Cy-Fair—with its abundance of new development and freshly paved roads—does not have many businesses that can say they have been around for 60 years. One of the few, Barcelona Sports, celebrated its 60th anniversary earlier this year.
With a number of family members at the helm, the sporting goods emporium has expanded over the years from its first location in Spring Branch to an operation that services the entire state.
Sam Barcelona, the company’s founder, opened Barcelona Sporting Goods in 1956 as a general store selling hardware, hunting and fishing gear.
Sammy Barcelona, Sam’s nephew and the company’s current chief operating officer, said the store started selling sporting goods when Sam’s athletic director and coach friends asked him to stock uniforms.
“And now, today, we are 100 percent team sports and athletics,” he said.
In the mid-1960s, Sammy’s father went to work for Sam and helped the business grow. Barcelona Sports’ owners started to seek out additional land for retail locations. The company opened a 50,000-square-foot store on Beltway 8 more than 20 years ago.
“At the time, there wasn’t anything out here,” Sammy said. “Now, you can’t find any more land on this stretch. It is all filled up.”
The Beltway 8 location houses a retail store—which Sammy said accounts for about a quarter of the company’s business—and a screen printing and embroidery operation for uniform sales around the state, which covers the other three quarters of business.
The company now employs over 75 people, but Sammy said it is not all that different from when there were only two workers. The Barcelona family is still heavily involved, he said.
“My uncle started it, one of my sisters handles our finances, one handles accounts receivable, my aunt does our collections, [and] I have a nephew in inventory control and buying and a niece that does customer service,” Sammy said.
9999 W. Sam Houston Parkway N. Houston 713-464-8313 www.barcelonasports.com Hours: Mon.-Sat. 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Closed Sundays
The Beltway 8 location of Barcelona Sports contains a retail store, which accounts for a quarter of the company’s sales. Chief Operating Officer Sammy Barcelona said most sales come from baseball equipment.[/caption]
