H-E-B’s First Two-Story Houston Grocery Store Turns Heads: The Supermarket Wars Are Heating Up

The brand-new Bellaire H-E-B is taking things to the next level — literally. The whopping, 78,000-square-foot grocery store has two floors. It’s more than double the size of the location’s original pantry store, and it’s opening on the double.

You can shop there yourself starting at 6 am today, June 27.

The massive multilevel store at 5106 Bellaire will be the first-ever double-decker H-E-B to open in Houston. It’s the second in Texas, after one in San Antonio. Two other double-talls are coming, one to The Heights and one to Meyerland.

“The two-story locations in Mexico have done well,” Armando Perez, senior vice president of H-E-B Houston, tells PaperCity.

Everything’s bigger in the Lone Star State, including levels of shopping options and a monster parking garage with 225 spots on the covered ground floor and more than 70 spots on the second level.

“We try to build a store for the community. We make sure that the store is what the community is looking for,” Perez says. H-E-B has been in Bellaire for nearly 25 years, and there just wasn’t enough real estate that worked for a single floor.

Cue the savvy second-floor answer, complete with stairs, an elevator, and an escalator.

This mega-market comes to Space City with Texans in mind. “We’re a Texas-based company. We work hard to understand every part of Texas as well as we can,” Perez notes.

Starting off, that means all the basics you can’t live without: H-E-B Curbside service, H-E-B Meal Simple heat-and-eat options, home delivery, a full-service pharmacy, and more.

And then there are the specials. Think the Prime Case Butcher Shop, seafood department, healthy living department, and floral. There’s even Cooking Connection and the Showtime Kitchen, boasting live demonstrations of quick-and-easy recipes. With daily samples, of course.

The Scratch Bakery & Tortilleria will offer organic and artisan goodies such as fresh-baked bread, tortillas made daily, pastries, custom cakes, and more. The Roastery will be an all-new addition, coming after the grand opening. The coffee shop and eatery will have indoor and outdoor seating.

H-E-B has built a lot around satisfying the Texan consumer. There’s even more that’s Texas-tailored. This double-duty H-E-B will have the chain’s largest assortment of Texas-made products. They come in part from H-E-B’s perennial promotion Quest for Texas Best.

Each year, H-E-B invites vendors making products in Texas to submit their goods before a panel of judges. “It’s people making products with Texan palates in mind. We’re helping people doing business in the community, because Texas is different,” Perez says. “The panel determines which ones we are going to support and help them get on the shelves of H-E-B. We’ve done Armadillo eggs, F.U.B.A.R. BBQ Sauce, a lot of small vendors.”

This H-E-B comes in the place of the thrice-flooded Meyerland supermarket. With that in mind, Perez wanted to maintain the broad diversity of Kosher items that location had. That means fresh beef, fresh poultry, fresh dairy and deli items, and the largest selection of non-fresh Kosher products H-E-B has in Houston.

“It’s a commitment we made when we closed the Meyerland store,” Perez says.

H-E-B is out to spotlight other Texans, too. Through a brand-new art initiative, H-E-B will commission custom, site-specific installations for each of its neighborhood stores. “We’re working with local artists,” Perez says.

For the Bellaire behemoth, artist Ansen Seale has created something bright and interactive. “We understand that customers will have the options to either use the stairs, elevators, or escalators,” Perez says. “What we wanted to do is give people that are using the escalators something interesting to look at on the way up.”

The light installation will change colors, leaving vivid streams behind the moving person.

The art installations are sure to bring something unique to each neighborhood H-E-B. And this double-decker certainly brings something unique of its own.