Supermarket News

A location of Texas supermarket chain H-E-B is coming to Bedford

H-E-B is coming to Bedford.

H-E-B

The mid-cities town of Bedford is hitting the supermarket jackpot with a new location of H-E-B.

According to a post from the city of Bedford, the Texas supermarket chain will open a new location in Bedford at the northwest corner of Cheek-Sparger Road and Rio Grande Boulevard (the road into the Glade Parks development).

The opening date is projected to be sometime in the second half of 2026.

It joins two other locations in Tarrant County: H-E-B Alliance, which opened on April 10, and H-E-B Mansfield which is slated to open in the spring. H-E-B also operates Central Market locations in Fort Worth and Southlake.

According to the city of Bedford's post, this will be a normal-sized H-E-B grocery store (119,000 square feet) which will face east, toward HWY 121, to allow for adequate parking, and a future H-E-B Fuel station and car wash.

The location will also have a True Texas BBQ restaurant within the store, along with a dedicated drive-thru. There will also be a pharmacy drive-thru and expanded grocery pick-up area.

"Several years ago, after H-E-B purchased the property in 2015, the Cities of Bedford and Euless prepared for this day by finalizing an agreement allowing both the property tax and the sales tax generated by the store to be split between the two cities, since the property falls within both cities," the city's post says. "The agreement also outlines each city’s responsibility for matters relating to platting, zoning, infrastructure, building plan review, permits, inspections, law enforcement, fire protection and prevention."

Bedfordites surely seem enthusiastic about the news. Four hours after a video on the opening was posted by the city of Bedford at 7:30 am on April 22, it has 25,000 views and 458 comments including one from H-E-B itself. ("We're super excited!" it says.)

Four other H-E-B stores have opened in northern Texas including Frisco, Plano, Allen, and McKinney - part of H-E-B's big expansion across North Texas, with more stores coming to Melissa, Prosper, and Rockwall. H-E-B is also introducing Joe V’s Smart Shop by H-E-B to the region, an innovative price format with a smaller assortment of community focused products, with two locations planned for south Dallas.

H-E-B has a strong DFW presence via its Central Market stores, which debuted in the Dallas area in 2001, now with four locations in Dallas, Plano, Southlake, and Fort Worth.

There are also H-E-B stores in some surrounding towns including Burleson, Hudson Oaks, Granbury, and Waxahachie.

openings supermarkets

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

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