Greenspoint Mall, the long awaited update. 2017 was a very tough year for the mall. The last 2 large retail anchors closed. Macy's pulled out in March, and Dillard's in December. 2018 saw the loss of the last junior anchor Palais Royal. The interior of the mall still has a decent amount of stores mostly in the center of the mall. All of the corridors leading to former anchors are mostly empty or blocked off.
Owners of different pieces of the mall property cannot come to an agreement on what to do with the property so it sits in limbo. The owners of the Macy's want the building to become a storage facility and a truck stop built in front of the store along the highway. The owners of the Dillard's want to turn the building into a restaurant distribution business. The other owners have different plans for the property and don't want the truck stop or other developments. The future of the mall will not be retail, but for now the mall continues to operate.
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Montgomery Ward was demolished in 2017 while the Macy's was in the process of closing.
Here is the building in the process of being torn apart. The first set of images were taken in March 2017.
Here is the view from the inside of the mall where the entrance to the above Montgomery Ward was located. This part of the corridor was blocked off right where I was standing. It has since been reopened.
More from the Montgomery Ward corridor.
Using the former cinema poster frames to advertise the newer cinema.
The Macy's wing as it stood prior to the store closing in March 2017. This corridor has now been walled off with a window to peek inside.
The store on the right, moved to another location within the mall. The rest of the stores located in this wing may have closed.
Cinema corridor, former JCPenney.
The center fountain, still in use as of December 2018.
Former Mervyn's entrance. The Fitness Connection only has exterior access.
Store fronts near the former Mervyn's. This one was a Circus World toy store.
The Dillard's corridor. Surprisingly many of the closed off stores have been walled off in this part of the mall after these photos were taken.
GNC, still there as of December 2018.
Inside of one of the closed stores.
Roof damage, it is even worse in 2018.
Dillard's closed early while the store was still in business.
The former Sears corridor. Most of the corridor is walled off.
Food court was a little more lively, but not nearly as good as it was 10 years ago.
The second entrance to the former Mervyn's, located across from the food court.
A former Babbage's store.
More of the food court.
This corridor and the corridor towards Macy's are the busiest parts of the mall with few vacancies. That still continues to be the case in 2018.
The playground was closed and this area is now walled off. Hard to get families to shop at a mall without anything for the kids to do.
The mall was about to close for the night at this point.
This store closed in 2018. This was the last large retail store left at the mall.
More views of the Montgomery Ward.
Sears still had the lights on their property. That is no longer the case.
Visit in the Summer of 2017 just before the Macy's corridor was walled off.
The cinema which sits on the lot where the JCPenney once stood.
Early 2018 visit. Dillard's closed in December 2017.
The inside of the former Dillard's.
This former FYE store was being used for a temporary office. It was cool that the neon is still working.
More of the former Dillard's corridor.
Former Montgomery Ward entrance.
The walled of former Macy's corridor.
A peek inside of the open door.
The Macy's after less than a year of being closed was already looking terrible.
Gotta love the Foley's labelscar though.
Graffiti and broken windows.
The patch of land where the Montgomery Ward once stood.
The Montgomery Ward auto center. The building is in use once again as of December 2018.
The new cinema stands out against the old mall.
Former Sears.
Sad when you have to advertise that the mall is open.
The Fitness Connection seems to do well. Lots of cars on every visit to the mall that I have made.
Former Dillard's/ Joske's.
Former Sears Auto Center, check out the red trim around the building. The mall entrance had a similar trim.
Sears at night with the skyscraper background.
December 2018, Christmas shopping season in full force.
Lots of ceiling damage.
I wonder when the last time this room was used.
They made sure the mall was well decorated for Christmas.
Food court is down to 3 restaurants.
Friday night and light foot traffic through the mall.
Fountain still going strong.
Wards wing, unblocked for full access. Only 2 stores left in this whole wing.
More ceiling damage.
Ward labelscar still visible.
The former Macy's and Cinema court still has a decent amount of stores despite the Macy's corridor now being blocked off.
A look inside of the now blocked off corridor through the window at the entry doors.
A view inside of the now closed Palais Royal store. This was the last retail junior anchor left at the mall.
More views of the food court.
The former Dillard's wing. 5 stores left and the military recruiting center.
Inside of the former Dillard's that closed about a year prior to this trip.
More ceiling damage is visible in this wing.
This view of the military recruiting areas makes the mall almost look full.
