H-E-B To Bring Two of its Low-Price Stores, Joe V's, to Dallas

H-E-B has been slowly rolling into North Texas for about a decade, but the pace has decidedly picked up over the past two years. The first stores were on the southern periphery: Burleson and Waxahachie. Last year, H-E-B finally opened stores in Frisco and Plano to long lines and enduring fanfare. Alas, H-E-B still does not have a store in Dallas proper, although there are several Central Market stores, the grocer's upscale concept.

More North Texas stores are under construction, including ones in McKinney, Allen, Alliance and Mansfield, plus an upgrade to the Waxahachie store. And a second store in Frisco will soon break ground with a tentative opening date set for late 2024 at U.S. Highway 380 and FM 423; it will serve eastern Denton County. Plano has added a new e-commerce fulfillment center (EFC), to the existing store there. The EFC is designed to allow employees to fulfill home-delivery and curbside orders and will act as a hub for other local stores.

But there's a lot of real estate and mouths to feed between Waxahachie and Plano. The pleas to the San Antonio-based company have been frequent: "What gives?" Last year while reporting on what makes H-E-B the rock star of grocery stores, we asked the company's public relations team about the plot of land purchased in early 2022 in southern Dallas, the former site of a long-abandoned Albertsons grocery store. Do you have any updates? H-E-B's director of public affairs, Mabrie Jackson, wrote back, "We do. I look forward to sharing a date in the future."

That kind of caused a kerfuffle. She didn't really mean it, but she couldn't explain what she did mean.

Turns out, it wasn't exactly an H-E-B, but close.

Today H-E-B announced plans to open two Joe V's Smart Shops by H-E-B in Dallas. Joe V's is a concept launched in 2010 with what H-E-B calls an "innovative price format that delivers a uniquely curated assortment of community-focused products. The focus of the store is delivery of the lowest prices in the marketplace."

The first Joe V's will go into the abandoned grocery space at the corner of West Wheatland Road and U.S. Highway 67 (4101 Wheatland Road) and is expected to open in late summer 2024. This store was built in 1985 for Albertsons but closed in 2004 and has been vacant since. The result was the creation of a food desert with nearby neighborhoods left with few options for fresh produce close to home.

The second location of Joe V's will be at 5204 S. Buckner Blvd. at the intersection with Samuell Boulevard. It's expected to open in the spring of 2025.

Joe V's offers some of the items found at H-E-B like freshly baked tortillas, Sushiya sushi made in-house daily and a selection of fresh-cut fruit and organic produce. Stores are typically 55,000 square feet and employ about 150.

Tennell Atkins, who represents District 8 on the Dallas City Council, says the journey to get the store on Wheatland Road started when former state Rep. Helen Giddings (D-DeSoto) took him to visit a Joe V's in Houston 10 years ago.

Atkins points out that the old Albertson's space is a 50,000-square-foot building, whereas a typical H-E-B is about 100,000 square feet.

"I think they fitted the footprint in a product that was already there so they could move faster," Atkins says. "But in a food desert when you have nothing at all and you got something now, it's better than nothing. I think the product, the fresh vegetables and the fruit is all going to be the same [as an H-E-B] because they have the same supplier."

As for the space not being as large as a typical H-E-B, he says the city does not dictate where grocery stores go. "They tell us where they want to go. And I'd rather have something there [than nothing]."

In addition to the jobs it will bring, he says it could also draw in more shoppers to southern Dallas.

"Our residents have been going to the suburbs to shop, and now the suburbs will come to the city of Dallas to shop," Atkins says. "But the jobs is the big thing."

Benaye Wadkins Chambers is the president and CEO of Crossroads, a Dallas nonprofit food pantry focused on building nutrition-stable communities.

"This will be a very good thing. It's wonderful to introduce an H-E-B brand that will meet the needs of the south Dallas community," says Chambers. "It gives the community hope that people believe in our residents and they want to partner with us, to give our community what they need."