Some members of the public sampled H-E-B products at a Sept. 1 preview event.[/caption]

A 100,000-square-foot H-E-B grocery store is now open at 9722 Fry Road, near the Tuckerton Road intersection. The store has been open as of 6 a.m. Sept. 2.

The new store features full-service seafood and meat departments, a bakery, tortilleria, specialty cheese shop, floral department, pharmacy and Wells Fargo bank. The store also boasts an extensive selection of gluten-free and organic options and the largest selection of Texas-made products, officials said.

“The Cypress area is growing and we felt like there was a need for a store to provide people with a wider variety of affordable groceries,” store unit director Greg Bennion said. “Whenever we open a new store, the goal is to make it better than the last and better than anything else around.”

H-E-B’s Houston Division President Scott McClelland, who was in attendance at a preview event Sept. 1, cited the store’s Cooking Connections booth as a key element connecting employees with the families they serve.

“People can get tired cooking the same things for dinner night after night,” he said. “With Cooking Connections, we put a chef out there for shoppers to interact with and learn new and simple recipe ideas to help get them out of that rut.”

With the opening of new stores, H-E-B officials often look into community outreach opportunities. A Sept. 1 preview event involved giving checks of $2,500 each to two area nonprofits: the YMCA at Langham Creek and the American Heart Association’s northwest Houston branch. H-E-B officials also contributed to back-to-school campaigns for students in the nearby Bridgeland and Black Horse communities.

Throughout the afternoon of Sept. 2, H-E-B officials hosted nationally recognized artist Brendan O’Connell. O’Connell, known for his paintings of supermarket scenes, brought in several students from local schools to paint scenes of the new H-E-B as a part of Everyartist, an art exhibition program meant to foster creativity in youth.