Houston - Food shopping
There are so many wonderful choices throughout the Houston Area when it comes to food shopping. Depending on how much time you have and what you need, you can go to a small convenience store in the neighborhood for a quick visit, or you can go to a big hypermarket where you can find almost everything on household needs and groceries.
Neighborhood stores offer limited but basic food items. The prices are slightly higher than in big markets, except for items on sale on their weekly paper:
Drug stores - Eckerd, Walgreen, CVS and food Market at gas station, small convenience stores
Hypermarket - huge shops with all kinds of selections, not limited to food, their price on the grocery department varies depending on the size of it: Super Walmart, Super K-Mart, Super Target.
Quantity discount warehouse sale, membership required, originally designed for wholesalers: Sam Warehouse, Cosco warehouse
Shopping at a major supermarket is the safe and popular way to go about: General grocery plus some international products with moderate/expensive prices are:
Kroger, Randall's, HEB, Gerlands
General grocery plus a lot of international products especially from Mexico, fresh seafood, moderate price: Fiesta
Specialty grocery stores:
Central Market - trendy, fun, moderate to expensive
Epicurean - expensive, fancy food items
Whole Food - carries natural, organic food products, expensive
Various Asian supermarkets - mostly located at southwest Houston and downtown, offer big fresh seafood a variety of fruit and vegetable and have meat departments in addition to Asian products.
Special services
There are courtesy services at the supermarket customer service departments:
Paying household utility bills
Get yearly registration sticker for your car
Theater/sport/amusement park/special event ticket sales
Buying stamp
Check, Money order cashing
Home delivery
Other services
Get cash back by overdrafting a check more than the grocery amount
Develop or reprint photos
Video rental or purchase
Pharmacy
Weekly sale
Supermarkets have their weekly sale. They start on Wednesday and last for a week. You can find the promotion paper in the mail, Wednesday newspaper or right at the supermarket entrance.
Opening times
Most supermarkets are open seven days a week 6 a.m.-11 p.m. Some supermarkets are open 24/7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week). The hours should be posted on the door. Most grocery stores close early or all day on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day, and other major holidays.
Forms of payments
Many major supermarkets accept cash, checks, debit cards, and credit cards. Most also have bank machines where you can use your Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) card.
When paying by personal checks, a picture ID is asked to be present unless you have the store card.
Most of the time, the cashier does not ask for an ID when paying by credit/debit card. Be careful with the credit card receipt, check if the card number has been printed out due anyone who knows the number can call a mail-order company and charge an order to you.
Store cards …. Discount with store cards
It's almost becoming an essential item to have, when shopping in the major supermarkets in order to enjoy the weekly discounts as well as when paying with a check.
Return policy
Most supermarkets let you return items if they are spoiled or if you have changed your mind. Do not return fresh items such as eggs or milk. Take the item and the sales slip to the customer service department or the store manager. If you don't have the sales slip, they will either let you exchange the item by ones that cost equally or more than your return amount, or issue you a "store credit", which is a store card you can use anytime when shopping in the same store.
For a quick shopping
If you already know what you are looking for, find the store telephone number, call and ask for the customer service department to check if they carry it and ask them to kindly hold it for you.
Coupons
There are coupons that you can cut out from newspapers or advertisements that come with the mail. Coupons give you a discount on a specific item. You can use them for additional discount, even if the store is having sales on that particular item. Sometimes a store has "double" and "triple" coupons, which means you get two or three times the value of the coupon as discount.
There are store coupons can only be used at the same store. Also, there are manufacture coupons you can use in any store. Normally they have a longer expire date than the store coupons.
Rebate
Often manufacturers offer product sales rebate for their survey purpose.
"Unit price"
An easier way to compare two products such as two cans of soup, is comparing the "unit price" on the shelf just below the item number/name. You avoid doing the calculation on different quantities with different prices.
In general the store's own products often cost less and may be just as good as the more famous labels that are sold in many different stores; so, look for the store's own label for easy saving. It was also said that the items placed on the higher and the bottom shelves are generally less expensive due the store puts the more profit return ones on our eye catching level shelves.
Butchers
- Chain Rice Epicurian Markets
Houston
Texas
USA - Quarto di vacca
opposite Kathy Mills
Kathy
Texas
USA - Texas Wild Game Cooperative
Broken Arrow Ranch
Ingram
Texas
USA
Tel: 1 800 962 4263
Sales by catalogue - La Bocherie
2531 Amherst
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 528 1477 - Cooke’s Gourmet Inc
2800 Kirby Dr
Houston
Texas
Tel: + 1 (713) 529 3355 - Pete’s Fine Meat
5509 Richmond
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 782 3470
Cakes and pastries
- Andre’s Swiss Candies
2515 River Oaks
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 524 3863 - Roland’s Swiss Pastry and Tea Room
6504 Del Monte
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 785-4294 - La Madeleine
5015 Westheimer
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 993 0287
Chain - always call for the store nearest you
Birthday cakes
Most of the grocery stores have a pastry section where you can buy cakes 'off the shelf'. Alternatively, you may order a cake to a specific theme of design. These include Albertsons, Randalls, Kroger, HEB, Walmart, Target etc.
In a specialist shop, worth visiting to marvel at the designs alone, cakes start at $18.00 and although more expensive than ‘off the shelf’ in the grocery store, are worth the extra for special situations.
The shop is situated in a quant traditional row - worth telephoning for directions and shop opening hours as it is quite tucked away:
- Julies Cakes
3434 FM (Farm Road) 1092
Missouri City #230
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 ( 281) 261 8229
Chain - always call for the store nearest you - La Madeleine
6205 Kirby
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 942 7081
Ice cream cakes
This is another favorite alternative if you think of the Houston climate...
- Baskin Robbins
Westheimer
Houston
Texas
USA
A chain of ice cream shops with locations on Westheimer and Bellaire amongst others, which supplies ice cream cakes to order, as well as some available ‘off the shelf’-products. - Marble Slab
Westheimer
Houston
Texas
USA
They have branches at 15 plus locations in Southwest Houston
Bread
- French Riviera Bakery
3032 Chimney Rock
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 468 6366 - Chain La Madeleine
4002 Westheimer
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 623 0645 - Whole Food Market
11145 Westheimer
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 784 7776 - La Madeleine
6500 Woodway
Houston
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 722 8449
West African grocery stores
Looking for "fufu" in Houston? Here is where to find it!
West African grocery stores are mainly located close to southwest Houston. Do you have a favourite shop that is not in the list? Let us know!
- CaribsAfrik
14901 Bellaire Blvd
Houston
77083
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (281) 498 9056/+ 1 (281) 498 9057 - Zamaani
2111 Holy Hall Street
Houston
77054
Texas
USA
Tel: + 1 (713) 790 0012