The former Sears and the background skyscrapers with Christmas colors.
Lots of new articles coming soon!
Here is a sneak preview on YouTube.
Thanks for the article and the many photos. Although I drive by this mall somewhat frequently on I-45, I have not been in it since around 2014 or 2015. I also have not kept up with all the news about the mall. I must have forgotten about Palais Royal closing if I even knew about it at all. Palais Royal, like GNC, is usually one of the last hold outs at dying malls. In fact, they've stayed open at a few malls which have closed. It's not a good sign that even they have thrown in the towel, but Stage hasn't done particularly well lately as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThe food court has certainly gone downhill compared to my last visit to the mall a few years ago, but I guess that's to be expected with some nearby businesses leaving the Greenspoint area and thus there are fewer people eating their during their lunch breaks. The food court still looks nice, but there's not much in it now it seems.
It's nice to see the old Babbage's once again. I can just see the area up front which had monitors with NES/Genesis/SNES games playing on them. I can't remember for sure now, but did the Babbage's become an Electronics Boutique/EB Games or was EB in a different location?
It looks like the old Oshman's/Anna's Linens has a new tenant, but it still looks just like an Oshman's from around the time the mall was new. It's nice that the mall was well decorated for Christmas, but I'm guessing most of those decorations are probably from the 1990s. The mall was in poor physical condition with leaks and such during my visits to the mall even in the early 2010s. I can't imagine how much worse it must be now. That dark corridor where the GNC is almost looks scary to shop in.
Anyway, we'll have to see what happens to this mall. There still seems to be a core of small businesses which have operated at this mall for a number of years now. Thus, I guess this mall still must have some shopper traffic in it. The closing/shortening of some of the corridors will help make the mall feel less spread out and isolated, but it probably won't fool many people into thinking it's a healthy mall. We'll have to see what happens to the place. It wouldn't surprise me if some sort of development happens in the next couple of years, but things could stall out and the mall may continue to operate in deteriorating conditions for perhaps several more years. Who knows, it's really hard to say what the best path forward is. Warehouses and industrial park usage might not be a bad plan for the old anchors.
On a final note, I'm glad that the blog is still around for 2019. Some of the retail blogs, like the Acme Style blog, have closed down, but there are still some which are active even 10 years after the big wave of retail blogs in 2008-9. A lot has changed since then as far as Houston malls go and I'm sure there will be more closures in the next few years unfortunately.
Palais Royal is also closing their store at Deerbrook Mall. I guess the company is getting rid of their abundance of retail stores. Greenspoint has lost a lot of retailers, but the center of the mall still does okay.
DeleteThe Pizza place at the mall seems to do well, but the other restaurants don't seem to attract a lot of customers at least at night. The food court ceiling also has water damage even though it appears nice.
Greenspoint had an Electronics Boutique right next to the Circus World. It was there in the early 90's. I am not sure if the Babbage's ever changed names like the San Jacinto Mall location did.
The store in the former Oshman's was right next to the Macy's before they closed. Shortly after Macy's closed. they moved to that location.
I can see Greenspoint sticking around for a few more years like Northwest did after losing all of the anchors. There seems to be no real plan on getting the mall property redeveloped so the owners can make some money while the interior remains open. There is just so much vacancy outside of the center of the mall, that a lot of people are creeped out to shop there.
I have enough photos ready to fill the blog for at least another year and then some. There has been a sort of rush to visit and document Sears and Kmart locations as they continue to vanish.
Palais Royal has been closing stores over the last few years. The store in Dickinson closed after Harvey and presumably isn't coming back. Granted, the Mall of the Mainland Palais Royal is just a few miles away and is a much nicer store. I think Stage's Gordmans format would be more popular than the Palais Royal format. Perhaps we'll see some stores change formats here in the next few years.
DeleteI can't say that I'm shocked that the Deerbrook Mall Palais Royal is closing. Palais Royal seems to have left many of the more successful malls already. The Willowbrook Mall Palais Royal closed many years ago.
I can't say for sure, but I seem to remember a software/gaming store near the Oshman's at one time. That may have been the same location you're talking about or maybe it was a Software, Etc. or something. I think the old AT&T Phone Center (landland phone store) was near that area too.
You're probably right that the mall will carry on as is until there is an actual development plan. These things can take years to iron out and the economy is still probably not strong enough to push massive developments. It's good to see that there is still a solid core of independent retailers who are successful at the mall.
