The Early History of an Austin Icon: Green and White Grocery
BY MATTHEW MEDINA
In anticipation of Green & White Grocery becoming a City of Austin Historic Landmark this year, we are thrilled to share the work of Fowler Family Underrepresented Heritage Intern, Matthew Medina, and Preservation Austin Board Member, JuanRaymon Rubio, who assisted in the preparation of this landmark application. Preservation Austin has had the privilege of working with owner John Cazares on two of our most important initiatives—our East Austin Barrio Landmarks Project, which honors the historic and cultural significance of East Austin's Mexican American community, and as a featured business in our first-ever Legacy Business Month passport, which guided Austinites through our city’s iconic local businesses, encouraging them to celebrate and support the institutions that define so much of Austin’s culture. We are proud to partner with Mr. Cazares in this work and look forward to continuing our fruitful partnership in the many years to come.
Green & White Grocery, 2022
BUILDING BUSINESS
Many of the buildings, businesses, and cultural hubs in East Austin have been in a constant state of metamorphosis over the last thirty years. Talk to any of the longtime residents in East Austin, conversations about the neighborhood quickly arrive at a deep sentiment of impermanence and change. The people are always changing, the houses are always changing, the businesses are always changing. There are few remaining places that truly convey the spirit of the community that was, for the community that finds itself living in Austin’s East Side today. The story of Green and White Grocery in Austin, Texas is a capsule for the spirit and community lost. The 1928 Koch and Fowler plan for Austin city development systemically segregated Austin’s minority population through oppressive city districting, imitating other prevalent southern segregationist policies for urban development. The effects of this plan were swift, and by the 1930s, most of the Hispanic and Black population of Austin resided East of East Avenue. The economic conditions of the great depression compounding in the racialized environment of segregated Austin made employment scarce, which forced residents to find means of “self-employment” in the community. It was through perseverance that businesses opened to serve within the confines of the segregated district.
Norverto T. Lopez and wife Maria de Jesus Lopez first purchased the 1201 block of East Seventh Street on March 28th, 1936, from the Harris-Wilson company specializing in real estate, insurance, loans and rentals for the sum of eight hundred and seventy five dollars with a two hundred dollar down payment. Two years after this land purchase, in March of 1938 Mr. Lopez finished paying a commission to craftsman W.E. Watson who’s task was to “construct, erect, finish complete and deliver in a true workmanlike manner, a one-story frame store building and integral living quarters, according to plans and specifications agreed upon by and between the said parties hereto.”. Norverto also stipulated construction should be finished within just thirty working days, a stark contrast to the length of development East Austin residents typically experience. The completion of the store by W.E Watson marks the birth of one of Austin’s longest operating businesses. The East Austin population continued to expand as a result of the 1928 city plan. East 7th street became an area of commercial expansion because of an expanded line of city bus routes that began service in 1933. Green and White is evidence of this economic expansion in East Austin, and the need for a shop in that area. Continuous growth is a common theme among much of the store’s history from its founding in in the late 1930s through the 1970s.
It was not long before the trials of opening a store would confront the Lopez family, in 1938 an Austin Statesman article reported on a robbery at 1201 East Seventh, described “N. T. Lopez’ store [where] the front glass was broken, and the prowler reached his arm through to remove the money drawer. All the burglar got were eight candy bars and a dozen 3-cent stamps.” which dates the first evidence of a merchant operation for Norverto in any capacity. This did not scare the Lopez family away and by the 1940 census, the Lopez household had grown with the addition of Maria Olga Lopez who was just five years old, at the address of the house behind the store at 609 Waller Street. Norverto worked extremely hard to make the store a home for his family, putting in eighty-six hour weeks to run the establishment.
Photo across E. 7th Street looking south, 1958 (Portal to Texas History
In April of 1941, the first public mention of the “Green and White” business name is a Fluffo brand advertisement for “pure vegetable shortening” made by Proctor and Gamble. The Ad lists “Green and White Grocery, 1201 East Seventh” as one of the 130 participating stores handing out a “Free Recipe” for a “mouth-melting economical hamburger dinner” with the purchase of the vegetable shortening. Norverto named his store after his favorite colors and asserted all his life that there was not a better color scheme! Just two years later, the role of the store’s service to the community is evident in a Wartime Ad by Lipton’s Noodle Soup prompting people to bring their “Waste Fats to be used for Gunpowder Against the Axis!”, again being listed among 46 other participating “Firms [that] Are Happy to Sponsor [the] War Effort”, by acting as repositories where members of the community can bring their waste fat cans for collection. Green and White grocery was one of the only eleven stores that patrons in East Austin could go to that acted as a depository for wartime rationing measures and promotions. Long before the days of massive conglomerates like Target, Whole Foods and their parking garages that occupy an entire block of East Fifth street, Green and White’s participation in Ad campaigns for national food products set the business apart from other smaller grocers in East Austin.
“World War II Lipton Noodle Soup Ad”, Austin American Statesman, September 24, 1943.
