H-E-B — Local services in San Antonio

As the son of several generations of midwestern farmers that grew all types of produce and raised all types of farm animals for market, I found the incident that occurred at this HEB today very odd. I distinctly remember detasseling, picking apples, and hoeing potatoes as the first jobs I ever got ‘paid’ for.

As a former employee of a midwestern grocery store that to this day still returns their cart to the cart dock in the parking lot or walks it back in, picks up litter after other customers and takes it to a trash bin, and after taking a product from a row that has been completely faced will reface from behind the item that I took, I find it extra peculiar that someone would take time from their schedule to approach me and talk down to me in a rather public and belittling manner.

As a conscious consumer that understands the intricacies of scheduling the right number of employees for the highest traffic hours while maintaining a ratio of employee pay to projected gross sales and the first person to immediately bag their own groceries when there is nobody to do so, I am struck that I have more foresight for being helpful and aware than the person that came up to me this morning. I dutifully question if customer service and the ideology behind not only getting quality consumer items that are needed throughout the week, but that a good positive memorable experience is equally as important is still being taught.

So, you must understand my chagrin when an HEB employee approached me in the produce section to inform me that placing my cold ¾ empty coffee mug on the empty row above a slanted display of peaches would damage the peach below. I looked at him for a moment considering whether he was being serious as the peaches were stacked three to four rows deep. He proceeded to repeat himself as if that would somehow reinforce my seeming lack of understanding. I said nothing as I thought back a few minutes to when I purposely looked for and found empty spots in the apple section to set my mug down. I quietly contemplated how I had looked for a similar empty spot to set my mug down so that I could shove more peaches into my produce bag to spend even more money at HEB, questioning why I even attempted to try. Then I walked over to the produce scale to weigh my coffee cup (watch the footage HEB, it must be amusing!) vs. a peach. My mug weighing in at a dominating .57 lb. vs. the .48 lb. of the peach, years of understanding the tactile pressure of finding the perfect produce and understanding the delicate balance of tensile strength fruit and vegetables must have in order to sit on top of a full trailer of freshly harvested produce as it is being trucked into town, now all in question.

I’m glad that someone took the time to come over and tell me this information, a customer well into his 50’s with untold years of farming and produce experience that spends hundreds of dollars a week at HEB. This was vastly more important than full facing empty spots on shelves, rotating fruit, pulling expired goods, or even being cognizant of the several checkers that could use an extra hand instead of a customer to bag their groceries.

I bought that peach that was under my mug, not the one next to it that was obviously bruised and should have been pulled for secondary sale in a fruit salad. I wanted to thank HEB for bringing back a swell of memories from my childhood on the farm that I have not thought of in years. Untapped happy memories were the best part of my shopping experience this morning. Happy enough to have me go home and write this review, book tickets back to the family farm, and look forward to the upcoming understanding my children will have about how much weight one piece of fruit...

Has more than the smaller HEB's in San Antonio but lacks larger sized products like Heinz Mustard, their own brand of peanut butter, and organic peanut oil. Stevia in the Raw and McCormick Bacon Bits disappeared a long time ago. The quality of their produce declined, especially Fuji apples and tomatoes. However, they carry a less expensive but good mineral water called, "Geyser Water". Depending on the day of the week, parking can be a headache.

As of today, April 7, the Alnon HEB restocked Heinz Mustard and organic peanut oil. Although avocados, apples and sweet onions jumped in price, produce is plentiful and of good quality.

This store sometimes plays "hocus-pocus" with store coupon placement near items. Since Walmart hasn't had McCormick Bacon Bits for a couple of weeks, I decided to pull a store coupon from the highest shelf on the aisle where generic bacon bits are kept and made a purchase. At the checkout, the cashier politely informed me the coupon was for HEB generic bacon bits and not HFC generic bacon bits. (?????) I decided to go ahead and buy the HEB generic bacon bits because there is no telling when the real thing will be back on shelves.

