Kroger Food Stores

Convenient. I’m not sure why everyone gripes about this Kroger. «combat kroger»
They have an iffy selection at best, and it’s pretty grimey but if you don’t want to drive into downtown or midtown it definitely wins for ease of use, assuming you’re not looking for something crazy. Not my first choice when doing weekly shopping either, but again it serves it’s purpose in the 2^nd ward. Staff are usually pretty friendly too.
Don’t let the other reviews sway you if you’re in the area and need something quick.

I’ve come to learn that krogers are pretty inconsistent in quality depending on the area you’re in. The one I’m familiar with that’s closer to my home seems to be at HEB/​target level in variety of supplies and cleanliness. This particular location was on the low-​end side with the parking lot chaotic and the interior of the store being in a bit of disarray. Would not be my first, second, or third choice if I needed to do some grocery shopping…

I’m a new resident of East Downtown and I wanted to give this Kroger a fair chance despite the negative rating and reviews.
This grocery store isn’t as terrible as it’s depicted. In all honesty, this establishment just needs a facelift. As for the service and the contents inside, it’s satisfactory.
I have no complaints about the produce and meat (which is all that really matters in the grand scheme). I probably won’t shop here often, simply because I need more variety (particularly in the deli department), but other than that is a fully functional grocery store.
I’m big on aesthetics and that’s mainly where this store loses it’s appeal. Hopefully the company can find a way to update the store without losing business and inconveniencing customers.

What a dump! The Parking lot floods and gets massive pot holes. Nobody returns their shopping carts because there’s a lack of return spots for them or they’re just lazy, so park at your own risk. Poor selection when it comes to meat and poultry. Sometimes, depending on the checker, my bread gets smashed because they just lazily sack your stuff. Nobody wants smashed bread, ok?! They seriously need to train staff on how to sack– I thought it was common sense and sacking 101 to not bag meat with household products.
I try to avoid this place at all costs but it’s right down the street from me! Definitely a place to stop and run in and out if I need to pick up an item or two but would not shop here exclusively. It definitely needs a facelift.

Saw a rat run across the store while shopping. Yeah don’t get anything fresh from there, if anything at all. Also everything in the bakery section looks like its been there for weeks and is just not appetizing at all. Also it kind of smells… Have to drive to heb in montrose for a decent grocery but it is worth it.

No, this is not the best Kroger store in the city, but it serves its purpose. It’s one of the smaller stores and has a limited selection of items. It’s conveniently located, because there aren’t many grocers in the area. The manager and employees are always very nice.

Yes, it’s small, and the clientele can still be on the grungy side, but the people are very friendly and helpful, particularly in the mornings. It doesn’t carry a lot of the items you would find in a larger store, but the prices are better, and there’s a small-​town, neighborhood feel you don’t get from the big boys. They can also try to get in special orders.

Well, I recently went back to this Kroger hoping for an improved experience. Unfortunately I had to use the restroom. I’ll let my newly added pictures speak for themselves.
But again, the checkout people are really nice.

A little on the scary side of town…

Cozy and convenient easy to access when in a rush, feels like family type atmosphere.

This is my neighborhood Kroger. I really wish they would just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. This grocery store is pure convenience, but I’d rather travel the the new Kroger with gas station near Arnie’s Warehouse. The Kroger in the Eastend needs a huge face lift. Even with some of the improvements is nothing to brag about. It’s like putting a band-​aid to cover the broken stuff. I do have to say the employees have improved their attitude, then again I avoid asking questions especially in their deli department. The parking lot has a strange flow. It’s also dirty and the baskets are hard to find. CLEAN UP YOUR ACT KROGER EAST END!

This is my go-​to grocery store due to the location and value. Over the past year this Kroger has seen a major facelift and has rehauled its infrastructure. They now offer many organic and locally produced options, as well as many store brand and value priced items. Many of the employees there are local high school kids, so they are respectful and friendly.
It’s unfair to compare the size and the quality of this store with other Kroger stores (like Disco Kroger on Montrose) because it’s catering to its area. Eastwood is economically diverse, but many households are lower income so this store stocks things that are lower in price range. This Kroger also gets a bad rap because it is «dangerous» but that’s just a euphemism people use when considering a dense, lower-​income ethnic area.
To be fair, the negatives about the store are that there is only one freezer aisle and I wish there were a larger selection of meat and fish.
Students at UH should patron this store. It could really help develop the store to a better quality if it received 10,000−20,000 more customers.

