Houston’s (and America’s) first Walmart grocery store named and designed to cater to Latinos shut its doors at the end of last week. Supermercado de Walmart opened 5 years ago in Spring Branch in a converted 39,000-square-foot Neighborhood Market-style store at 7960 Long Point Rd., amid a fanfare of mariachi music and a smorgasbord of free food and drink samples. Those days are long gone: A reader sends in a pic (at right) of the far more offhand sign taped to the glass door.

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Back in February, Walmart shut down its lone similar experiment in warehouse clubs: its only Más Club, a remix of the Sam’s Club membership store at 8711 North Freeway in Houston. The company has made no big announcement with the closing of the Supermercado store. The only other Supermercado de Walmart was in Phoenix; that store appears to have closed as well.

Upon closing, the Long Point Supermercado apparently donated 7 tons of its remaining inventory to the food pantry at Houston’s First Baptist Church.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Spring Branch Supermarket Shutdown