In quite a short amount of time (a few weeks to a month), it’ll have marked the 1-year anniversary of every single Eagle Mart across South Texas closing, along with its predecessor Snappy Foods. In this article, I’d like to go over their history, which is quite the opposite of snappy.
ORIGINS
Snappy Foods was never a big chain, and I doubt it was ever meant to be a big chain at all. The company- or name, as we’ll get to later- was always mostly limited to certain portions of South Texas, mainly Corpus, Robstown, and Odem among other cities. The chain was started under the company Group Store Development Company and the Diamond Stamp Company, both based in Corpus Christi. The company ran many stores between the 60’s up until 2013. They each had 2 stores listed under the Snappy Foods name that ran for a long while. Snappy Foods 1 and 2 were both located along Leopard and Agnes Streets in Corpus Christi respectively, and I believe they were acquired and rebranded. These stores were around the outskirts of the city, with the one on Agnes in the former town of Clarkwood. There was also one in Odem, which was located at 900 Voss, a former Shamrock station. The 4th and final one was located at 1455 Waldron in the Flour Bluff region of Corpus Christi, which as of lately was home to a Shell Food Mart.
All 4 of these stores ran along under the Snappy name from 1988 to 1992. By 1992, they had been sold off to other companies. From then on, the 3rd and 4th stores were run by other companies and individuals who had utilized the name on the store. The 2nd one on Agnes became a Kwik Pantry before its closing. Ariel Garcia, who had reportedly founded the brand and opened the last 2 stores, later went on to run for the Corpus Christi City Council District 5 seat.
EXPANSION
Later on, by the end of the 90s and towards the start of the 2000’s, several c-stores across the South Texas area were picked up by one company. Zeba, LLC was the main holder of the Snappy Foods name. Zeba, ran by “notable” businessman Mohammad Motaghi, had been a significant holder in real estate around the Corpus and South Texas area. They had acquired 2 c-stores in 1994 and rebranded them into Snappy Foods. One of these stores was the original “900 Voss” location I mentioned earlier. This specific location remained open until 2002, when it was sold over. The other location, 9602 Leopard, also located on the outskirts of Corpus Christi, though lasted significantly shorter.
Many other acquitions had taken place during this time from the company, like a Texaco station in Aransas Pass and a former Circle K in Ingleside. The company had acquired the Chevron station shown in the image above in 1999. It’s unclear to me if the picture was taken when they had operated the store. All of these stores that they acquired, which will be listed in a table below along with the Texas Gas Station Map, were around the South Texas area and were listed under specific store numbers. Some of these were built by Zeba themselves, others were acquired over time.
Mohammad “Mo” Motaghi was known to be a very big businessman around Corpus Christi, acquiring many of these c-stores between the years of 2001-2019. He also franchised many Whataburger locations before focusing his attention to Zeba. In total, Zeba operated around 27 stores across the Coastal Bend area. Although he was a very savvy businessman, he and his brother Jahvid were also known to be quite clumsy landlords and business owners. Many people shared their experiences with them in a Reddit thread, stating that they managed property rentals and apartments horribly. Mo was also notable for having lots of bad business practices while managing Snappy. This news article shows the “gas station owner” dumping substances in a sewage drain in 2018. I presume this to be Mo himself. The Snappy stores were also known to be very cheap and messy, with the stock and overall management itself. They had allegedly missed lots of payments for products, were accused of selling watered-down gasoline, and many people who have worked there noted their bad experiences working for Snappy Foods.
EAGLE MART
All in all, the 3 companies Mo had operated: Emrooz, Inc; Saahel, Inc; and Janoob, Inc; were sold off to another company by 2019. The selling off was very messy, though, as although all stores rebranded under the “Eagle Mart” name, a certain few of them remained as Snappy stores, which were shown on their storefront.
By August 1st, 2024, all 3 companies who had taxpayer locations gave up their leases on the stores. They were transferred to a bunch of new holding companies, all linked together with the same individual owner:
- Haider Assets 1
- Haider Assets 2
- Haider Assets 3
- Haider Assets 4
- Haider Assets 5
- Prophecy Holdings LLC
- Starbs LLC
Many of these stores listed under the asset corporations were acquired from a variety of different companies, but oddly enough they were separated into 7 different asset and holding companies. The stores went under mainly Valero and Diamond Shamrock fuels, but certain locations also went under Chevron fuels. Many of these stores under the asset companies were listed under the name “Panthers”, but most (if not all of them) were branded under the Eagle name. They all had many different stores branded under the same name, but close to a year ago the company went down under, and they opted to shut down all of their stores under the 7 companies. The stores had barely been open under the new owner for about a year, and now, most of them sit abandoned and unused, with certain ones even sitting boarded up.
