Scenes from the Dunlavy Fiesta Farewell Shopping Experience

Last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy was the last night at the Fiesta on Dunlavy. Photographer-about-town Sarah Lipscomb, who began shopping at the store on the corner of West Alabama back when it was a Safeway, grabbed a few shots of the grocery store’s interior as she strolled the aisles there one last time:

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Finger Companies plans to develop a 6-to-8-story apartment complex on the site.

Photos: Sarah Lipscomb

48 Comment

  • What was it before it was Safeway, I only lived in Montrose for 25 years?

  • miss_msry: I think I read somewhere that the location was once a Weingarten’s. I will have to look it up.

  • Wasn’t it a Weingarten’s?

  • Weingarten, Safeway, Appletree, Fiesta.

  • I think it was a Weingarten’s. Sad to see it go but fortunately I’m “acclimated” to the San Jacinto store…

  • YAY! one step closer to that ugly building being torn down. I have been waiting a long time to see this place go and it finally happened. And hahahaha to all the people that complained about it closing. Take your hipster self to the heights and get over the fact that Montrose is becoming a much nicer and better neighborhood.

  • I went in there a few years ago and the creepiest people were working there some guy who was an employee yelled at me and said what are you staring at which I wasn’t doing anything except buying a ticket at the Ticketmaster counter. So I never wanted to go back form that experience alone until my husband made me go there a month or so ago and it wasn’t anything special so I don’t see what the big deal is. Much better grocery choices are in the area

  • All I can say is YES! FINALLY! Montrose is moving up to bigger and better things.

  • WOW! a fond farewell by a lifelong Montrosian is no reason to send them packing to the Heights. No doubt the Montrose is in need of some upgrading, but no need to get snarky about it. I hear The Woodlands has some beautiful New buildings btw :)

  • We’ll just go across the street to that Bright Shiny Turd of a grocery and forage with the breeder gentry.

  • I can’t wait to see the new development. I hope it’s 8 stories.

  • It’s official. Montrose has gone full circle and it’s once again filled with folks like Kit and Adriana. Give it 30 years though when the Finger Apartments replacing the Fiesta become Gulfton 2.0 and the HEB closes and becomes a gay sex club forcing those two to flee to Navasota (the latest happening exurb).

  • Kit, methinks you are living in the wrong neighborhood. May I suggest you look into West U, which is as suburb-y as you can get inside the Loop with practically nothing but big box stores? :-)

  • that Fiesta was a small, perfectly sized market where you could always park close, easy in and out, and great prices with no stupid “club card” required. It was great, I’ll miss it. The last thing Montrose needs is some other new big apartment complex.

  • Thanks for your comments on my photos! I welcome whatever new comes in, I just appreciate the old days I think Swamplot is the perfect kind of site we can document the past that may never be repeated. And btw, if you are looking for an all new perfect?beautiful environment to live and shop in I agree with D- The Woodlands is where you need to be. It’s perfect over there- like Disneyland up there.

  • Did this Fiesta store get more coverage of it’s demise than it’s rise? Or is that just our society today loving to point out shortcomings of anything.

  • Angeli, me thinks you can’t afford West U. Please inform a “suburb-y” West U resident what big box stores we have..
    Please do your research before you start typing…seriously it’s sad.

  • Damn, I’m going to miss shopping there. I loved that store.

  • Sorry to disappoint but I was born and raised in Montrose and there is nothing wrong with wanting your neighborhood to become a nicer place to live and if that means getting rid of disgusting old apartment complexes and old ugly buildings that need to be torn down then yes I support any new development that happens. Does anyone realize that a lot of people are moving to Houston because of our economy and how much our city has the ability to grow. There was no need for that horrid store especially when there are like 7 other grocery stores within a few miles. It’s funny how people don’t like the new HEB, it’s amazing. Fiesta belongs in the I.A. neighborhoods. Get these people out of Montrose and back to Gulfton where they can breed like mice and have 50 people living in a 1 bedroom house.

  • Anyone know how we can convince this store to bring its wine/beer/coffee selection to the Quitman store?

  • Sigh. As a Montrose property owner, I am happy for the next steps. But as a Montrose resident, I can’t help but feel sad losing an integral part of the neighborhood. Here’s to progress. I think.

  • Joey A, what a way to represent your community. While we are engaging in ad hominem attacks, why don’t you learn some punctuation? Seriously, it is sad.

  • Wow. Kit’s a disgusting racist. Maybe she would feel more comfortable in some whitey-white suburban enclave near Dallas.

    Where were you “born” in Montrose, exactly?

  • Left Montrose 6 months ago (retired and relocated), but I still miss the hood. Nothing like that here in Corpus, but we have nice weather.

    We need SOME kind of organic market here. HEB has a monopoly here.

  • Kit probably doesn’t know where Montrose is.

  • The worst part about Fiesta closing?

    It’s going to be impossible for Kit to hear the lyrics to Depeche Mode’s “People are People” song while shopping at H.E.B across the street.

    Kit- it’s 2012. Overt racism makes you look like an assclown to everyone but other assclowns.

  • Whoaaaaaa….Kit! That’s a particularly fierce bit of racism there. Keep keeping it real Sir, I’m sure one day you will find someone who REALLY appreciates it.

