Statement to our Customers and Friends:
Today we are announcing that we have entered into an agreement to lease our Fountain View location to SPEC’S WINES, SPIRITS, AND FINER FOODS. We will continue to operate the store through approximately the end of July. Spec’s plans to open their store later this year.
With the closing of our last store, this is a historic time for our family as we complete the transition of our business that we began several years ago. We are proud of our three generations of family who have been operating grocery stores in Houston, and we have always enjoyed serving our community with the best service, catering, and products we could provide. Our grandparents, William and Edna Levy, opened the original “Rice Blvd Food Market” store 85 years ago. The store was in a shopping center developed by our great grandfather, Manuel Meyerhoff, in the original shopping center in the area we know as the “Rice Village.” Our fathers, Joel Levy and Alfred Friedlander, joined the business in the 1950’s, as they grew our family’s grocery business throughout the city. With more stores, our family’s business has naturally expanded over the years into real estate, in neighborhood shopping centers initially with our own stores, and now with many quality retailers. With this transaction, our family’s business progression and growth in the Houston real estate business continues.
We’re excited to welcome Spec’s to this outstanding neighborhood and look forward to seeing them continue their tradition of quality and service they bring to our city. We also recognize that this transaction affects people who have worked for our stores for many years, some dating back to the original Rice Food Market stores. They are all very important to us. We plan to keep as many people working as we wind down the operations through the end of July and use the transition period to help our associates that are looking for new positions.
We sincerely appreciate all our long-standing customers and those new customers who discovered our stores. We thank everyone for your patronage and support.
Gary Friedlander
Bruce Levy
Tommy Friedlander
Scott Silverman
Phil Cohen
For questions or comments, please contact info@riceepicurean.com.