Moving to San Marcos for college in 2012, I had no idea what awaited me. I’d grown up in the lanes of Krogers, Tom Thumbs, and the occasional Albertsons grocery stores in Dallas. I never considered what grocery stores could be.
Enter: H-E-B. This might appear to be a little too much for the lead-in to an article about a grocery store. But that’s what H-E-B does. Through freshly made butter tortillas, disaster response, and highly curated shelves, H-E-B has developed a cultlike following since its inception in South Texas 120 years ago.
“You know, it’s just a sweet little company, honestly. It really is,” Heidi Post, Senior Director of Public Affairs for Central Texas at H-E-B, told us.
Of course, Post acknowledged that “little” is the wrong word to describe H-E-B these days. H-E-B has sales of more than $50 billion and operates more than 440 stores across Texas and in Mexico. The company, which started operating in the Austin area in 1938, continues to expand with locations in Lubbock, and in Dallas-Fort Worth.
So, how does a grocery store that started in one room in 1905 become huge enough to have Jim Parsons, the “Big Bang Theory” actor who was born in Houston, voice a baby for its Super Bowl 2026 commercial?
It’s a combination of things, of course. A combo loco, if you will.
The store manages to keep its prices low in this economy by staying humble, Post explained. The company keeps things modest in how it operates — not having the fanciest offices, for example — to keep costs down.
H-E-B has also found that being communicative with the communities it serves has been helpful. Nikki DaVaughn, the host of City Cast Austin’s podcast, may be why the H-E-B near the intersection of Springdale Road and U.S. 183 has hummus.
“I remember going in one day and they didn't have hummus. And I was like, ‘Why don't y'all have hummus? This is weird, right?’” DaVaughn told Post.
DaVaughn took it upon herself to send H-E-B an email about the missing hummus and the company actually responded. A year or so later, hummus was on the shelves.
Depending on what store you visit, different products may be available. An H-E-B in Northwest Austin near the Jewish Community Center has lots of Kosher products and is always packed with matzo around Passover, for example.
“We try to personalize our assortment for different areas of a town. That is a bit of our special sauce. We're not cookie cutter,” Post said.
But perhaps the best thing H-E-B does that keeps Austinites coming is how it responds to disaster. Anytime a natural disaster happens, jokes that H-E-B runs better than the Texas government make the rounds online.
H-E-B always appears to be ready for anything — a 2024 dockworkers strike, the 2021 freeze, and Hurricane Harvey. Hunger and disaster relief are part of the company’s key pillars, Post said.
“We are a grocery business. We have food on our shelves, right? One of our top pillars and values is ‘How can we make sure people are being fed?’ So our hunger relief program is really at the core of our disaster relief services,” she said.
Earlier this year, the city of Austin reached out to H-E-B when catering fell through for its warming centers during a freeze.
H-E-B started matchmaking stores with warming shelters. Once the city was able to get someone to a store, H-E-B gave them a budget to shop with to get food to the warming shelters.
“That's the city calling us, saying ‘SOS H-E-B, can you help?’ And we're saying, ‘Yes, of course,’” Post said.
