Best Grocery Store: H-E-B
Every shopper with hamburger, eggs and beer on their list knows H-E-B is one of the best places on Planet Earth to gather these items. It’s more than just the fair prices or the company’s peculiarly excellent “own brand” products which keep customers loyal. There’s a down-home authenticity to even its biggest stores in its largest cities. The San Antonio-based grocer has mastered, over more than a century in business, creating a small-town general store experience in its modern, massive supermarkets.
Like tuning into Ted Lasso, we flock to our Houston-area H-E-B locations for the good feelings as much as the product. The company’s neighborly vibe is set by a billionaire owner who won’t be rocketing into space soon, or ever. Better to be on solid ground, side by side with the “partners” whose daily work ensures that “Here, Everything’s Better.”
The chain has amassed too many accolades to recount here, but its most recent include best grocery chain in the nation, one of the top 10 places to work according to Glassdoor and recognition as one of the country’s best online shopping experiences, a service which became vital during COVID lockdown. It’s just one more way for the Texas grocery giant to prove its innovation, but at the heart of it all remains heart. Example: when Texas’ great winter snowstorm killed the power and the registers at one of its stores in February, shoppers were sent home with the water and staple items they’d gathered to endure the crisis without paying, a move that hasn’t been seen since Sam Drucker ran his place in Hooterville.
Multiple locations
heb.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2021.