  • Oh no looks like I touched a nerve ha! I wouldn’t be posting about montrose if I didn’t live and work here and if my whole family didn’t also work here. I don’t care if I came right out and said something about the illegals that live around here it’s disgusting how they all pile into these apartment complexes around here and then trash the neighborhood and have stupid Mariachi music blaring all over the place. Atleast the neighborhood is improving except for the crap on Richmond ave that needs to be cleaned up. Back to the fiesta that thank god is gone there’s one in midtown get over it and if all you alcoholics only care about the “wine and beer” are you freacking kidding me there are specs everywhere and a dozen other grocery stores around. So really I don’t care if I’m coming across as racist I only speak the truth which I know some others are thinking too….dont lie!

  • Kit is probably 12 years old.

  • miss_msry – Have you been to the Sprouts on Airline in CC? Seemed like a pretty nice store. Parking can be tough in that strip center though.

  • And yes shall we play who is more of a montrosian than the other? I live in Houston where Hispanics are the majority if I really had a problem with that I would move far far away I’m just saying clean up montrose and that’s what these developers are doing and it’s for the better. And there’s nothing any of you people can do about it. So I’ll sit back and watch montrose continue to keep looking better and better and make more money so our happy asses in Houston don’t have to suffer like the rest of this damn country already is. Keep the Mexicans so they can provide cheap labor and take the jobs that nobody wants. We are not Arizona lol. I just don’t want there family of 50 moving next to me.

  • It was also a Rice store (non epicurean) for a while during the 80’s, between the safeway/appletree days.

  • Hey Kit, save your racist comments for Chron.com, thanks for playing over here at Swamplot though. That was a damn fine grocery store because of the small scale, sad to see it go, but it really had no chance after HEButt moved in.

  • Uh-buh-bye.

  • K: “These developers” will do a great job of cleaning up the Montrose, and The Kits will going crying all the way to HCAD about there..uh their property taxes, to pay for Public Schools for? Lulz
    And Yes I like Red Wine, don’t be so Judgey. ;)

  • Not only is Kit a racist, he/she is also a poor speller and even worse at grammar.

    D: I agree with you. Once property values go up, so will the taxes. Then people like Kit will cry and whine about higher property taxes and fight to lower the appraised value of their property. As if any additional infrastructure and city services will just magically pay for themselves.

  • Oh no I have bad grammar! Big whoop is that really the best comeback you can come up with. HA! And maybe if you were paying attention you would realize I don’t own I rent so no taxes for me. I stand behind every single thing I said. It cracks me up how people can be so mad at a few comments that are obviously the truth. But that’s ok it provides me extra entertainment for the day. Go back to work and stop acting so high and mighty. This is a blog about Houston get over yourselves. It’s not the end of the world if I make truthful comments that offend you hypocrites out there.

  • Kit, you must not realize that as part of your rent, you are paying some proportionate share of the property taxes. Guess what, as real estate prices go up, whatever rent you are paying will, in turn, go up. Further, guess what’ll happen when the dirt gets too expensive to support whatever rent you are able/willing to pay… bah-bye apartment. Bah-bye Kit.

  • Come on, the bad grammar/punctuation is a dead giveaway that Kit is a troll. The obvious irony of railing against Spanish speaking immigrants, yet not being able to effectively communicate in English is a blatant troll calling card. 3/10 on the troll meter for Kit. He got a fair number of people to bite, but he was a latecomer to the “die Fiesta die” meme and had a dead troll giveaway with the bad grammar/punctuation.

  • Seconded Mel.

  • NO ONE’S A NATIVE here Kit! Legal or not.Do you honestly know your full bloodline 200 years ago that no one snook in?

  • Old School: Thank you for articulating what I was thinking.

  • Kit,
    I could ignore your tired racist-troll act and just look straight ahead and focus on getting home but when I’m driving by the mangled wreckage that are your posts it’s almost impossible to not to turn my head and try to figure out what transpired. Oh, the horrors of stupidity!

  • Awww that’s sweet, and I would gladly pay more if that means not living in the same neighborhood as any I.A.’s I could easily afford double what I pay now but its called living modestly and saving money instead of wasting it like most of you do on bulls*** you don’t need. Now that I think about it I would happily move out of Montrose if my job wasn’t 5 minutes away, its just convenient.

    So yes please raise property taxes I have no problem with that.

    Why do I keep responding to this nonsense oh yes that’s right because there always has to be someone who tries to be so politically correct about something.

    So I will say it again. It’s pathetic how the only stupid reasons any of you have for not wanting the Fiesta to close is because of the stupid 80’s music which sucks anyway, the “beer and wine” oh boo hoo and because you are trying to rebel against any new development that threatens the “eclectic” Montrose. What a joke. No need arguing anymore that piece of junk building is on it’s way to being demolished. And before you know it your precious Montrose will no longer have homeless, street brats, trannies, and illegals living in it.

  • Kit,
    I doubt everyone that is responding to you is a fan of the Fiesta. They’re just amused by your muddled ramblings. Please don’t go away any time soon. Personally, I hope you can post your thoughts on all Swamplot articles. You’re really amusing.

  • As a college-educated professional who loves the Montrose area, is it weird that I feel more comfortable around homeless, street brats, trannies, and illegals than I do when I am in West U, the Woodlands, or Sugarland?

  • I live in the Montrose so I CAN live around homeless, street brats, trannies and illegals. Their company is infinitely preferable to that of soccer moms and self-entitled jerks in golf shirts.

  • This story is making me feel old … not for the first time. I grew up a couple of blocks away on Colquitt and went to Weingarten’s (a grocery store and forerunner of Weingarten’s Realty Trust) even before the strip center was extended to the south sometime in the early ’60s with a TG&Y (anyone remember that name?) on the south end cap. Interesting changes to the neighborhood – sic transire tempora.