Idle Speculation?

The Occasional Side Effect Of Capitalism

Houston has a liquor problem...

I was driving west down Memorial towards Memorial Park, and I noticed that the last Dailey's Liquor store had been taken over by Spec's Liquor. This is in addition to the new Spec's Liquor at Westcott & Washington, the new Spec's Liquor going in at I-10 and Campbell by the Home Depot, and the Spec's Liquor that bought out Copperfield Liquor over at Beltway 8 by the long-defunct Town & Country Mall.

We don't have a great deal of liquor competition here in Houston. Oh, we're vastly better off than those poor benighted states that have government owned & run liquor stores. In fact, Texas law isn't too terribly onerous when it comes to liquor sales. It's the local community option to go "wet" or "dry" that causes most of the headaches.

Still, in comparison to Dallas/Fort Worth, we've got hardly any choices at all. There's a swarm of small Mom & Pop liquor stores scattered all over town, with poor selection and high prices, and there's the All-Powerful Liquor Empire known as Spec's.

Now, don't misunderstand me... I'm a fan of Spec's. Their downtown warehouse outlet should be registered as a national shrine for boozehounds. I actually preferred it when it was a dark, dingy warehouse full of hidden treasures, but they upgraded it into a yuppie friendly liquor outlet, cigar purveyor and gourmet food store.

Still, even with the excellent selection and reasonable prices at Spec's, one wants a bit of competition to keep all the players sharp and at the top of their game.

In Dallas, for example, I can list just off the top of my head 10 chains that have several stores...

Sigel's
Majestic
Big Daddy's
Goody Goody Liquor
Centennial Liquor
AppleJack's
Buckeye Liquor
Hasty Liquor
Red Coleman's
Texas Liquor

Their stocked liquors were mostly identical, but some chains would carry obscure brands that others wouldn't. If you happened to like one of those brands, you could track it down. Also, competing sales tended to keep liquor and wine prices lower.

Here in Houston, if Spec's doesn't carry it, it might as well not exist. There's little hope of finding an obscure brand at a hole-in-the-wall Mom & Pop liquor store.

There was an effort to compete with Spec's Warehouse a few years back... someone opened a liquor warehouse type of shop over at I-10 and Kirkwood. They stuck it out for a while, but eventually shuttered, leaving a big sign in the front window saying "Thanks, Houston, we tried! Oh, one more thing... Fuck You, Spec's, you monopolistic assholes!!" Well, maybe they didn't say anything obscene, but the implied message was quite clear.

So far, Spec's hit list has some big names on it. Dailey's? Gone. Copperfield? Gone. Bert Wheeler's? Long gone! There's a local chain called Richard's that has 7 or 8 stores, but their niche is fine wines. We've also got Ralston Liquor that serves the ghetto underfunded areas of town, and that's not Spec's preferred target market. There's not a lot of margin on cases of 40 oz. malt liquor and bottles of Thunderbird.

So, I wish Spec's well in their attempt to corner the Houston liquor market. We'll see good selection and prices right up to the point they buy out or bankrupt the last independent, then watch those prices skyrocket. I haven't seen a monopoly yet that could resist that urge!