It's a shame that the food court has some physical problems too. I did eat at the Roman Delight Pizza the last time I was at the mall (or one of the last times at least). I think that chain is in some of the other malls in the area. It's fine, but overpriced for what it is like most mall pizzas except for the one that used to be at Northwest Mall before it closed. Greenspoint Mall used to be known for the Brother's Pizza location which used to be in the food court, but that's been gone for a long time now.
It's good to see that there will be new content on the blog this year. Hopefully we won't have to look at closed Sears and Kmart locations. Either way, it'll be interesting to see the current state of the remaining stores. While there are a handful of Sears still in this area, the number of Kmart stores in this region is getting quite small.
Palais Royal does not announce closings like some department store chains do. The Gordman's conversions were the only store closings I can remember seeing a story about. They have too many locations as it is, so we will probably see more close.
DeleteMemories are hazy so you may be right about the store by the fountain at Greenspoint being a Software Etc. The Brothers Pizza place was pretty good from what I can remember. I also remember the Wendy's and Quiznos that were there as well. How things quickly change, that food court was one of the best and now it is barely alive.
I am going to do my best to catch up on new posts. I really want to make another trip to Louisiana to document the last Kmart and possibly even go to Gulfport MS location about an hour away. Both of those Kmart stores are the last in each of those states. Either way, I have a bunch of things to put together so I may slow down on the documentation so I can get caught up.
It's really sad that in the Chicagoland suburbs, there are only 4 malls with fountains. We have about 22 malls in Chicago and suburbs so that's a lot of malls without fountains. I don't understand why these malls get rid of fountains, there one enjoy while going to a mall and some people take pictures of the mall fountain when it's running. That shows that mall fountains are very popular with the general shopping public to this day, they should be brought back to malls across the country.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. Even a lot of the boring lifestyle centers have some sort of fountain feature. I guess the mall owners would rather see annoying kiosk salespeople than create a peaceful environment in their malls.
DeleteWe have 5 malls here with fountains. The Galleria, Willowbrook, Greenspoint, Plaza Paseo and Baybrook. San Jacinto had two up until a couple of years ago, when they were shut down and filled with plants. I am not even sure if Plaza Paseo still turns their fountains on.
Almeda Mall had a fountain near the JCPenney (now Burlington), but it closed many years ago and was tiled over so that it looked like there was never anything there. When the mall was recently renovated, the area where the fountain was because a children's play area. That's certainly not as nice as a fountain, but hopefully the children will have good memories later on of the play areas.
DeleteOTOH, the Northwest Mall fountain was operational until the mall closed. Given that, and the fact that the Greenspoint Mall fountain still works, it must not be too expensive to operate those fountains. I'm not sure how they work, they must recycle the water through the fountain or something to keep the water costs down.
I do agree that people often remember things they did around the mall fountains. People seem to remember the dates and such they would take to the fountains. Unfortunately, like je said, mall operators would rather put up a cart with aggressive cell phone salesmen and make some money off of it rather than put in a fountain which causes memories and relaxation for the shoppers.
I’m surprised that you were safe here. It is a really dangerous are of Houston.
ReplyDeleteGreenspoint can be a rough area, but I have been there a lot over the years. I have walked around the entire building in the day and evening time. This mall is my second closest mall.
DeleteHere's something neat. It's a videotape Montgomery Ward made in 1999 in celebration of their 'grand opening' of some newly renovated stores. They probably mailed these tapes to customers near the redesigned stores. In the tape, they give a brief tour of one of these remodeled stores and all the major departments.
ReplyDeleteThe Willowbrook Mall Wards was renovated sometime in the late 1990s, but I don't remember it looking exactly like what is on the tape. There are some aspects in the clothing departments which look familiar though. Maybe the redesign that Willowbrook got was slightly older than the design Wards was using in 1999. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that they never mentioned the 'Electric Avenue' name when showing the electronics/appliances department.
I think we knew this already, but Wards was putting in a lot more effort to keep their stores competitive right before they went down than Sears did 20 years later. In some ways, this 1999 Wards store looks more modern than Sears stores did in 2019, lol.
Anyway, I know you'll enjoy this. Here is the link to it.
That video was pretty awesome. I did notice the electronics department was a lot more bland there than it was in the 80's/90's era Electric Avenue stores that I remembered.
