ARLAN'S MARKET OF NAVASOTA

Arlan's Market doesn't have very large stores, so it makes sense that their smaller ends are quite small, and we will visit one with just over 10,000 square feet, just about as small as a grocery store can go. This was originally built as Love's Super Market, a Navasota institution since the mid-1930s.

This particular store opened in the mid-to-late 1960s with just 11,500 square feet, when a store of that size was still acceptable. From taxpayer records, Loves sold out in 1985 to "Amato Food Market", which changed hands in 1991 to Harlans, though I can't tell if it was originally branded as such (it was definitely branded as Harlans by 1996).

In early 2015, Harlans Food Markets was acquired by Arlan's Markets, and the store was rebranded as well as others. When I visited the store in January 2016 the in-store intercom was playing Hall & Oates' "Out of Touch", an unintentional reminder of how time-warped the store really was. I don't remember this store having much of anything. If it had anything than just dry/frozen grocery like a meat counter, it was obviously very small.

Most of the store's backstory was learned through a book on Navasota history in Rosenberg; the page is reproduced below.