About

Most of the stuff about what this blog is is on the home page, but for everyone who’s more curious about the website, this page goes more in-depth. Most of this was taken from the legacy version of the website in a blog post I made the day I bought the domain. I’ll update this if I get any more questions or suggestions for here.

What even is this blog about?

Most of the stuff on this blog will be about South Texas retail, specifically around the Corpus Christi-Houston areas and in between, or just about Texan retail in general. Whether it’s former stores in plazas, chain restaurants, or service stations/food marts (trust me there’ll be a lot of those), I’ll have all of my findings or anything that I find interesting in general documented here.

Why is this blog named “Retail Spotting?” And why did you start it in the first place?

Retail Spotting isn’t really a term for anything, but I coined it mainly because sometimes I’ve seen buildings that have a specific facade that look exactly like old stores (ex. Stripes stores damaged by Hurricane Harvey have shown old remnants of Circle K’s branding behind its cover). 

It’s sort of a weird topic, but it’s something I’ve always had interest in, and ever since I started working on a map to identify where most Texas gas station stores have been over the years, I’ve wanted to start a blog showing what I’ve found along with showing anything that might sound cool or rare.
Most of my inspiration for starting a blog like this come from the people behind the blogs Roadside Architecture, Houston Historic Retail, and the forum/blog Groceteria, along with a variety of others. There isn’t much in general about retail around Texas especially with places in the South like Corpus Christi, so I’d like to spend some of my free time updating the site with some of my findings and maybe even help fill in the gap?
Those are about most of the questions I can think of. Don’t expect the site to be updated every day or so. I’m just blogging for fun, but still I’ll try my best to post maybe once or twice every week! 
I also assume some people came from my old TikTok, which I used to link this blog on, which is totally fine! All things considered, if you find this or anything else interesting, consider bookmarking this website or coming back to it whenever if you find it interesting or enjoyable!