DeleteThe color scheme and signage really didn't look that different in other parts of the store. It was a better attempt to revitalize their stores besides just slapping a new sign on like they did at some Sears and Kmart locations. I bet the new layout of some parts of the store may have made some longtime customers mad though. I am getting to the age that I am not as receptive to changing layouts in stores. I don't have the patience to look around for things like I used to when I am pressed for time.
I remember the Willowbrook Mall Montgomery Ward getting at least a couple of designs in the 1990s. I can't really remember the second floor with the linens, electronics, furniture, and wallpaper/blinds departments changing much throughout this time. In fact, the place kind of had a retro feel to it even at the time because of the open mirrored egg crate style ceiling at the mall entrance to the store. That kind of felt like a throwback to the 1970s even though the store opened in 1981!
DeleteThe bulk of the renovations then were on the first floor. I can't remember exactly when certain things were done, but at some point along the way, certain housewares and small appliances that were on the first floor mixed in with the clothing departments were separated out and put near the auto center. It was probably a good idea to consolidate that stuff into one area and that also helped create the circular floorplan for the men's, women's, children's, and shoe departments that was discussed in the video. At some point along the way, and I think this was in the late 1990s, the Willowbrook Wards got some new green carpeting in the clothing departments. Some of these renovations can be seen in your Greenspoint Mall Update June 2011 post. It's hard to believe that post is basically 10 years old!
I'm guessing the Willowbrook Wards did get the clothing department makeovers that were in the video. It's hard to remember those fine details all these years later. I do remember that it looked pretty good and it didn't feel like a totally cheap renovation like we sometimes see at some retailers. OTOH, some departments were moved around on the first floor which might have caused some confusion for long-time shoppers.
As for the electronics department, I can't remember that changing at all at the Willowbrook store once the Electric Avenue was put in in the 1980s. It retained the dark look that you probably remember until the end and didn't get that rather generic look that was in the video. While the electronics/appliances departments in the video didn't look bad, I do agree that it was rather bland compared to the sharp looking Electric Avenue designs. Granted, maybe Wards thought those Electric Avenue departments were looking a bit too 1980sish by the time it was almost 2000. I don't know.
Anyway, it's great seeing a Wards store in detail like that and it's also interesting to see how Wards was planning on going forward if they were able to keep things together.
I vaguely remember the Willowbrook store, I only shopped there a handful of times mostly in the 1980's.
DeleteThe main thing I remember is the escalators towards the middle of the store and the walk to and from Electric Avenue.
I wish there were more videos out there like this one. I guess it would help if I looked for them a little more often.
Greenspoint is the store I remember most fondly except we rarely went to the second floor. The second floor was very tiny and only featured furniture, bed and bath stuff, and the curtains I believe. There was probably more, but as a kid and young adult back then I had no interest in most of those items.
Maybe I am biased, but I thought that the Willowbrook Mall Montgomery Ward was really nice. I certainly knew the store pretty well. The escalators were in the middle of the store unlike a lot of Sears stores, including the Willowbrook Sears, where the escalators were off to the side somewhere. The attached auto center at the Wards was somewhat separated from the rest of the store. That made sense. One of the neatest aspects of the first floor of the Willowbrook Wards was the little hallway out on the side of the store facing the Sears. There was a little hallway that had the eyeglasses department, the hearing aids department, and also the restrooms. That hallway led to a little parking lot, which I think the Macy's Men's store still uses, and also the package pickup room. We would often park in that little lot when shopping at Wards or when shopping at the mall in general.
DeleteI've probably mentioned this before, but the fanciest part of the Willowbrook Wards was probably the mall entrance area. The second floor didn't extend all the way to the mall entrance wall. Instead, if you came in through the mall entrance, there was a very tall mirrored egg crate design on the second floor ceiling that acted as a bit of a grand entryway. There was a railing where the second floor ended so one could peer into looking at the mall entrance from the second floor. The departments around that railing were mattresses/furniture and wallpaper/blinds/drapes. It was usually pretty quiet up there in those parts of the store.
Speaking of the second floor, there wasn't much room between the escalators (or elevator) and the main entrance to Electric Avenue at the Willowbrook store. That said, I can specifically remember smelling the hair dye and shampoos they used at the Wards Hair Salon that was right there by the entrance to Electric Avenue. Those strong chemical smells are part of my memories of Electric Avenue, lol.