FORMER SNAPPY FOODS LOCATIONS
All store numbers marked with “A” were the original stores run by Group Store Development and Diamond Stamp. In total, Eagle acquired 16 stores from Snappy. 12 of the acquired stores were built from the ground up under the Snappy name.
| STORE NUM | ADDRESS | OPEN DATE | CLOSE DATE | FUEL | PREVIOUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A-1 | 8239 Leopard St, Corpus Christi, TX 78409 | 06/1968 | 09/1992 | ? | ? |
| A-2 | 8929 Agnes St, Corpus Christi, TX 78406 | 06/1968 | 09/1992 | ? | ? |
| A-3 / #1 | 900 Voss Ave, Odem, TX 78370 | 12/1988 | 08/2002 | Diamond Shamrock | “Odem Drive-In Groceries” |
| A-4 | 1455 Waldron Rd, Corpus Christi, TX 78418 | 02/1988 | 01/1992 | ? | ? |
| #2 | 9602 Leopard St, Corpus Christi, TX 78410 | 11/1994 | 10/1995 | Diamond Shamrock | Texas Star 103 (1970-1991) |
| #3 | 2005 TX-361, Ingleside, TX 78362 | 05/1995 | 06/2001 | Diamond Shamrock (?) | Circle-K |
| #4 | 617 Moore Ave, Portland, TX 78374 | 04/1997 | 05/2001 | Chevron (?) | Built from the ground up. |
| #5 | 2607 Hwy 35 N Bypass, Aransas Pass, TX 78336 | 05/1999 | 03/2025 | Texaco/Shell/Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. |
| #6 | 811 Voss Ave, Odem, TX 78370 | 12/1999 | 03/2025 | Chevron/Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. McDonalds attached |
| #7 | 2661 TX-361, Ingleside, TX 78362 | 03/2002 | late 2024 | Shell/Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. McDonalds, later Pizza Hut attached |
| #8 | 7125 S Staples St, Corpus Christi, TX 78413 | 12/2001 | 03/2025 | Texaco/Shell/Diamond Shamrock | Built from the ground up. |
| #9 | 1202 Voss Ave, Odem, TX 78370 | 02/2004 | 03/2025 | Coastal/Valero | Travel Center |
| #10 | 1200 TX-44, Robstown, TX 78380 | 12/2005 | 03/2019 | Valero | Built from the ground up. Subway attached |
| #11 | 1419 US-281, Falfurrias, TX 78355 | 09/2004 | 2018 | Valero | Built from the ground up. McDonalds attached |
| #12 | 6323 US-77, Riviera, TX 78379 | 04/2007 | 03/2025 | Valero | Built from the ground up. Subway & Pete’s Chicken-n-More attached |
| #14 | 6502 Yorktown Blvd, Corpus Christi, TX 78414 | 09/2006 | 03/2025 | Chevron/Citgo/Diamond Shamrock | Built from the ground up. Pete’s Chicken-n-More attached |
| #15 | 414 US-77, Driscoll, TX 78351 | 02/2009 | 2015 | Citgo | Economy Market/All-Star #2 |
| #16 | 701 E Ave J, Robstown, TX 78380 | 01/2007 | 03/2025 | Exxon/Citgo/Valero | Diamond Shamrock Corner Store |
| #17 | 1002 US-77, Bishop, TX 78343 | 04/2008 | 03/2025 | Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. |
| #18 | 1701 US-181, Portland, TX 78374 | 11/2007 | late 2024 | Citgo/Valero | Citgo “Food Mart” |
| #19 | 2208 TX-361, Port Aransas, TX 78373 | 07/2008 | 03/2025 | Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. |
| #20 | 4817 Ayers St, Corpus Christi, TX 78415 | 05/2008 | 03/2025 | Citgo/Valero | Chevron? |
| #21 | 8003 S Padre Island Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78412 | 02/2009 | 03/2025 | Citgo/Valero | “Camper Corner” |
| #22 | 7102 Wooldridge Rd, Corpus Christi, TX 78414 | 01/2010 | 03/2025 | Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. |
| #23 | 5626 Leopard St, Corpus Christi, TX 78408 | 04/2013 | 03/2025 | Citgo/Valero | Built from the ground up. Subway attached |
| #24 | 809 S Alamo St, Refugio, TX 78377 | 04/2015 | 03/2025 | Valero | Built from the ground up. |
GALLERY
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