Here is the final Kmart that remains open in the entire State of Texas. The McAllen Kmart is listed as 128,029 square feet and was built in the mid 1970's. This location is located at a very busy intersection near the regions largest mall, La Plaza Mall. The region has a population of over 1,300,000 people and is one of the busiest border crossings. As you can see from the photos below, the store has been updated fairly recently with the latest store design. I visited the store on one of the coldest nights of the 2018-2019 Winter season. This area rarely sees temperatures below 40 degrees, but this night was an exception.
A little video footage of the store is in my older YouTube video found here.
As you can see, this is a massive store, larger than most stores that were left after the 2002 bankruptcy.
This sign has not held up very well even though it is fairly new.
The store looks really awesome in this photo.
Now for the inside of the store. There are over 200 photos, I made sure to get the most of out my trip. At the time of my visit, there was still a very good possibility that Sears/Kmart was going to liquidate. Thankfully the company was saved. but still faces a tough challenge to survive. This store was very clean and well organized.
Pharmacy was gone.
Classic Kmart air vents.
A hidden cubby spot next to the old pharmacy.
One of the many clearance spots throughout the store.
An example of the vastness of the store.
Sadly, this store suffers from maintenance issues like so many other stores. The employees do their best to keep the store clean, but buckling floors require expensive repairs.
Garden shop, the outdoor patio was closed on my visit.
The Garden shop randomly ends but there are a lot of products past the partition on the left. Work in progress I guess.
Behind the partition.
Now back to the main store. This Kmart sign is awesome. You can see it from across the main front aisle of the store.
This visit was 10 days after Christmas so there were still lots of Christmas items and toys.
Speaking of toys, the store had a huge selection of toys. Toy department, Christmas department, back corner of the store, hardware department, all had some toys thrown in.
Now for the hardware and auto departments.
This shelf in the hardware department was empty that night, but you will see that they filled it the next day with more toys.
Toys everywhere!
There was a good selection of bikes.
They might want to take that price scanner sign down.
The back corner of the store was well stocked, but with a lot of random items.
The store is massive as you can see from this end to end photo.
Here in the next several photos, you will see the somewhat randomness of the back corner of the store. Mostly sporting goods, but a lot of random products thrown in to fill spaces.
This end cap is a good example of doing their best to fill empty spaces.
Lots of furniture displays and random products thrown on the wall shelving.
Even more toys stretching across this aisle near the electronics.
Now for a detailed look at the grocery department. Sodas and water is plentiful, but the food items are somewhat lacking.
These Jarritos sodas are in tons of places across the store.
How about some Jarritos soda instead of milk.
As you can see items are really stretched out to try and fill shelf space.
Now for the appliance and electronics departments.
An increasingly rare sight in a Sears and Kmart store, televisions.
No blank cassette tapes to be found.
Even with the newer design of this store, the electronics department photos are dated. Maybe they should have kept the Walkman lady from the 90's.
Now this is a strange combo. Toilet paper and awesome cleaner, lol.
A view of the whole electronics department.
Just like the rest of the Kmart stores, we have a random assortment of NFL team gear.
Nintendo products had not been in Kmart stores for a while so this was refreshing to see.
Fitting rooms.
Restrooms and layaway.
Not much going on in the layaway on this evening.
Very sure this was the café area. Not sure if this was a Kcafe or Little Caesars.
A very wide checkout area.
Lots of red, similar to Target.
You want a Coke, how about a Jarrito Soda instead, lol.
Former auto center.
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Photos from the 2nd day. The store was much busier on this visit. I made sure to get more images of the products and sections of the store that I missed the night before.
I found it!
A better example of the randomness of the back corner of the store.
The Garden shop Kgro soils had been moved inside during the Winter I suppose.
Here is the same area of the store I mentioned above. The shelves were empty the night before, now they are filled with toys.
I wonder how old this product is. It grabbed my attention in the randomness of the back area of the store.
Summer swimming items thrown in the back corner of the store.
Here is the exterior of the store in the day.
Stay tuned, one more article from the Rio Grande Valley on the way.
Wow, it is awesome how many photos you got of this Kmart. I suppose it is justified given that this is the last Kmart in Texas. There are clearly some retro classic Kmart features with this store, and maintenance seems a bit suspect like all Kmarts, but this Kmart is in pretty good condition all things considered. The inventory levels seem pretty good given what Kmart was going through when these photos were taken.
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting to me that there is a Furr's Buffet near this Kmart. Kmart owned the Furr's chain throughout most of the 1980s. I wonder if the Furr's here was owned by Kmart when it opened. Also, I wonder if the Big Lots used to be a Kmart Foods location.
The Major Appliances sign on the front of this store is interesting. I wonder if it used to say Pharmacy before the pharmacy closed. I've seen Kenmore signs on Kmarts, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen a major appliances sign like that.
You're right that the 'new' electronics signage at this location is dated. Granted, 'new' by Kmart standards means it's from sometime after the 1990s, lol. At least it's not as outdated as the Walkman woman, but now that Target is selling knock-off Walkmans again, perhaps it would have been wiser for Kmart to wait things out and let the Walkman become trendy again! It's sad that this Kmart does not have blank audio cassettes, but at least they have some blank CDs and DVDs. They also seem to have a lot of DVD movies. I wonder if they have any music CDs as well. The CD stereo system that looks like a vintage 1970s stereo receiver is something YouTube user Vwestlife reviewed a few years back. I think he got his from Walmart, but it's neat that Kmart sells it too. At least the Kmart electronics department is a bit more interesting than the Sears electronics departments these days.
Jarritos is everywhere at this Kmart! It's interesting that this store was able to source Jarritos like that given that they probably don't sell it at other Kmarts other than maybe the ones in states along the Mexican border. Perhaps Kmart had to order so much of it that they're putting it everywhere. It's nice seeing those vintage Pepsi cans on the shelf at a vintage Kmart. As an aside, I noticed that Burger King is using vintage 1980s cups with their old logo as part of a promotion for the show Stranger Things. That was a pleasant surprise.
This Kmart has no shortage of toilet seats. Actually, the shelves are quite well stocked as I mentioned earlier. This is one of the better stocked Kmarts I've seen in photos in quite some time. This store looks bigger than the average remaining Kmart as well.
That Shaq hoop does look like it's probably at least ten years old. It's odd that this Kmart has so many NFL things from different teams. It's not too often one sees Detroit Lions gear for sale in Texas! Then again, if you want a frisbee, I suppose you have to settle for a Patriots one. Sadly, I don't see any NY Giants gear, but oh well. The lack of Dallas Cowboys gear like we normally see at Kmarts all over the country balances out that omission I suppose. I wonder if closing Kmarts from elsewhere in the country sent their NFL gear to this and other remaining Kmarts. I also never realized how many DieHard toys Kmart sells.
Anyway, it's great seeing all these photos. Hopefully I can visit this Kmart one day. It looks like an interesting place to shop and it's not quite as depressing as many other Kmarts I've seen photos of in recent times.
I had to make the most out of this trip, at the time nobody knew if Kmart would survive. I had not visited a Kmart in Texas for almost 2 years prior to this visit. Sadly I missed several stores including Portland and Laredo that closed in 2018.
DeleteI did not know that tidbit about the Furr's Chain. Kmart certainly had a lot of businesses under their wing at one point. I know they have a Furr's location in Spring on I-45, I hadn't seen one in Houston for years prior to that.
I can't think of any other store that had the major appliances sign. It is another example of the differences from store to store.
I didn't see any music CD's, but I didn't look to hard for them. I wanted to make sure that I documented the entire store even though the clothing department was somewhat lacking. Too many people to really get good photos without drawing attention to myself. Speaking of Target, the Super Target in Atascocita is being renovated. All of the special grocery sections are covered up and closed off so it may no longer be a Super Target when they finish up. The Super Target sign has been taken down as well.
