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After years of begging and pleading from Dallasites, beloved Texas grocery chain H-E-B is finally expanding to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
The chain announced last week that it currently has two stores planned for DFW, according to CultureMap. One location will open in Frisco, at Legacy and Main Street, and another will debut in Plano at Preston Road and Spring Creek Parkway in the coming months. If all goes according to plan, H-E-B is set to break ground on the two new stores sometime this summer.
It’s a truly long time coming for H-E-B, who gave locals a taste of some of its most cult-favorite items via Central Market, the H-E-B-owned upscale grocery chain that’s operated in DFW for two decades now. There are a few locations of the chain in cities that are technically considered part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex — Burleson and Waxahachie — but those ‘burbs are definitely a long haul from Dallas proper.
Despite widespread jubilation over the announcement, some were critical of H-E-B’s plans to move into two well-to-do suburbs that are replete with grocery stores instead of addressing the vast food inequality that exists in South Dallas. According to WFAA, the chain acquired a plot of land in Oak Cliff in 2017, promising to open a location of Central Market. Those plans never materialized.
“The hope was that they were going to open a grocery store in our community in Southern Dallas.” Southern Dallas Progress Community Development Corporation president James McGee told WFAA. “I was excited that the H-E-B is coming to the DFW metroplex. I was, in a sense, disappointed because it wasn’t located in Southern Dallas.”
Both of these first two H-E-B locations are expected to arrive sometime in Fall 2022. Stay tuned for a more concrete opening timeline as details become available.
