Texans can find a lot of things in H-E-B’s aisles. Brisket queso. Texas-shaped chicken nuggets. Hatch chile products of all kinds.
And some things you might not expect — like the love of your life.
That’s what Stewart and Dolores Davis found when they started working at H-E-B in 1977. They were both in high school and landed at the now-demolished South Congress H-E-B in Austin as baggers — their first real jobs.
“My first impression of Dolores was that she was like a model, and super nice and funny,” Stewart said. “[I thought,] ‘There’s no way that she would want to be with me, but I’m going to give it a try.’”
Thus began a multiyear romance. At first, Dolores played hard to get.
“She would come to me in my check stand, in my register, and she would torture me,” Stewart joked. “She would say, ‘Do you want to kiss?’ … and of course I would say, ‘Yes I do.’ And she would hand me a Hershey's Kiss. Which was cruel.”
“It was accurate,” Dolores said.
Eventually she was won over by his persistence and sense of humor. One example: He hand-wrote a newsletter about working at H-E-B based on their coworkers, filled it with funny drawings, printed a bunch of copies and distributed them, “presumably as a way to entice me,” Dolores said.
“You know how the birds do those weird courting dances? This was Stewart's courting dance,” she said.
They married in 1983. Four decades later, they don't shop anywhere else.
"We're lifers," Stewart said.
The couple could have met anywhere. But there was something special about it happening at H-E-B. Before the South Congress location was torn down, friends called it the Stewart and Dolores Love Memorial H-E-B.
“That was the perfect place for us to get to know each other,” Stewart said. “H-E-B turned out to be a vehicle for our relationship to start and blossom and become what it is.”
Stewart and Dolores aren’t the only ones who have an “H-E-B story” of how the grocery store has changed their lives. These days, H-E-B looms as large in Texas mythology as the Alamo or Willie Nelson. And the company's ties to Texas are more than a myth. Florence Butt opened Mrs. C. C. Butt's Staple and Fancy Grocery in Kerrville in 1905. Her grandson and current chairman Charles Butt took over in 1971 and oversaw the company's headquarters move to San Antonio, as well as H-E-B's expansion into different store formats like Central Market (Austin’s North Lamar location was the first), Houston’s Mi Tienda (which focuses on Mexican groceries), and the low-budget option, Joe V’s Smart Shop.
Now, H-E-B has more than 400 locations across Texas and Mexico. When a new one opens, people line up by the dozens early in the morning for a look. Kids have had birthday parties inside the store. A couple even got engaged in the Healthy Living aisle.
The cult of H-E-B, as some call it, is about more than just good products or low prices. It’s deep. It’s emotional. How did it come to be?
H-E-B has Texas pride — and good marketing strategy
It’s pretty much impossible to enter an H-E-B and not get slapped in the face with Texas.
“They Texas-ify everything,” said Emily Hill, a Leander-based content creator who runs the Texas Grocery Finds social media accounts. “There's Texas-shaped tortilla chips … they have spider-web-in-the-shape-of-Texas decor all over the place this year and cowboy ghost stuff.”
Emily, who worked in marketing and social media for brands like Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes, has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers showcasing products from H-E-B and other grocery stores. She has also worked with H-E-B as an official brand ambassador. Texas Grocery Finds is now her full-time gig.
If there’s anyone outside of headquarters that knows what people love about H-E-B, she’s a good bet. And she says they love their groceries with a side of Texas.
As Emily browsed the aisles of the Lake Austin H-E-B a few weeks ago, she broke away from her cart every few minutes to point out different products made in Texas, from vegan marshmallow dip to frozen cookie dough.
Both of those brands made their way to H-E-B stores through the Quest for Texas Best, Emily said — a Shark Tank-like competition where locally based companies pitch their products to the grocery store for a chance to win money and shelf space.
“Another reason we all love H-E-B, right? Because they support Texas brands,” she said.
Texas is also in the little things. During the holidays, Emily remembers seeing H-E-B billboards that said “ta-ma-la-la-la-la-la-la-la” — a reference to “Deck the Halls” with a tamale twist.
“They're making sure they're woven into how we feel about our culture in a positive way,” she said. “It feels like they get us.”
H-E-B runs itself like a country
So, H-E-B is a pillar of Texas culture — but is it also a pillar of local government?
Gina Fuentes, an Austin musician, loves H-E-B so much she wrote a song about the store. It starts with the line, “If H-E-B were the ones that ran the Lone Star State, I betcha many Texans would come out a winner…” and ends with, “Let’s raise a toast and vote for H-E-B.”
Why the rousing endorsement? Because “people in power could learn a lot by getting some training at H-E-B,” Gina said.
Gina, who was a teacher for 11 years, pointed to the company’s support for education as one reason. H-E-B and Charles Butt have spent a fortune bolstering Texas public schools, from donating $100 million to start a leadership training center for school districts to committing $10 million for a new elementary school in Uvalde to giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash prizes every year to honor educators.
In a state where school districts are facing massive budget shortfalls and efforts to raise teacher salaries died in a school voucher battle last year, Texans have noted the disparity between the government and H-E-B more than once.
“People in power need to go and substitute teach for a week in a public school that doesn't have enough money, everything's rickety, and see what they need,” Gina said. “Somehow H-E-B knows that. … They just have empathy, understanding. Somebody there was able to imagine being in the shoes of teachers that don’t get paid enough.”
Education’s just one piece of the puzzle. H-E-B is also famous for its natural disaster response, distributing food, water and medical supplies during disasters like Hurricane Harvey to the tune of millions of dollars. During the 2021 freeze, the H-E-B plus! in Leander went viral for giving away groceries when the power went out inside the store, preventing people from checking out.
The grocer also funds community events in the same way you might expect a city to.
“They sponsor literally everything in Texas. If you go to the zoo, it's sponsored by H-E-B. If you go to this trunk-or-treat, it's sponsored by H-E-B,” Emily said. “They’re everywhere and they’re invested in us.”
You don’t have to look hard around Austin to see that it’s true: “H-E-B” is on Austin’s main Fourth of July fireworks show, one of our biggest holiday light shows, beloved music festivals, marathons and more.
You name it, those three letters are (probably) stamped on it.
People don't just go to H-E-B — they live their lives at H-E-B
Lots of people have an “H-E-B story." But for many, it’s not as dramatic as a lifelong romance, a new career or natural disaster relief.
For Kevin Paris, it’s about making memories with his kid.
Shopping at H-E-B is his weekly ritual with his three-year-old son Ellis.
“I do most of the grocery shopping, and Saturday morning is kind of our time together,” he said. “It’s the dad and son adventure.”
They grab donuts and tacos before heading to the store. Ellis runs through the aisles and helps his dad pick out groceries. At the end of the trip, Ellis gets to take a toy car home.
He loves H-E-B so much that he mentions it in school projects.
Kids aren’t exactly known for predicting the future. But it says something that one of them is counting on H-E-B existing almost 100 years from now — and it’s where he imagines spending time with his friends.
H-E-B has already been around for more than a century. Generations of Texans have grown up looking up at those three letters and walking through those aisles.
It’s just always here. And maybe that, more than anything, is why people love it.
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