Keller resident Monica Kwenda strolled the neatly organized spice and baking aisle in Fort Worth’s inaugural H-E-B.
She stopped to inspect a stack of yellow coupons hanging from a shelf. She yanked one and placed it in her shopping cart.
“I’m having too much fun for no reason,” Kwenda said, with a giggle as she walked down the aisle.
Kwenda was among the first shoppers at the H-E-B in Alliance. She and the hundreds of other people queued up for the store’s opening April 10 have been waiting years for this moment, one that likely will bring an economic boost to Fort Worth and Tarrant County.
Typically, most shoppers are willing to travel three miles to a grocery store, said Sriram Villupuram, a finance and real estate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. Super fans of the store based in San Antonio feel that H-E-B is not just any run-of-the-mill store. Some Fort Worthians travel to Hudson Oaks in Parker County and Burleson for their H-E-B fix.
A line wrapped around the exterior of the store 10 minutes before it opened at 6 a.m. April 10. The line started near the produce entrance on the east side and stretched along the facade, rounded a corner to the drive-thru pharmacy lane and extended past the drive-up window.
The line was still wrapped around the 125,000-square-foot building 30 minutes after doors opened. By comparison, Walmart Neighborhood Markets average about 50,000 square feet.
Fort Worth resident Kimberly Boone was wrapped in a Dallas Cowboy blanket and held an umbrella. She had been in line since midnight.
Boone was no stranger to H-E-B. She’s from San Antonio. She knew exactly what she wanted — and made a beeline toward a case filled with stacks of the product.
“I need to make sure I get some butter tortillas,” Boone said.
A day before doors opened, Mayor Mattie Parker pointed out that Fort Worth is more than 350 square miles and over 250,000 people now live north of Interstate 820. The store’s location is strategic, she said.
Still, she noted, that leaves one H-E-B for a growing city of nearly 1 million.
“We can do more, right?” Parker said. “Where else do we want an H-E-B in Fort Worth?”
H-E-B is an amenity for Alliance, Villupuram said. Nearby home values likely will increase.
The store sits inside the boundaries of the Keller school district. The average market value of a home in Keller ISD in 2023 was $496,928, according to the Tarrant Appraisal District. Five years ago, that home was $300,937. The average market value grew more than 65% during that time period.
Stephen Butt, president of H-E-B’s gourmet grocery store Central Market, lives in Fort Worth and has seen the tremendous growth in Alliance. During a ribbon cutting ceremony April 9, he commented on how Hillwood, Alliance Airport, BNSF Railway and even Texas Motor Speedway contributed to north Fort Worth’s boom.
Now, he said, a new contributor is here.
“As we all know, when you’re heading west on I-30 across the Tarrant County line, things just seem to get better,” Butt said. “With all your help, the grocery shoppings in north Tarrant County will be getting a lot better as well.”
Shoppers also could see better prices thanks to increased competition, Villupuram said. Across the street from H-E-B is a Kroger Marketplace, and a short drive east on Heritage Trace Parkway is a Walmart Neighborhood Market, the retail giant’s small-scale grocery-only store.
“In this day and age, right now, with inflation and everything, it'll have some good healthy competition between Walmart, Kroger and H-E-B — three bigwigs when it comes to grocery retail,” Villupuram said. “People will overall benefit from this in that area.”
About 750 people work at the Alliance location, store leader Chase Bowman said.
Businesses tend to follow H-E-B’s footsteps, Villupuram said. Next door to H-E-B is a shopping center that includes Torchy’s Tacos, Black Rifle Coffee Co. and Cava.
More than eight months of preparation, plus more than a year of construction, went into getting Fort Worth’s first H-E-B open, Bowman said.
He reassured H-E-B aficionados that the store is the first — but not Fort Worth’s last.
Fort Worth Report business editor Bob Francis contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Central Market, Hillwood and the BNSF Foundation have been financial supporters of the Fort Worth Report. News decisions at the Fort Worth Report are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
