Roy Pope Grocery, an old-time neighborhood supermarket, meat market and burger grill serving west Fort Worth since World War II, is up for sale and will close next week, owners said Thursday.

A closeout sale began Friday and will continue until everything is sold, owners Bob and Renee Larance said.

The supermarket is at 2300 Merrick St., near Camp Bowie Boulevard.

Click to resize

When Roy Pope Grocery opened in 1943, it was the war boom in Fort Worth, and the Arlington Heights and Ridglea neighborhoods filled overnight with defense workers.

Business had waned as the neighborhood aged in recent years, Bob Larance said. He said they had already decided to put the grocery up for sale before the coronavirus recession this week.

“We’ve lost a lot of older clientele, and it’s a matter of the younger generation not really wanting this,” Larance said.

Customers went to Roy Pope this week to beat the superstore lines for meat, produce and paper goods.

“But one week doesn’t solve years of problems,” Larance said.

When the grocery opened, it was a partnership between Pope and another grocer, Charles Kincaid.

In 1946, Pope and Kincaid split in a disagreement. Kincaid opened his own grocery three blocks east. It went on to become today’s Kincaid’s Hamburgers.

Over the years, Kincaid’s updated the store and eventually became a hamburger restaurant. But Roy Pope Grocery kept the original grocery layout with narrow aisles, cluttered shelves and a full-service meat market where diners could pick up a cheeseburger or some of the west side’s best fried chicken.