The Jarritos were also on shelves in front of the checkouts as well. I am sure they were probably in other random spots, but I missed them.
The store was well stocked, I actually spent about $100 on various items while I was there. The Shop your Way deals are still good so I make sure to take advantage.
The NFL stuff was overwhelming, the Kmart in Lake Charles had a ton of NFL stuff added just before the store closed. I guess Kmart/Sears got some good deals and filled their stores up. The NFL gear was always on sale it seemed at the Lake Charles location before it closed. The toys were all over the place in the store. I guess they stocked up once the Toys R Us down the street closed. You will get to see that Toys R Us in a future post.
There are a lot of things to do in the Valley. McAllen has a vibrant shopping and dining district downtown in addition to the mall and Kmart. It is also an hour and a half away from the clear beaches of Padre Island. It was well worth a trip, I should have stayed an extra day to see more.
Furr's did try a new restaurant in Spring a few years ago, but it might have closed. It's not listed as a location on their website at least. The McAllen Furr's has a neat sign at least.
DeleteOne of the Target stores in this area which I shop at, the 249 and Jones Rd. location, is currently being renovated. I'm not sure if they are done with the renovation or not, but the construction crew was still set up in the parking lot so I suppose they are. The store got a new facade and a new interior layout. I only saw the facade briefly, but it looks like it had Target's new all lowercase typeface. Don't quote me on that, I didn't spend a lot of time looking at it. On the inside, it looks like the cosmetics department has been expanded and is now one of the biggest parts of the store. Some other departments which one had prime space up at the front of the store, like pet food, has now been demoted to the very quiet back corner departments near sporting goods and luggage. Perhaps Target is hoping that putting busier departments like pet food back there will liven up that back corner of the store. Aside from when they put Christmas seasonal stuff back there, that back corner of Target stores have always been very quiet and devoid of customers going back decades. The store had print outs of their new layout for people to take and so I took one. I needed it to find certain things. Maybe it'll be a nice collector's item one day.
Anyway, the new decor actually looks pretty good. It's a mix of modern and vintage. Some of the new department signage actually reminds me of some department signage Target had back in the late 1980s before Target started using neon. That Target still had a white vinyl floor. I don't know if they plan on removing that, but I hope not as it still looks good and keeps the store looking bright.
Although that 249 and Jones Rd. Target is one of the oldest Targets in this area (it was built in the mid-1990s), it's still probably the best store in this area. It was even before the renovations. The store does not seem bigger than other Targets, but they always carry more stuff than the other, newer ones. It's kind of hard to explain why that is the case though, but I hope that continues.
I wouldn't be surprised if your Target is demoted from being a Super Target to a regular Target. I really don't think Target has been successful with their grocery ventures. Walmart, HEB, and Kroger offer stiff competition in this area. Trendy grocery shoppers in this area seem to gravitate to HEB, not Target. Target does get some exclusive flavors for things like candies, but they can do that even with regular P-fresh stores. We'll see, keep us updated on how the renovation is going and if the full grocery department remains.
It's good to see that you were able to find things to buy at this Kmart. One of my concerns about Kmart is that due to supplier problems and the elimination of departments, Kmart might not have the goods that people want. From the pictures, however, it seems that Kmart still has their share of name brand goods. Granted, a lot of those are also available at other grocery and discount stores, but maybe that product mix works if there aren't many competitors around.
McAllen might be a nice place to visit. While Padre Island is quite busy, McAllen might not be the best known tourist destination, at least for people on this side of the border, so maybe it won't be as crowed as other tourist destinations in Texas. I may have to check it out. I've been looking at making a visit to New Mexico. Some of their big tourist destinations, like Santa Fe, have Kmarts still in them or near them.
