To-Go Roadie

Costco unseats H-E-B atop ChangeUp's 2nd Experience Report. Share via: Costco has taken the No. 1 spot among retail brands in ChangeUp's 2026 Experience Report, displacing last year's leader H-E-B, which moved to No. 2. The Dayton, Ohio-based brand strategy and retail design agency's second annual report ranks the Top 50 retail and Top 50 restaurant brands by how strongly their physical experiences resonate with customers. In restaurants, In-N-Out held the top spot for the second consecutive year, followed by Texas Roadhouse. ChangeUp surveyed more than 6,500 consumers on more than 300 brands, capturing more than 400,000 data points through survey research and AI-powered sentiment analysis of consumer reviews and online conversations. Brands were evaluated on eight dimensions of experience: memorability, staleness, return intent, unprompted visit desire, advocacy, novelty, substitutability and relevance. New this year, retail and restaurant rankings are separated, with each category measured against its own competitive set. "Consumers are still willing to spend on experience, but as people become more selective, every trip now carries more expectation," said Lee Carpenter, CEO of ChangeUp. "They're taking fewer trips and asking more of the ones they make. The brands leading the rankings are giving people something that is harder to replace, along with a reason to make the trip, and a reason to remember it." Key findings. * Costco ranks No. 1 in retail, unseating H-E-B; it was one of the few brands to improve measurably this year, scoring above the retail average on all eight dimensions, while H-E-B held steady. * In-N-Out repeats at No. 1 in restaurants, with Texas Roadhouse at No. 2; Chick-fil-A and Playa Bowls also stand out for turning distinctive elements into signature experiences. * Emerging brands including Playa Bowls, Dutch Bros and Buc-ee's are creating enough pull to earn a trip, the report found. * The report examines how pickup, delivery and curbside are changing the role of the physical store, and what brands can do to make the visit worth choosing. * The strongest brands perform on multiple dimensions rather than excelling at just one. Grocers throughout the rankings. Grocery and club retailers dominate the retail list, claiming five of the top 10 spots. Behind Costco and H-E-B, Sam's Club ranks No. 7, Wegmans No. 8 and Publix No. 10, with Wegmans, new to the study this year, cited for range, prepared food and staffing deep enough that shoppers bypass other grocers and cross county lines, and Publix recognized for service, with associates who take customers to the shelf and carry bags out. Other food retailers in the Top 50 include Trader Joe's (No. 15), Harris Teeter (No. 17), Giant Eagle (No. 26), ShopRite (No. 31), Food Lion (No. 35), Kroger (No. 37), Aldi (No. 38), Meijer (No. 40) and Stop & Shop (No. 46). Convenience players Buc-ee's (No. 9) and Kwik Trip (No. 11) also crack the upper ranks, with the report crediting both for making the stop itself the reason to go. The report notes that grocery and mass - "the trips people cannot skip" - held their experience steady while discretionary categories like apparel slipped, and that the strongest leaders, including Costco, H-E-B and Fleet Feet, score well on nearly every dimension rather than spiking on one. "What we're seeing in the data is that a brand can do everything it did last year and still lose ground because the experiences around it are getting better," Carpenter said. "Staying relevant requires more than protecting what already works. Brands have to keep finding ways to give people a reason to choose them." ChangeUp's client work has included Chick-fil-A, Bath & Body Works, Kia, The Vitamin Shoppe, bp and Panera Bread. For more grocery news, view its grocery news page. The Shelby Report delivers complete grocery news and supermarket insights nationwide through the distribution of five monthly regional print and digital editions. Serving the retail food trade since 1967,... More by Shelby Team

The Trader Joe's took years. The Texans took months. Here's what that says about Cypress right now. "Today is a historic day for the Houston Texans, our fans, and the Greater Houston area." That's Cal McNair, the team's chairman and CEO, standing in Bridgeland this past February to announce something Cypress residents had heard rumored for years but never expected to actually see confirmed: an NFL headquarters, built from scratch, on 83 acres of land that mostly doesn't have a Trader Joe's, a Chick-fil-A, or a stoplight yet. That announcement landed the same year Cypress finally got its actual Trader Joe's, after more than a year of speculation, a permit filing, and a rumor about a wine license that turned out to be true. Two big pieces of news, both about growth, both about national attention landing on Cypress. But they didn't happen for the same reason, and understanding the difference tells you more about where this area is headed than either story does on its own. The stuff that showed up because Cypress already earned it. National chains don't guess. They wait for a population number, run it against a formula, and only then break ground. That's why so much of what opened in Cypress over the past year reads like a company finally noticing what's already here rather than betting on what might be. * Trader Joe's opened its first Cypress store on December 19, 2025, at 9715 Towne Lake Pkwy, just off the Boardwalk. Locals had been tracking construction permits since early 2025. * The Cheesecake Factory opened November 18, 2025, at Houston Premium Outlets, its seventh location in the Houston area. * Texas Roadhouse opened its first Cypress location June 1, 2026, at 22020 West Road near the Grand Parkway, and hired more than 250 people to staff it. * Layne's Chicken Fingers held its grand opening July 18, 2026, on Fry Road, giving the first 50 guests a year of free chicken fingers. * Tim Hortons opened in August 2026 on Barker Cypress Road, ahead of its originally projected