So, HEB Keeps Buying Land In North Texas. What The Hell Are They Up To?

Some people don’t understand the glory of HEB. But that’s just because it hasn’t been offered to them — yet.

The San Antonio-based grocery chain has over 350 stores throughout Texas and Mexico, but a grand total of just three in North Texas (in Burleson, Granbury and Waxahachie). Sure, Central Market, which is owned by HEB, has five locations in North Texas. But Central Market, a bourgeois gourmet take on HEB that’s mostly just an answer to Whole Foods, is not, in fact, HEB.

As of now, HEB has no “official” plans to expand its stores to North Texas. But they’re absolutely up to something that seems to say otherwise.

As the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram each reported late last week, HEB has been buying up a whole lot of land — a total of about 20 different plots in Dallas, Fort Worth, Carrollton, Plano, Frisco and more — across North Texas in the past few years. Its newest purchases include a 17.8-acre parcel in the Glade Parks development in Euless and an 18.2-acre piece of land out in Fort Worth.

In January, HEB also hired Mabrie Jackson, the president and CEO of the North Texas Commission, to take the reigns of its public affairs and community outreach in North Texas. HEB has previously expressed interest in opening a Central Market in Highland Park or Oak Lawn, but the company is mostly just being secretive and elusive about what it plans to do with all of his land.

An HEB spokesperson told the News that Jackson’s hire doesn’t signal a push to expand in North Texas, and HEB has said that its focus in the area remains on Central Market.

But, c’mon, let’s use our heads and engage in some critical thinking. HEB is the most popular grocery store in whatever area it saddles into, and it has a reputation of besting the Big Bad Walmart Brand all over Texas. If HEB moved to Dallas, it would probably dominate the grocery market in North Texas with ease. And it’d be a great business move from the get-go.

Plus, seriously, what the hell else would HEB be buying up all of this land for? An investment? Please. HEB’s North Texas invasion is imminent, folks. It’s just a matter of when HEB stops being so damn shy and officially comes out and announces it.

Then everything around here — OK, at least as far as supermarkets go — will be better.

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