Staff not rude… which I can’t say for other stores. Store is small, and doesn’t have a huge selection, but it will have what you need. People should get out of their fantasy world about everything being all harmonic and that every store should look ‘pretty’. Yea, because Kroger wants to spend their money on a store that the people reviewing would call the ‘hood’ and how they go to every other store but this one. That will get them to spend more money on it.

Woahwoahwoah, SIMMAH DOWN everyone, Eastwood is mah ‘hood. Yep, the gentrification has begun. So watch what you say. ‘Cause you will prob buy a loft here in 5 years. From me. And I will be loling at how much I am ripping you off. And I also lol’d at everyone’s bewilderment by the amount of Hispanics they see near downtown Houston. Because, you know:
This Kroger is a typical Kroger in a working class neighborhood. Selection is very adequate. Lineups are frequent during peak hours. Beer selection is very decent yet you can’t find frozen perogies. Produce is great. I don’t see how the exact same produce that you’d buy from some fancy kroger is any different from produce here. This place is old but clean. Old does not = dirty, idiots. But the deli counter doesn’t even sell roast beef. But best of all, THE HOURS! 0600 – 0000. In other words, I am ambivalent. It is my kroger, just a stumble away from my house, but like many other things, the powers that be wanna keep Eastwood down. If working class people and the odd crackhead terrify you, concomitant with the *faint!!* dated interior, yeah… go to the Whitelands.
If you have a car, live in some suburb, and do not live anywhere near the 2^nd ward, I do not see why you would come here, except maybe to find something to get offended by. The old buildings and the history, Mexican grannies letting their chihuahuas off leash in the parking lot before grabbing it viciously by its neck in order to throw it into their shopping cart, and stray roosters will probably terrify a caucasian, bourgeois Unilocaler (ie 80% of all Unilocalers). Of course, these Unilocalers have the highest standard of impartiality, and they would *never* review a grocery store in a plebeian neighborhood captiously; sure, some mentally-​stable, well traveled, and reasonable people may be truly, authentically «frightened» while walking into a grocery store in a working class neighborhood in the first world. However, for us serfs, this prosaic grocery store is all we got. Sorry. 3 stars for the adequacy of this supermarket that is one block from my house and one added for the time they let my friend in at 2358hrs to purchase a 2 – 4 of lonestar.

As a Houston newbie, I am almost entirely unfamiliar with Kroger, and as a first-​year U of H law student, I am well-​aware that the area surrounding the university is, to put it mildly, sketchy. I plan to do most of my grocery shopping at the H-​E-​B on Buffalo Speedway, but tonight I needed a couple of things and didn’t want to drive all the way to H-​E-​B, so I decided to visit this Kroger, which is only about a mile from campus. I figured that surely the reviews on here would be exaggerated, and that there’s no way it could possibly be *that* bad.
I was wrong. This is the single most dirty, tiny and frightening grocery store I’ve ever been to outside of New York City. The experiencing of walking in is an anachronism in itself, kinda like entering one of the ancient movie theaters built in the era before stadium seating and digital projection. There is only one door in and one door out, and both are only wide enough to barely fit the width of a shopping cart. There are six checkout aisles. No, that’s not a typo and I didn’t intend to type sixteen: six, only two of which appear to be staffed even at peak hours. The store’s product selection is almost shockingly small, as one would expect. Worse still, prices across the board are MUCH higher than H-E-B’s, even on the «discounted» items you apparently need a member card to obtain. $ 7.20 for a half-​gallon of Blue Bell? Seriously?!?
A number of the reviews I’ve seen here and elsewhere refer to this location as a «ghetto Kroger.» I’m a little surprised these Houstonians aren’t more familiar with the demographics of their own city. I did my homework long before arriving in town, and know that the greater Eastwood area in which Kroger is situated is overwhelmingly Hispanic-​populated. Thus, the more correct term would be «barrio Kroger.» (OTOH the very first thing one sees upon entering the beer aisle are 40s of Olde English. Way to live up to stereotypes, Kroger!)
I am giving this store two stars instead of one for only two reasons: it has been recently renovated to some extent (although its linoleum floors appear to be decades old), and the store has wisely hired a security guard to keep watch over the parking lot at night. While I will continue to visit this store, it will be only for emergencies or if I’m in need of a solitary item.

