H-E-B confirms a Fort Worth grocery store; will be its second in Tarrant County

Jenny Rudolph

H-E-B confirmed Wednesday that it will break ground on its first store in Fort Worth, to open in 2024.

The location is in Alliance, in Far North Fort Worth, where there has been months of speculation about a shopping center being built on land owned by H-E-B. A groundbreaking is set for Nov. 16.

The Alliance store is the second that H-E-B has confirmed for Tarrant County. In August, the San Antonio-based retailer announced it will open an H-E-B in Mansfield, about 20 minutes south of Fort Worth. A groundbreaking there is expected in early 2023.

The Alliance store is at 3451 Heritage Trace Parkway, across the street from a Kroger Marketplace. It is just east of Interstate 35.

News about the Fort Worth H-E-B first leaked in June, when a property developer announced smaller retailers coming to a new shopping center in Alliance Town Center. The developer mentioned H-E-B would be the anchor tenant but quickly backtracked, saying the grocery store wasn’t confirmed. For months, H-E-B declined to comment.

The site is north of Heritage Trace, on the east side of Hillwood Parkway and adjacent to Bluestem Park. The construction will be part of a 30,000-square-foot food and entertainment destination in the “heart of Alliance Town Center,” the developers have said.

Adjacent businesses will include Torchy’s, CAVA and Black Rifle coffee shop.

Construction crews in June work on a shopping center on Heritage Trace Parkway, between Hillwood Parkway and North Riverside Drive, near where Fort Worth’s first H-E-B grocery store will be located.
Construction crews in June work on a shopping center on Heritage Trace Parkway, between Hillwood Parkway and North Riverside Drive, near where Fort Worth’s first H-E-B grocery store will be located.

No two H-E-Bs are the same

Through the chain’s expansion across Texas, H-E-B established trust and brand resonance with new customers by tailoring product offerings specific to the geographic area.

This means no two H-E-B locations are exactly the same, setting the chain apart from nationwide competitors like Walmart and Kroger.

H-E-B utilizes a hyperlocal marketing strategy that involves background research to understand the education, income and race demographics of a surrounding area, said Alexandrea Merrell, director of strategic communications at New York City-based Orndee PR. This strategy allows H-E-B to cater to the specific needs of the community and creates a tremendous sense of brand loyalty in customers, she said.

Many shoppers say they travel to H-E-B for its extensive array of private-label brands for everything from Texas-themed coffee to jalapeno-cheddar sausage, as well as affordable ready-to-cook meals, huge meat selections and made-in-Texas products.

Texas flags over the cash registers as customers wait to check out at the H-E-B in Hudson Oaks in 2021.
Texas flags over the cash registers as customers wait to check out at the H-E-B in Hudson Oaks in 2021.

H-E-B’s expansion in North Texas

Fort Worth already has a Central Market, H-E-B’s gourmet food store, which carries some of the private-label brands found in H-E-Bs.

Privately owned H-E-B has been growing aggressively in North Texas. It will open a Plano location on Nov. 2, about a month after it opened an H-E-B in Frisco.

An H-E-B worker slices cheese for charcuterie boards offered at its newest location in Frisco, Texas, on Sept. 20.
An H-E-B worker slices cheese for charcuterie boards offered at its newest location in Frisco, Texas, on Sept. 20.

H-E-B has been buying up land throughout North Texas for several years. It already has grocery stores in Burleson, Granbury, Cleburne and Hudson Oaks, inched closer to Tarrant County, but Mansfield’s new store will be the first to cross county lines.

H-E-B Grocery Company LP has more than 420 stores and 145,000 employees across Texas and Mexico. H-E-B sees $34 billion in annual sales and is the largest food retailer and private employer in Texas.

It started in 1905 with a small family-run grocery store in Kerrville, about 100 miles west of Austin. Florence Butt started the store, and her son Howard Edward Butt took over management in 1919, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

Butt failed multiple times trying to expand in central Texas before succeeding in the late 1920s with new stores in Del Rio and the Rio Grande valley, which he began to call H.E. Butt Grocery Company. By the late 1940s, he changed the chain name to H-E-B, after his initials.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, H-E-B became the leading food retailer in central and south Texas with more than 80 stores. The company has been passed through the Butt family over the 117 years since its founding.

The company also operates 10 Central Market gourmet grocery stores in each of the state’s four largest metros, and two Mi Tienda Mexican grocery stores in Houston. The company says it is “rapidly expanding” its H-E-B Wellness primary care and nutrition clinics in Texas, currently in the Austin and San Antonio markets, with a model that provides affordable, straight-forward pricing and an option of monthly subscriptions.

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