late-August date. * Applebee's is confirmed for a fall 2026 opening in the former Fuddruckers space in Copperfield. Every one of these is a company betting on rooftops that already exist. Bridgeland alone, the master-planned community anchoring much of northwest Cypress, is home to roughly 50,000 residents as of this year, and it's one of the fastest-growing communities in the state. A Texas Roadhouse doesn't open with a 250-person hiring push unless the traffic counts and the drive-time data already say yes. This is the normal order of things: people move in first, amenities catch up once the numbers justify the investment. It's a lagging indicator, not a leading one, and it's the pattern Cypress has followed for most of its growth history. The thing that showed up before Cypress was ready for it. Then there's Toro District, and it breaks that pattern completely. In February, the Houston Texans confirmed plans to build a new global headquarters and training facility on 83 acres inside Bridgeland Central, the community's still-forming urban core. Twenty-two of those acres will hold the headquarters and training complex itself. The other 61 are earmarked for retail, restaurants, hotels, entertainment, and medical office space, but as of the announcement, none of that has a tenant, a groundbreaking date, or even a full site plan. The Texans expect to break ground later this year and move in sometime in 2029, according to reporting from the Houston Chronicle and KHOU. Harris County commissioners approved the public-private partnership 5-0, with the county's contribution set at $150 million, directed toward roads, pedestrian crossings, and other infrastructure rather than the training facility itself. County officials have been clear that no taxpayer money is going toward constructing the Texans' actual building. The project is projected to generate $34 billion in long-term economic impact and more than 17,000 jobs over time, though that's the kind of long-horizon number that depends on a lot going right over a lot of years. Here's what makes this different from Trader Joe's or Texas Roadhouse: none of that 61 acres of retail and dining exists yet, and there's no confirmed timeline for when it will. The Texans aren't filling a gap the market already proved out. They're the first domino, betting that a headquarters and training complex will pull the restaurants, hotels, and shops toward it, rather than waiting for those things to show up first and then deciding to join them. Bridgeland already had the trails, the lakes, and the residents. The community has more than 60 miles of trails and multiple lakes, and the Lakeland Activity Center rents kayaks and bikes to non-residents on weekends. What it didn't have was a downtown. Toro District is a bet that one can be built around a football team before the market has proven it wants one there. That's the actual story of Cypress this year. It's not just growth. It's two different kinds of growth happening on the same map at the same time, one following the data and one trying to create it. What to actually put on the calendar. None of this changes what a normal week in Cypress looks like right now, and the Boardwalk at Towne Lake is still doing what it's done for years. Through October, the Boardwalk partners with Houston Methodist to bathe the marina in pink lights for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a detail longtime visitors will recognize even if it's easy to miss driving by at noon. In early December, that same stretch of waterfront hosts Christmas in Cypress, with a lakeside tree lighting and holiday market that pulls families in from across Cy-Fair. If you haven't been to the Boardwalk since before Trader Joe's opened next door, it's worth a return trip. The grocery store gives the area a reason to stop that has nothing to do with dinner reservations, and that kind of everyday foot traffic is exactly what national retailers watch for when they're deciding whether the next chain restaurant belongs here too. The interesting thing to watch over the next year isn't whether more restaurants open along West Road or Barker Cypress. That trend has momentum and will keep going as long as the rooftops keep multiplying. The thing worth actually paying attention to is whether Toro District's first tenants show up on schedule, because that will tell you whether an anchor-first bet on Cypress works the way Howard Hughes and the Texans think it will, or whether even an NFL headquarters still has to wait for the market to catch up to it. Either way, the fact that both things are happening in the same zip code in the same twelve months says something about where Cypress sits right now. It's grown enough that national chains no longer see it as a maybe. And it's promising enough that an NFL franchise is willing to build ahead of the proof. If you're the kind of person who tracks this stuff because you live here and you're curious, not because you're shopping for a new address, that's exactly the kind of local detail New Heights Group like keeping tabs on at New Heights Group. And if any of it does eventually turn into a real estate question for you or someone you know, let's talk about your next move. 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On Mad Money, Jim Cramer praised a caller's decision to buy back into Casey's General Stores after its stock nearly halved, attributing the pressure to oil market dynamics. He noted similar challenges affecting Texas Roadhouse. Casey's fuel business saw same-store gallons decline 0.3% in fiscal Q1 2027, though fuel margin increased to 47.8 cents per gallon and fuel gross profit rose 19.6% to $446.9 million. The company's diluted EPS increased 27.7% to $7.37. Texas Roadhouse faces different cost pressures. Despite Q2 comparable restaurant sales rising 6.2%, restaurant margin declined 66 basis points to 16.4% due to 7% commodity inflation and 3.9% wage inflation. Management expects approximately 5% commodity inflation and 3% to 4% wage inflation for 2026.