Más Club was an American membership-only retail

warehouse club A warehouse club (or wholesale club) is a retail store, usually selling a wide variety of merchandise, in which customers may buy large, wholesale quantities of the store's products, which makes these clubs attractive to both bargain hunters ...

focused on the

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...

population. Founded in 2009, it was owned and operated by

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

. It opened on August 6, 2009, with a single pilot store in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

and officially closed its doors on February 7, 2014.

Location

Más Club was located on the north side of Houston at 8711 North Freeway. The 87,000 square feet of shopping space offered a product assortment including fresh foods (bakery, produce, meat, tortillas, seafood and café); imported dry grocery items, candy, snacks and beverages; and electronics, housewares and seasonal items. The club also included a pharmacy, optical center and Barri money-transfer center. The building was designed with environmentally friendly building materials such as low-flow bathroom fixtures with automatic sensors and skylights to reduce energy used for overhead lighting.

Product assortment

Más Club carried a wide selection of brands recognized by Hispanic consumers including

Jarritos Jarritos is a brand of soft drink in Mexico, founded in 1950 by Don Francisco "El Güero" Hill and now owned by Novamex, a large independent bottling conglomerate based in Guadalajara, Jalisco, property of the Hill & ac. Co. It is also dis ...

sodas, De La Rosa candy and

Maseca Gruma, S.A.B. de C.V., known as Gruma, is a Mexican multinational corn flour (masa) and tortilla manufacturing company headquartered in San Pedro, near Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. It is the largest corn flour and tortilla manufacturer in t ...

grocery items. Más Club also offered fresh produce, a full-service meat and seafood counter, pharmacy, café and bakery with products like fresh

Bolillos A ''bolillo'' () (in Mexico) or ''pan francés'' (in Central America) (meaning "French bread") is a type of savory bread made in Mexico and Central America. It is a variation of the baguette, but shorter in length and is often baked in a masonry ...

, Hispanic pastries and cakes. Members can also enjoy outdoor seating at the café.

Target demographic

The Más Club location was designed to serve Hispanic business owners and families. The location in Houston engages a primarily Mexican membership base. Más Club was the first membership warehouse club in the United States dedicated to Hispanic product assortment. The retailer differentiated itself from its American counterpart

Sam’s Club Sam's West, Inc. (doing business as Sam's Club) is an American chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned and operated by Walmart Inc., founded in 1983 and named after Walmart founder Sam Walton as Sam’s Wholesale Club. , Sam's C ...

by offering Hispanic items and fresh produce such as tomatillos,

cactus A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Gree ...

, dry hot

peppers Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

, roots and squashes. The retailer got its name from the Spanish word for more, as in more selection of imported merchandise for

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

consumers. Coincidentally, Más is also Sam spelled backward, an unintentional nod to the company’s founder,

Sam Walton Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) was an American business magnate best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in 1962 and 1983 respectively. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world's ...

. The store's bright orange, green and red signs are in Spanish, with English subtitles.

Membership

Membership was required in order to purchase at Más Club (except at the café, for prescription drugs where federal law prohibits sales to members only, and for liquor as required by Texas state law). Más Club memberships were divided into two categories: Business and Advantage. Both memberships cost $30 per year.

and Más Club memberships were not interchangeable.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mas Club Walmart Retail companies established in 2009 Retail companies disestablished in 2014 Companies based in Arkansas Companies based in Houston Defunct companies based in Texas Defunct discount stores of the United States Defunct supermarkets of the United States