Handy Andy's 6 area stores change hands

A sign on the window of the former Handy Andy market on Zazamora Street announces the change of ownership to Arlan's Market. A sign on the window of the former Handy Andy market on Zazamora Street announces the change of ownership to Arlan's Market. Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Handy Andy's 6 area stores change hands 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Perhaps the oldest competitor in San Antonio's grocery market, Handy Andy Supermarkets, will bid farewell to its hometown after selling its remaining six locations to a small grocery chain based near Houston.

Family-owned Arlan's Market already has begun lowering prices on nearly 23,000 items at three Handy Andy stores in San Antonio and one each in New Braunfels, Schertz and Seguin after acquiring them in a deal last month, said President Ames Arlan. His Seabrook-based company also purchased three City Market stores in Austin.

The acquired stores all will bear the name Arlan's Market, and the company started replacing the signage at its new locations Monday. And though the visible changes officially bring Handy Andy's 86-year history to an end, its memory already had faded for some Alamo City residents.

“They were very unknown,” said Ken Murphy, who was vice president for Handy Andy. “I've worked for them for 25 years, and when I go to church I hear, ‘You still got stores?' Nobody knew about them.”

About 260 employees were employed with the remaining Handy Andy and City Market stores, and they kept their jobs, Arlan said. Their seniority also remains the same, with the exception of a new general manager overseeing the nine acquired stores.

Arlan opened his first store in 1991 and since has opened three more near the company's headquarters. The deal to purchase Handy Andy and City Market's remaining locations more than triples Arlan's store count and represents his first entry into the San Antonio and Hill Country markets.

Arlan said he purchased the stores from Terry Warren, who did not respond to requests for comment. However, Warren was the latest in a series of owners who attempted to resurrect Handy Andy's past success.

“I really like going into some of the older, neighborhood stores and giving them an opportunity to breathe more life into them,” Arlan said. “I want to keep growing, (but) a lot of that hinges on how we do with these.”

In 1926, the Becker family opened its first Handy Andy store at 1716 Broadway, and by the 1970s the company had peaked with nearly 60 stores across Texas and sales that exceeded $200 million, according to news archives. Company executives once boasted a local market share topping 30 percent, but industry price wars, shrinking profit margins and multiple changes in management cut Handy Andy's numbers after it declared bankruptcy in 1981.

That year, Ohio-based Kroger Co. announced a major entry into San Antonio, with plans to spend $50 million on more than a dozen stores in the city. Shortly after, H-E-B, then based in Corpus Christi, said it would invest $46 million in a San Antonio-centered expansion project, the Express-News reported.

By 1992, Handy Andy had about 20 stores, with sales down from its peak to $148 million. It sold its properties one year later to Arizona-based Megafoods Stores. That company also had purchased all of Kroger's stores as it exited the San Antonio market.

After several more changes in leadership, Handy Andy's store count fell to 14 in 2005 and six in 2010, but Murphy said Handy Andy's small numbers might help it avoid attention from larger competitors.

“If you are too big and draw too much from their customer base, they'll do all they can to keep you from going,” Murphy said. “We are unique because we are in areas that they really don't have a big presence.

“It gives you an opportunity to serve the community and not upset the giant.”

Longtime customers of the Handy Andy on South Zarzamora, a quaint location sandwiched between a Family Dollar and a check cashing center, are glad the location will remain open and will improve.

“We can't get anywhere else,” said Robert Sepulveda, a 28-year-old who shopped at the store Friday afternoon with his 5-year-old daughter and father, who traveled down aisles in his motorized wheelchair.

Without reliable transportation, Sepulveda said it would be hard to get his family to the closest H-E-B on the corner of South Park Boulevard and Nogalitos Street.

“How's (my father) gonna get across the train tracks and through the cars?” he asked. “I'm glad (Handy Andy's) not going to close. We (have) shopped here since I was a kid.”