I shopped at the Greenspoint and Memorial City Wards quite a bit over the years. I don't remember them quite as well as I remember the Willowbrook store, but I think I remember the Greenspoint store more than Memorial City. Your old photos of the place certainly do help bring back memories and I was able to walk by the Wards a few years ago before it was demolished. That was great.
Every now and then, I come across a great new Wards video on YouTube. Unfortunately, some great videos have been deleted from YouTube over the years, but some of them have returned after some time. But, yeah, that 1999 video was uploaded just recently and I'm glad I stumbled upon it.
One Montgomery Ward video I also recently found is not quite as enjoyable. You may remember the Blues Brothers mall chase scene. Well, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but there was a 1994 Pamela Anderson movie called Raw Justice that tried to recreate the Blues Brothers mall chase, but it turned out really, really poorly. The whole movie was really, really bad, but I suspect you guessed that already when I said it was a Pamela Anderson movie, lol. Anyway, here is the clip.
The mall used for the film was the Springdale Mall in Mobile, AL. At least there are some great 1990s mall scenes even if the action in the scene is a major dud. Montgomery Ward is clearly visible in the chase scene.
Let me start off with this breaking news that has been going around late tonight. Fry's Electronics is heavily rumored to have shut the company down effective at midnight. Their Facebook page went down right after 11pm central and the website is rumored to go at midnight (probably Pacific time). Their Twitter pages have also gone private. I can't think of any other retail company that pulled the plug like this, if the rumors are true.
DeleteI agree with you that the Greenspoint Montgomery Ward was not nearly as nice as the Willowbrook location. By the mid 1990's Greenspoint really started falling off. The last experiment they tried at the store was the short lived music shop at the mall entrance.
Now that you mention it, I do remember that window above the mall entrance. I am not sure if I ever walked that far into the store, but I do remember looking up from the mall corridor.
The Sharpstown and Memorial City locations had entrances on only two sides of the building. Both stores had an attached junior anchor that Montgomery Ward did not open up into. Memorial City was Mars Music I think, and Sharpstown was MacFrugals. Those stores had weird configurations. I only visited San Jacinto Mall once so all I can remember is the open escalator area. It was a smaller version of the open escalator area in the former Greenspoint Mall Foley's.
I wonder if Montgomery Ward would have been able to gain market share from Sears closing if the stores still existed today.
I went to Springdale Mall once back in 1997. The mall was closing for the night except for Toys R Us which was open until 9:30pm. You had to enter the mall to get to the Toys R Us entrance. I briefly glanced into the mall, but I don't remember much else from the trip. We were coming back from Florida and I had been looking for a few games at the time.
Thanks for informing me about the rumors about Fry's Electronics throwing in the towel. This is news to me. I just did some searching and the news of Fry's demise is now being carried by major media outlets. I can't say that this is shocking news, but it's sad news for sure. I wonder if there will even be a liquidation sale given that some of Fry's inventory is probably consignment stuff. We'll see.
DeleteYou're right about the Memorial City Wards having a junior anchor. It was Mars Music for a while, but it was actually a Phar-Mor before that. I didn't realize that the Sharpstown Mall Wards had a MacFrugal's junior anchor. That's a pretty interesting junior anchor!
In some ways, the Willowbrook Mall Wards had the misfortune of being built right before Wards changed their logo to the memorable underlined version in 1982. If that store had that version of the logo, like the Springdale Mall did, I think it would have looked even more modern than it did in the 1990s. The mirrored egg crate design did look retro, but in a neat way I suppose. It would certainly look like a 1970s throwback now though I think just like those mirrored JCPenney mall entrances.
I'm sure Montgomery Ward could have taken marketshare away from Sears once Eddie Lampert got involved with Sears if Wards had been able to survive. Granted, both Sears and Wards would probably struggle in modern times as I think online shopping and Walmart would have really put a pinch on both of them. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised if the current Montgomery Ward catalog does more yearly sales in 2021 than Sears does.
Wow, I wonder if you realized that you were shopping at a movie mall when you went to Springdale Mall. Granted, I'm not sure if the mall would have wanted to promote their involvement with that movie given how bad it is, lol. Anyway, that's neat that you're able to see something through that movie that you saw many years ago.
I got tagged on Discord otherwise I would have not known about this until later today. Initially the sources were not very promising, but some news outlets were able to get confirmation. The fact that all of their social media sites except for ones that were not active have shut down late tonight, is pretty much confirmation. Reddit and The Layoffs Page also has a lot of activity tonight from employees confirming the closures. I wonder if some of the merchandise winds up at Big Lots in the near future.