I would not be surprised if the Furr's in Spring closed. Buffets that do not focus on a specific food type like Ryan's and Steak country have struggled in the Houston area. There are just too many options, and Golden Corral continues to update their stores.
DeleteThe new look of Target is modern and sleek but it is very plain in my opinion. They are keeping the floor tiles with the new remodels so it will not be a plain concrete floor. It is like the new design Walmart is going with in a way. Plain and white with a little color seems to be the trend these days.
I wonder if Kmart has the red tent sale that Sears has going on right now. It really seems like they are just filling shelves with random items these days. It would not be the kind of place you could do all of your shopping, but some of the departments are still well stocked.
New Mexico sounds like a good place to visit in the fall. I would love to see those Kmart stores. I have only been to the Southern tip of the state next to El Paso. There was not much there, but the scenery was really nice.
Buffets and cafeteria style restaurants have struggled in Houston lately as you say. It looks like Luby's will continue to have to close stores. A chain like Furr's, which had little recognition in town compared to Luby's, surely would have had an even harder time than Luby's unless their food quality, price, or convenience was exceptional.
DeleteIt's been years, decades really, since I've been to a Golden Corral. I reckon they are at least reasonably successful. I wonder what the key is to their success in a very saturated market. I know the location near Almeda Mall was completely demolished a few years back and rebuilt for some reason. The old location didn't look bad from the outside, but the new restaurant has always looked busy looking at the parking lot since it was rebuilt. They seem to have hit on something there.
Speaking of Almeda Mall eateries, the Pancho's is still there near the mall and it presumably still looks like 1986 in there. I would be curious to stop by there and eat there to take in the retro experience. There is also a Pancho's in north Houston near the former Northline Mall, but perhaps the Almeda Mall location is a little nicer. It's hard to say. I have not been to a Pancho's since the 1990s. If you ever stop by a Pancho's, it might be worth a blog post. I'm sure a lot of your readers have some memories of them. Anyway, the General Joe Chopstix which was next to the Almeda Pancho's for many years closed at some point in the last year and it looks like it was replaced with some kind of Mexican chicken fast food place.
I stopped by the 249 and Jones Rd. Target once again. It looks like the renovation must be complete now because all the construction stuff is gone. Thus, I took a bit more in of the store to try to analyze it. I will say that the customer service area looks rather nice. I also like that they kept the white vinyl tile floor. That makes the place look bright and it contrasts well with the gray carpeting they've put in the clothing departments. I'd rather see concrete colored carpet than actual concrete. The fitting rooms also looked nice from a distance. OTOH, the walls of the clothing departments, and some other departments, look very plain compared to previous Target designs. It's a drab gray. It looks like something is missing. Perhaps they should have put some LED/neon accents or something, I don't know. Long story short, it's not as plain as the new Walmart decor, but it is a bit on the drab side. That said, it could have been a lot worse. I actually assumed it would have been worse than how it turned out.
I must correct my earlier comments. The new facade does not say Target in all lowercase letters. It does not say Target at all. There is a street sign on the far end of the shopping center that does say Target in all lowercase letters though.
I'm not sure if Kmart had the same sales that Sears had last week. Hopefully they did, it seemed to grab more attention to Sears than Sears normally gets these days. There are a number of departments where Kmart does not compete at all or hardly competes. Perhaps Kmart figures they'll be something of a convenience store for people to stop at in between Walmart visits if they don't live really close to a Walmart. Perhaps that's not a great niche, but it works well for those who love Jarritos!
As just a quick response to Midwest Retail below, I'm also quite shocked that Kmart kept this location open when it is so far away from other Kmarts. It must really be profitable. Perhaps Kmart has found some local vendors for this store to go along with typical Kmart fare. That could explain the abundance of Jarritos.
Do keep us updated if you ever visit New Mexico. I think that would be a great addition to the blog.