Parking is good for those who do curbside shopping over the phone. For the rest of us, parking is still a headache.

Update: supply line problems like everyone else in America. Small avocados are $1.08 each. I couldn't find a single package of pepperoni in the "lunchmeat and cheese isle" section this week. (I didn't check the deli department.) The good news is that the pet food department is almost back to normal.

Despite pledges to improve the parking lot conditions for regular customers other than curbside customers, still no added shade during this record breaking spring heat (100+ daily).

Update: No noticeable change.

Supply line issues with carbonated drinking water are better.

Update: 2/14/2023. This store installed fake grass to areas in the parking lot. Why??? This is a huge mistake and eventually harmful to trees in the same location.

Update: 4/27/2023. Shortage of Herritage Ranch canned dog food. Good sales on apples.

Update: 6/29/2023. An HEB vehicle, apparently for the flower department, has taken up a convenient customer parking place for the last 3 weeks.

Update: 8/31/2023 The flower department was relocated.

Update: 9/36/2023. H-E-B carries numerous tasty fruit juices, including their own brand, including Diet Cranbury Pomegranate, my favorite. However, there is one serious problem which is pictured with this post. In at least the last two or three years, the blue plastic screw bottle cap has been defective. I estimate I purchased at least 10 bottles, and only once, I was unable to simply unscrew the cap the usual way. The other times, I've had to take a serrated knife and cut along where the cap should normally separate from the bottle. The one time it unscrewed normally was my second to last purchase; but this last time, the cap was even worse than usual. As far as I can tell, the Diet Cranberry Pomegranate bottle is the only one with the cap issue. I urge H-E-B to solve the problem. BTW, it's not my own arm strength; I do two Cross-fit workouts each week.

4/4/2024. Restrooms...

This is the best HEB in the city. While packed during the day, it is less crowded in the mornings on weekends. The staff is friendly and all of the food products are stocked FULL.

For the trendy in town: They have a vegan frozen food area, a vegan bunker in produce near seafood full of vegan meat alternatives, lots of Almond Milk, Coconut Milk, and Cashew Milk... They have an entire gluten free aisle and at the end of that, there is a vegan dry product area. So plenty of places to grab vegan stuff. There is a restaurant across from this HEB called GREEN, it is vegetarian with alot of vegan options. Wine, wine, and wine. You'll find a variety of every kind of wine here and the beer aisle is great as well. This is an excellent spot besides Gabriel's to collect the best tasting wines. Some prices are hit and miss on the most expensive vineyards, wait for the new year to clean house. Oh, and there's a daily salad bar you are able to build your own lunch and a big seating area to enjoy it.

For the meat eaters, the location features an actual full size deli for once. Not a popup like most HEBs. The selection is rich, and the deli also stocks an area on the meat wall in the back of cold cuts you may have never heard of. Their cheese bar is minimal but works out nice, the seafood section is enormous, the butcher in the meat area is experienced and knows what he is doing. And it's an actual butchery in the meat department, unlike other stores in San Antonio.

Dairy is sometimes short on the yogurt area and the juice area. Dairy could really step that up because I've never seen orange juice empty in all my life in the United States of America on a weekend. For the life of me, I cannot understand why that would ever happen in an HEB. Orange juice is an American thing. We go out of our way to buy juice when we're short on everything else. That can't go empty. It's just not right.

Frozen food is the standard 3 and a half aisles with the common layout HEB is famous for. Produce is huge but understaffed and they use people from all over the store to try to fix it instead of hiring some strong guys to get us those goods when the truck shows. They need to cull the bagged salads more. The diced fruit is over priced, HEB should know better. I'll pay it, but I won't expect many others to do so. Nearly $6 for diced watermelon. It's $4 on the other side of town. Are we to believe the watermelon is some how worth more inside of this location, diced and scaled by these particular HEB partners, than in any other area of San Antonio?

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