, Texas was chosen to host the Marketplace because of it is a tremendous growth area. Bill Breetz, president of Kroger’s southwest division, jokingly described the newest Kroger Marketplace as “the Signature store on steroids.”

It is definitely amped. The Marketplace store is 125,000 square feet of space created to offer customers a “one-stop shopping” experience. Located near the Waterside subdivision at Grand Parkway and Mason Road in Richmond, it offers the Signature style grocery section in about ½ the store, a furniture and home section, a Fred Meyer Jewelry store, a health clinic staffed by a nurse practitioner and physician’s assistant, a pharmacy, and a toy section with more than 1,200 toys to choose from. The new concept store is definitely geared to compete with the other top stores, Wal-Mart and H-E-B.  The Home section includes Ashley Furniture and HD Designs, as well as appliances from Oster, Black & Decker and Kitchen Aid. Kroger even delivers furniture to the customer’s home.  There is a “Chef on the Run” section that offers prepared foods, a salsa bar with fresh salsa and guacamole made daily, a sushi bar, a seafood department with live lobsters, and even the meat department is complete with fresh-cut buffalo.  The beverage selection is vast with 1,675 varieties of wine, 500 varieties of beer and a create your own six-pack of specialty beers. There is also a make-it-yourself milkshake machine for those with a sweeter tooth. All this is available from 6am to 1am. And if that isn't impressive enough, the store brought more than 350 jobs to the area.

We are getting another H-E-B in Katy, it seems to follow the Carr family wherever we live, but we are not complaining. These superstores are great! Talk in the Pin Oak rumor mill says the store will open in June. It is hard to believe there use to be only 2 grocery stores in Katy when my family moved here in 1988, the original Brookshire Bros. on Avenue D and Gerlands on Mason Road. Things sure do change quickly.