After months of praying and writing to local government folks and H-E-B, a brand-stink’n-new grocery store is scheduled to be built in my neighborhood! I can’t even tell you how much of a BFD this is for us Trey dwellers. Currently the Third Ward is considered a “food desert.” Yes, that’s a thing.
Definition of a Food Desert: While there are a myriad of definitions for the term food desert, none of them are necessarily mutually exclusive from one another as each recognizes that food deserts exist when people have limited access to particularly nutritious foods.
Currently, my neighborhood food options are sparse. Heck, they’re pretty much non-existent. There are a few run-down fast food choices down the street from me. It consists of a questionable Burger King, a sad Shipley’s, a bus-stop Wing Stop, and an always-empty Navy Seafood. There are a few options on the UH campus, but I don’t really want to go to the Student Center Food Court for a decent meal. I don’t want to pay to park on campus, and I’d prefer not to be surrounded by youths while I’m gorging myself on mediocre McAllister’s.
Grocery stores are non-existent, too. There is only one (if you don’t count the uber-ghetto mini-marts next to what’s known as the “open air drug markets”), and it’s the reeeeeaaalllyyy sketchy, deplorable, run-down, H-E-B on Scott and OST. I hate going there. I’m not the only one either, check out it’s Yelp Reviews if you’re looking for a laugh.
We live in a college neighborhood, next to a giant fancy medical center, and you wouldn’t catch a single student or doctor shopping there.
So with all that being said, this new H-E-B is a pretty big deal for the ‘hood. Apparently, it’s been quite the battle to get this new $13.8 Million store built, too. Check out all these stories for the full details on the grueling process:
