Randalls operates 32 supermarkets in Texas under the Randalls and Flagship Randalls banners. The chain consists of 13 stores located around the Houston area and 15 stores located around the Austin area as of May 2020. Randalls today forms the nucleus of the current Houston division of Albertsons and is headquartered in the Westchase district of Houston. The office served as the headquarters of the independent Randalls company before its takeover and later the Texas division of Safeway. The Randalls distribution center was near Cypress, Texas (the Cy-Fair area in unincorporated Northwest Harris County with a Houston postal address), and now is serviced by the Tom Thumb distribution in Roanoke, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.
Most stores include fresh seafood, floral, cosmetic, bakery and film processing departments. The premium Flagship Randalls and Flagship Tom Thumb stores have increased their take-out departments to provide fresh-made pizzas, pastas and barbecue. Many locations even offer bank branches, ATMs, coffee shops, drive-through pharmacy windows, fueling stations and full-service counters where a customer can purchase lottery or movie tickets, pay utility bills and car license renewals.
History
Randalls Food Markets was founded by Robert Randall Onstead, R. C. Barclay, Norman N. Frewin and T.A. Morgan in Houston, Texas, on July 4, 1966, with the purchase of two existing grocery stores. The first Randalls opened in 1966. The company's fourth store opened in 1970, and by the end of the decade the company owned 15 stores and had established itself in the market. In 1980 Randalls had 8% of the Houston area grocery market, making it the fourth largest grocer there. By 1985 the company was the second largest grocer in the five-county Greater Houston area, with 17% of the sales in the market.
In 1989, Soviet politician Boris Yeltsin, who later became the President of Russia, visited a Randalls store in Clear Lake. Yeltsin was amazed by the selection of goods available in the store and was quoted as saying, "Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev." Yeltsin later wrote in his autobiography, "When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people. ... That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty!" This specific store closed in February 2020.
By 1990 the chain had expanded to 42 stores. In 1991 Randalls earned over a billion dollars in revenue, making it the fastest growing company in Houston.
Expanding from Houston
In the 1990s, Randalls expanded into Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin. Cullum Companies, owner of 62 Tom Thumb and Simon David stores in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, became part of the Randalls family in 1992, doubling the company's size with more than 115 stores statewide. The Tom Thumb logo was changed to one similar to Randalls, but the Tom Thumb name was retained. Already in Austin with the Tom Thumb name, Randalls added its own name to the market in January 1994 when the company bought 12 AppleTree Markets stores (ironically a grocer formed with former Safeway locations as a result of Safeway leaving Texas in 1988). Nine of the 12 AppleTree Markets and all seven Tom Thumb stores were converted to the Randalls banner, giving the company a significant presence in the Texas Hill Country. The remaining three AppleTree stores were closed. Though the Simon David would remain open until December 1996, after which it became a Saks Fifth Avenue. After many customers lamented the loss of Austin's only Simon David, Randalls decided in 1998 to make its Bee Caves store a Flagship Randalls supermarket, the first in the city and the eighth in the chain.
After 28 years in operation, Randalls began to sell beer and wine in its stores in late 1994. (Though company-owned Tom Thumb and AppleTree stores in Dallas and Austin acquired beginning in 1992 had already been selling beer and wine.)
Post-Onstead era
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
In April 1997, buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. invested $225 million in exchange for a majority interest in the supermarket chain. Randalls then accelerated its growth in various markets and at the same time sold or closed a number of stores that choked advancement. Within a year, the company opened one store in Houston and three stores in Dallas (including two replacement stores), while closing four stores in Houston, two stores in Dallas (which were replaced) and four stores in Austin.