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The foodservice offerings at the Rice Epicurean Market on Kirby Drive in Houston include such gourmet items as Imperial noodle salad, seafood stuffed mushroom caps and Texas goat cheese. And it's no wonder. The wealthy River Oaks section where the store is located counts among its residents George Bush.
The 30,000-square-foot store is the third Epicurean Market opened by Rice Foods, Houston-based chain. The unit is located near the former site of the legendary Jamail's, a specialty grocery store that closed a year and a half ago after operating for many years in Houston. Rice hopes to capture many of Jamail's former customers.
"We knew we had the perfect location for a store geared to the upper-end customer," says Mike Boves, Rice's director of specialty foods, who handles foodservice at the Rice Epicurean Markets. "People in this neighborhood want quality and service, and have the money to spend for it. They were used to being pampered at Jamail's, and now they can be pampered at the new Rice Epicurean Market."
The store, which opened last October, includes a substantial foodservice operation, consisting of service deli and bakery, prepared foods and a salad bar. The departments are located in the left front corner, so customers can come and go without walking through the rest of the store. The total foodservice operation accounts for 9.5% of store sales.
Rice Food Stores is not a newcomer to Houston. The company has had supermarkets in the area since 1937. The chain operates three store formats -- conventional supermarkets (Rice Food Stores), discount outlets (Pricebusters) and upscale service-oriented stores (Rice Epicurean Markets). Since 1988, Rice has opened three Epicurean Markets in areas of Houston where the format fits.
While the Epicurean Markets carry some standard grocery items, the emphasis is on specialty foods. The Kirby Drive store stocks 5,000 SKUs of gourmet foods; it's much easier to find extra-virgin olive oil than it is to find motor oil.
This upscale character is carried over to the foodservice area. "Foodservice is of extreme importance to the image that we are conveying in the Epicurean Market," says Joel Levy, president of Rice Foods. "That department helps establish the style of the store."
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