Golden Corral seems to do well with sponsoring large family events such as sporting teams. I am not a fan personally and I have not visited a Golden Corral in at least a decade. Years ago, I worked at a buffet and saw what customers do so buffets gross me out now. That is a different story for a different time. A lot of people probably feel the same way that I do, and the price is fairly expensive unless you are getting refills on steak.
DeletePancho's still has a location in Humble on 1960 headed East from I-69. It still looks very old from the outside and the interior is probably the same as it has been. One of the advantages they have is that the employees serve you the food and get you refills so it appears to be more sanitary. I have been spoiled by higher quality Mexican restaurants so Pancho's has been off of my radar for years now.
Sounds about right for the new Target design. Target management takes better care of their stores than Walmart management does. Who knows maybe in 10 years the dark earth tones of the 70' and 80's or the wild colors of the 90's will make a comeback. With shows like Stranger Things recreating a 1980's mall, maybe a real mall or retailer will do the same. Coincidentally the Stranger Things Starcourt Mall (Gwinnett Place Mall) had the retro Sears that closed about a year ago.
Looks like the tent sale and bluelight specials are being advertised on the Kmart.com home page. A lot of the items that are specials at the tent sale have been what appear to be overstock or closeout items. Everyone loves a great deal and Kmart stores lately have had a lot of the overstock and closeout items to fill shrinking electronics and other departments.
Pancho's is most certainly not the place you want to go to if you want a good meal. It was pretty poor even in the 1980s and 1990s. The only thing saving them in this area was that there wasn't any kind of casual Mexican food places in this area. Once Taco Bell opened in around 1994, Pancho's was doomed in this part of town and they closed a few years later. You know the quality of food couldn't have been very good if people considered Taco Bell to be an upgrade!
DeleteI suspect the only two reasons to go to Pancho's now would be for the low prices and for nostalgia. I just did a YouTube search and found some younger guys doing a review of the Almeda Mall location back in April of this year. Their opinions of the food were not favorable, but that's not a surprise. From the video, it looked like the restaurant was still stuck in some combination of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Really, that's the only reason to visit the place, but I do think Houstonians of a certain age probably have memories of Pancho's.
You're right about the sanitary conditions at buffets. I've never worked at one, but you probably have some good insider stories. I don't eat out very often, but buffets are not very high on my list of places to stop at. The food is usually mediocre even compared to fast food in some cases. The one possible exception would be the Hartz Chicken Buffet where one would expect a fast food chicken type experience anyway. We had two vintage Hartz locations in this area, but one recently closed and relocated to the aforementioned former Taco Bell location which was the first Taco Bell in this area. The other one has survived two attempts by KFC to take over the area it's in, but in both cases the KFCs closed down while the vintage 1970s Hartz still sticks around.
I wonder if the popularity of Stranger Things might influence retail design. I have not seen the show, but I have heard about it. Burger King recently started to use vintage style cups because of the show. I suspect that retail designs are somewhat cyclical, but the boring retail designs have been around since the late 1990s and I'm not sure if there is much reason to think that the colorful designs are going to return anytime soon. At the very least, Walmarts can't get any more basic than they are now I would think so they only have up to go.
There are so many better food options in the Houston area now. The fast casual category is growing fast with reasonable prices and fast service.
DeleteMillennials seem to be driving the growth in these restaurants, while full service restaurants and buffets struggle. A lot of fast food restaurants have stepped up their product quality as well. Hartz is much better than KFC IMO.
There seems to be a lot of grey, red, and white in retailers these days. The Deerbrook Mall food court is getting a renovation right now. They removed the neon signs and painted the ceiling in boring shades of white, grey, and black. The new floor is equally as bland. They are not finished yet, but it looks very bland.
Hartz Chicken Buffet is rather interesting in that some of their newer locations are rather vintage as well. They may or may not be vintage on the inside, but a couple of the newer Hartz to open up in this area opened up in older fast food locations. There is the aforementioned Hartz on FM 1960 near Jones Rd. which opened up in a ~1994 ex-Taco Bell after moving out of a truly vintage location right nearby. Hartz also opened up a location some years ago in an old 1980s Church's Chicken in Jersey Village. Church's left long ago and some independent burger joint was running out of there for a while in the 2000s before Hartz took it over.