Ok, this Kroger is seriously grungy… but, I want to shop there all the time because it is in the East End.
For us over on Navigation, it is the only major grocery store that’s close. I hate driving all the way to the 11^th St Krogers (even though it is nice), or fighting traffic and buses to make it to the Randalls in Midtown (and it isn’t that great either).
They technically had the stuff I was looking for right then, but the produce section was dismal. They had more varieties of canned marshmallow spread than they did varieties of apples.
When is HEB going to open up a grocery store near downtown???

Dirty, Old, Gross.
I don’t buy produce or meat from this store. Looking under the produce, you will find that it is sitting on rusty, dirty, metal racks. Looking under the meat packages you will see the same thing. Under some of the meat they use a white or black liner to protect the meat, but in some cases the liners haven’t been changed in a while. The liners saturated with chicken juice gross me out the most.
More Negatives:
* The aisles are narrow
* The store is understaffed, which results in long checkout lines
* The employees are not happy
* Poor wine selection. This is true in general for the east side.
Other Thinks to know
* They sale lotto tickets and scratch off tickets
* They have an ATM machine
* They have two red box DVD rental kiosks
* They have a coinstar machine to count your coins

Having lived in a lot of different places, I’ve experienced the best and worst that the grocery store industry can offer. This is on the latter end of the spectrum.
To be fair, the workers there are always nice and want to be helpful. This makes me think that the management team is the issue — TRAIN YOUR WORKERS! Lots of the kids working there barely know the layout of the store, often having to go w/​me to look for something, rather than being able to simply state its location.
The 2 worst qualities: the lines, and the lack of selection. The lines — that’s pretty straight forward. For some reason, most of my visits there end with more time in line than shopping, and that’s just not right. The lack of selection — best seen in the produce. We may live a block away from Kroger, but we now go only to Fiesta for our produce. This Kroger has verrrrry little in the way of fruit/​veggie stuff. This is often a representation of the American system in which lower-​income areas are often denied better selection of healthy foods. I’m glad to see Fiesta doesn’t give into those norms.

Ever go into a store feeling like you’re being held hostage? No? Well skip on over to PoKro, because you’ll see what I mean. Not only do I feel increasingly hopeless that I keep having to patronize this awful, awful store due to lack of options, but I’m actually being held hostage every time I walk in thanks to the lines that snake around the store for no discernible reason except for mass incompetence. The latest trip took me twenty full minutes in the «express lane» (OH THE IRONING) – about one of which was walking in and actually picking things up. The wait was due to the fact that some guy couldn’t get his janky-​ass folded Lone Star card to work after ten minutes of attempts, and then in a subsequent purchase the cashier didn’t know how to take checks. When it was finally my turn and the cashier asked how I was, I resisted giving him the patented Glare of Death. Believe me, cashier man. YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW.
And then, of course, I can’t forget the time that PoKro ran out of bags. YES. GROCERY BAGS. How does that even happen? I was helpfully told that I could purchase a reusable bag, but it’s painful enough giving this terrible place money. I just loaded whatever I’d purchased up in my arms and left.
Kroger’s doing a new promotion citywide where if you receive great service, you ring a bell next to the cashier’s station. The signs commanding you to point out great service are here, but there’s no bell in sight. That alone tells you everything you need to know about this place.
It’s only a matter of time before I exit this store while shouting «THIS IS THE WORST GROCERY STORE IN. THE. WORLD!!!» because it’s completely true. I can only hope I have a viable neighborhood alternative by the time I reach my breaking point. Please, God, if you’re listening… send me a place to buy my groceries that doesn’t give me an aneurysm.

This Kroger is the only grocery store within walking distance. That’s the only thing keeping it from getting one star.
It’s run-​down, and if you want a cart, you have to find one in the parking lot outside. Locals tend to steal them and keep them for personal shopping trips, and corporate has no intentions of replacing carts or keeping them inside. There are no surveillance cameras, so you often see people pilfering items. No real selection in, well, anything. I knew this woud happen when I decided to move here, but this place is a hole. With Mandola’s expanding and a light rail going in on Scott Street, this place could go for a bulldozing and rebuilding.