DeleteWards was in much better shape in their final days than Sears/Kmart is in now. After hearing the news about Fry's, I wonder if the same will happen with Sears. The chain is down to 52 full sized stores now after the map was updated.
The Wards catalog could very well be a better seller than Sears stores with the exception of apparel sales. Apparel seemed to still draw in a good bit of customers even as rest of the store was limping through.
I remember being super tired by the time we got to Mobile that night. We had been on the beach all afternoon and then we were headed back to New Orleans. I didn't even know that was a movie mall until your comment, lol. I probably would have taken a photo or two with my old 110 camera if I would have known. We also went to the Pensacola University Mall that was heavily damaged during the 2004-2005 Hurricane seasons. The mall was booming in 1997 but the mall actually reopened the corridors and never repaired the majority of the damage to the mall corridors. The inline stores emptied out and the mall still remained open so people could mall walk and go from anchor to anchor for several years. The mall corridor was finally torn down and replaced by big box stores. The anchors were left intact for the whole redevelopment. I do remember seeing the Montgomery Ward there. New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast for some reason was skipped over by Montgomery Ward. It might be because New Orleans had DH Holmes and Maison Blanche chains, but those were middle to upper class stores unlike Montgomery Ward. Shreveport,
Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and futher West, all the major cities of Texas had Montgomery Ward. New Orleans had Sears, JCPenney, Woolworth, Kmart, DH Holmes, Maison Blanche, Kress, Godchaux, and a few other chains but no Montgomery Ward.
It is offical, Fry's website now has a letter posted about the closing of the business. It posted just after 4am central time.
DeleteHere's another great video for our vintage retail video collection. It's a videotape on YouTube produced in 1990 by Best Products comparing their Regency Layout to their Store of Tomorrow Layout. The Regency location does not use a racetrack design, but the Store of Tomorrow does. A lot of the focus in the video is how electronics are displayed in these two layouts. In it, you'll see the computer displays and even how they sold Nintendo games.
DeleteAlthough the racetrack format is what most stores use today, I get the feeling from the video that the non-racetrack Regency format might have been preferred by Best Products. I like how they show the enclosed stereo room in the Regency format and even specifically mention how it has better acoustics. I'm sure that helped to sell some stereo equipment to picky customers back then and it also helped to keep the rest of the store peaceful when someone was cranking up one of the display stereos.
Anyway, you'll love seeing the vintage products and the music in the video is a real late 1980s/early 1990s time warp, lol. Here is the link to it.
I will certainly check it out and comment on the video later. It is so awesome that more and more of these old company videos are popping up online. It has been ages since I have seen a Best store, I am looking forward to the video.
DeleteYeah you are right, most retailers use the racetrack setup around the store. CVS is one that bucks the trend with their weird store setups.
I am sure that you will like that Best Products video. It's not too common that a video will have so many clear views of how the inside of the store looked. Watching that video brought back a lot of memories of shopping at Best Products near Greenspoint Mall and on Jones Rd., that's for sure!
DeleteHere's another interesting video on YouTube. It's a collection of commercials aired on Channel 13 in Houston during the Christmas season of 1991. If you click the Show More button on the video description, you'll get a full index of commercials including several Kmart ones, Wal-Mart ones, a Target one, one for Foley's, a few Montgomery Ward ones, a Service Merchandise one, and even a Sports Town USA commercial which shows some brief store shots. There's some neat stuff there.
One commercial on there is for Wolfe Nursery plant stores. Interestingly enough, Wolfe briefly had some locations within Sears' old garden centers in Houston in an early example of a store-within-a-store concept. Here is a vintage ad from a 1988 Houston Post newspaper advertising Wolfe's locations within Sears along with their own regular locations.
It's interesting that Wolfe was advertising with Houston Patio & Garden Centers. At that time, Wolfe and Houston Patio operated across FM 1960 from one another over near the FM 1960 & Jones Rd. Kmart. The Houston Patio is still there in the same spot they were in, but the Wolfe is long gone.
You could spend days on YouTube looking at classic commercials. I am glad that YouTube does not strike down these commercials with music like they do with mall videos with music in the background. I certainly enjoy a good trip to the past. In some cases, it is all we have to keep the memories of these stores alive.
DeleteI remember the Wolfe Nursery stores. They just sort of disappeared from our area.