DeleteIt has been at least a couple of years since I've been to Hartz. I find their chicken to be pretty good, but perhaps their take-out prices are a bit expensive especially compared to KFC's $5 Fill Up meals which I think are a good value. There are things I like about both Hartz and KFC so I'm glad they're both around even if I don't eat fried chicken all that often. I know I'm the rare person who prefers those chicken places over Chick-Fil-A. Of course, Chick-Fil-A has added a lot of new stores in this area recently as well.
The likes of Chipotle and Five Guys has certainly put some pressure on the lower-end sit-down restaurants, cafeterias, and buffets. I suspect Millennials find the cafeteria style dining of Luby's to be quite antiquated. It seemed that mostly older people ate there even in the early 1990s. Add to that the already highly competitive restaurant and fast food scene in Houston and it's easy to see how certain eateries are being squeezed out.
Venture was probably a little too early with their mostly red, white, and grey styles. I suppose the early 1990s Kmart styles were a bit too early to adopt that color scheme as well. Now, it's all the rage. It is quite bland. I was in a Kroger this weekend which still has a white vinyl tile floor with some patterns in it. I was amazed at how festive it looked compared to the boring concrete floors we're mostly forced to deal with now.
It's a shame that the Deerbrook Mall food court is being renovated to remove a lot of the interesting features. It's been a while since I've been down there, but I ate there some years ago and I felt it was one of the best food courts in the Houston area. Some of the features looked a bit 1990sish, but they didn't look bad. They added a lot of charm actually. Oh well, at least the mall is getting some attention.
It has been a very long time since I have been to a Hartz. I have been a Popeyes fan for the majority of my life. Popeyes was much better when it was still owned by Al Copeland, but a lot of their favorites such as their Red Beans have not changed much over the years.
DeleteThe Northeast side of town is seeing major growth so I expect to see a lot of eateries go away. Some of the popular chains such as Freddy's, Torchey's, Weinershnitzel, and Raising Canes are now in this area. New shopping districts across the Grand Parkway are going to hurt older retail districts like Humble and Spring near I-45.
Speaking of Venture locations, the old Baytown location which is a Hobby Lobby still sports the old red tile front.
Deerbrook lost the last bit of 90's charm that the mall had. The carpets that were installed in the 90's were removed years ago and replaced with shiny floors. The Forever 21 at Deerbrook reopened the first floor as a clearance center, but the mall entrance is boarded up with an arrow pointing to the second floor.
I heard from somewhere that McAllen is one of Kmart's most profitable stores, however I'm still surprised this store stays open with it being 10 hours away from the closest Kmart, that store being in Hobbs, New Mexico. It would be easier for distribution purposed to have another Kmart closer, like the Laredo store which was profitable and should have stayed open.
ReplyDeleteIt is not surprising, most USA border towns across from larger Mexican cities seem to have a huge retail district. The quality of products in many Mexican cities is just not the same as here in the USA. Juarez for example has 10 malls but only 4 department stores amongst those malls that carry name brand items that we find in Dillard's or Macy's here in the USA.
DeleteI wonder if they had University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros (UTRGV) gear in the store because of McAllen’s proximity to Edinburg, where the university is.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember, they had a lot of team gear in 2019. On my visit in 2020, most of the sports gear was gone except for mostly crappy NFL teams.
DeleteInside the store, what was there where the former auto center was? A empty area, or was there shelves covering the area? All of this is assuming the auto center connected to the store like Walmart, where there is a little area with auto parts and a counter.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the entrance was covered by shelves. The former auto center is attached to the building where the Garden Shop seasonal, and toys are located. The Northwest corner of the store.
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