H-E-B and Me

I really like grocery shopping. Weekly I watch for the grocery sales ads in the mail like other people watch for their favorite magazine to arrive. I find that Mondays are a terrible day to go. The stores haven’t really recovered from the weekend rush. Thursdays are great. Thursday evenings, even better. The shelves are stocked, the prices are cut and the store extends welcoming arms. They know the weekend is on its way.If I thought I liked grocery shopping in my other towns, I know I’m going to love it here in Austin. Why? Because I have H-E-B here.

I heard about H-E-B when I lived in Keller, Texas. I worked in Fort Worth, and as a team-building exercise a group of us from work went to a cooking class at Central Market.

Central Market, someday, will get its own post. It’s just that cool. Seriously, it’s one of the finest food markets, hands-down, I’ve ever shopped. And it’s the upscale sister to H-E-B.

In our cooking class, we learned about the Butts family. They lived in Texas and wanted to start a grocery store. They started with $60 and a tiny little market that grew into a statewide chain, H-E-B. In Austin they have a near-monopoly. Then, jumping on the upscale- grocery-store bandwagon, they started Central Market, which has exclusive locations in only a handful of cities nationwide. Really…if you see one…go.

My realtor told me, “You’re going to love H-E-B.”

I went to one last year on brief stop in Austin on the way to a lake for yet another work team-building weekend experience. It seemed nice enough. It had what I needed for the weekend. But I was in a rush. I didn’t REALLY look at. I didn’t look at with the eyes of, “Hey, can I shop here every week?”

So, my first weekend in Austin, I headed out to H-E-B for my first grocery trip. Have you ever moved to a new city? That first grocery trip is a beating. Mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, salsa, relish, etc. etc. etc. – the grocery list is a mile long to replace all the things I ALREADY HAD IN MY FRIDGE IN MY LAST CITY but NOW I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM IN THE NEW GROCERY STORE!!! Add a crying baby, and wow! It’s not a fun trip. (Halfway through, with a cart piled high this trip, I also realized, “Awesome! I live in a hotel. I have a baby. My husband is out of town. I’m only going to make just about a million trips from the car to the room, with the baby, to get my food inside!”)

But with all these thoughts swirling through my head, H-E-B lulled me to a state of peace. The produce was beautiful, with very nice local selections. The prices reflected the limited gas used in transport for the local selections. The store brand of milk had no hormones added, the store brand of cereal was organic and all-natural. The store had really interesting food – an inviting aisle of salsa, an olive bar, a large dried fruit selection, beautiful seafood and nice cuts of meat. The butcher chatted with me and welcomed me to Austin.

The best part? NO SHOPPING CARTS IN THE PARKING LOT. Really. I’m not joking. All the carts were in the cart bin! How do they do it?

So once the offer was accepted on our new house (goodbye hotel!) I decided to drive around the neighborhood to find the nearby shopping and grocery store. Remember that random H-E-B store from my quick stop a year ago? I should have taken a better look at it.

I’ll be there every week now.

Tags: Austin Texas, Central Market, H-E-B