H-E-B is (finally) expanding in Dallas-Fort Worth. Here’s where and when

James Hartley
·2 min read

Yes, you read that headline right: H-E-B is making its next move in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

The Texas grocery chain with a fanatical following broke ground for one store Thursday in Frisco and plans to do the same for another in Plano on Friday, according to a news release.

The stores are scheduled to open in fall 2022, according to the release.

The locations, while in the metroplex, will still be farther from most shoppers in Fort Worth than the H-E-B Plus in Burleson, at the southern edge of DFW, but it’s still the first move the company — which owns land throughout DFW — has made to enter the market north of Dallas.

The 111,000-square-foot store in Frisco will be built at the northeast corner of Legacy Drive and Main Street. The site in Plano is at the southwest corner of Preston Road and Spring Creek Parkway.

The Frisco and Plano stores will include a bakery, deli, Meal Simple ready-to-cook dishes, sushi from Dallas staple Sushiya, a True Texas BBQ restaurant with a drive-thru, and live cooking demonstrations and samplings.

It also will include a pharmacy and a beauty department and sell floral arrangements, and a large selection of craft beer and wine (with sampling stations).

The grocer chain, which has been operating in Texas since 1905, recently acquired property in Fort Worth, but the company has made no indication of when — or even if — it might develop on that land.

But there’s a ton of competition in the city Where the West Begins and a lot of people already have a favorite grocery store picked out. Breaking into that market now could be tough.

The closest H-E-B stores to the metroplex, until those two open up, are in Burleson, Hudson Oaks, Cleburne, Granbury and Waxahachie. The company, which has a mass of followers similar to fans of Whataburger and Buc-Ee’s, operates locations in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Abilene and down into Mexico.

If none of those locations are close enough, just remember Central Market is basically H-E-B’s bougie brand and Fort Worth has one of those in the Chapel Hill Shopping Center, across the street from Arlington Heights High School.