The Lopez family’s sustained success led to a 1500-dollar expansion of the store in 1944, and another 2000-dollar addition to the store in 1950. One or all of the additions were most likely done by his brother Trinidad Lopez, who was a commercial carpenter. Although not as big as the grocery conglomerates of today, with both additions, Green and White was one of the larger groceries in East Austin. The new and improved Green and White grocery participated in Austin’s Betty Crocker Food Festival in 1953 with a decorative display, again advertising free recipes to customers, this time from Betty Crocker. By the mid-1950’s, Norverto built Green and White grocery into a well-run profit machine, and he decided to expand his Green and White brand to include an apartment complex on the north side of East Seventh Street. Norverto announced his plans to Austin in a Statesman article that detailed a “10-unit $50,000 tourist court with facilities for expansion to 20 units in the future-will be constructed in the 1100 Block of East Seventh within the next three months.” in June of 1954. This marks the end of Norverto’s focus on the grocery store, with his business obligations expanding. He needed someone to take over.
John A. Cazares married Olga Lopez on August 21st, 1955, which was announced in the Statesman with a beautiful picture of Bride Olga in her wedding gown. The article also indicated a changing of the guard at Green and White grocery, as the “bridegroom” is described as “a graduate of Austin High School and is now manager of the Green and White Grocery in Austin.”
The tourist court had Ads in the Statesman as early as 1955, boasting “NEW KITCHENETTE apartments with washing facilities, bus lines, convenient to Bergstrom field and downtown. Green and White Courts 1100 East 7th.” The bus routes again influenced the growth of East Austin commerce and needs. The store maintained its uninterrupted success throughout the transition in management, and underwent one final and massive $12,000 renovation in 1965. This would be the last that Norverto would work on the Green and White grocery as he passed away peacefully at the Brackenridge hospital on April, 3, 1971. John A. Cazares maintained a close relationship with the Lopez family, and was a pallbearer for Norverto’s brother Trinidad, when he passed away in 1973. Although the ownership of the store hand changed, John A. Cazares “consciously avoided modernization except when it could really improve service”, opting to preserve the quaint craftsman aesthetic in a post-modern building landscape. The financial success of Green and White grocery is evidence of the growing commerce of the East Austin community from the 1930s to the 1970s. The store’s success can be partially attributed to the expansion of city bus routes, but the majority of the credit should go to the hard work, determination, and fortitude of Norverto Trevino Lopez and his family in creating a historic and important piece in the story of East Austin economic development in the mid twentieth century.
BUILDING COMMUNITY
Miss Maria Olga Lopez Bride of John A. Cazares”, Austin American Statesman, September 1, 1955.
The community of Green and White Grocery was cultivated from the exponential number of East Austin Residents who remember buying groceries, food (especially tamales), and religious items there in the more than seventy years since the store first opened its doors to the neighborhood. When the store first opened, Norverto Lopez and his family served the segregated East Austin community tacos and hamburgers. As the decades passed the Lopez family, their financial success led to expansions of the store totaling over 20,000-dollars of additions and renovations from 1944 to 1965, creating the store that stands and is operated by the same family today. More significant than grocery service, Green and White developed into a cultural center for the community of East Austin, greatly contributing to the cultural value that East Austin is recognized for today.
Norverto came from a large family based in Austin and was one of nine siblings. Norverto had three children: Carlos, Olga, and Gertrude. His wife Susie [Maria de Jesus] tragically passed away when their children were young, and Norverto later remarried to Margaret (Arechigo) Lopez. Gertrude “Gertie” Lopez would go on to marry Travis County commissioner and famous Mexican-American Austin politician Richard Moya. Olga and John L. Cazares, met when Cazares worked at Green & White Grocery while a student at Austin High. They both had attended Palm School and were members of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The store’s successful service to East Austin was influenced by the family’s deep connection to the community, and an emerging market for Mexican goods that rapidly grew in East Austin.
By the 1980’s the grocery became a “go to” store for “epazote and other Mexican Herbs, homemade tamales, breakfast tacos, tripe for Menudo, and Mexican chocolate.” Green and White grocery employed many Mexican-American members of the East Austin community. Much of the staff that worked the grocery store were from East Austin. A Statesman articles includes an anecdote about Elena Sanchez who had worked at the store for at least 30 years by 1989. Upon Norverto’s death in 1971 at the age of 65, Olga and John Cazares inherited the family store and furthered the store’s renowned reputation for having the best handmade tamales in Austin for the rest of the 1970s and into the 1990s. The second iteration of the store’s ownership under John L. Cazares was almost parallel to the way that the Lopez family ran the business. Like the Lopez children, all the Cazares children worked in the store as children and young adults.
John L. Cazares, owner of Green & White Grocery, 2024
The other major continuity through the ownership change was the store’s deep connection to the community. Cazares was seen as a beacon of help in East Austin, assisting those who needed support. He gave credit to customers who could not always afford to pay at that moment and arranged grocery deliveries for elderly customers. He cashed social security checks, and acted as a male role model to the boys in the neighborhood that didn’t have one. During the height of the Chicano movement in Austin, as the first Mexican American politicians were being elected to city and state offices, Gonzalo Barrientos received support from the Green and White. Mr. Cazares let him campaign and put-up signs at the store. Barrientos called him a “A gentleman all the way, a true caballero”. The decision for Barrientos to campaign at Green and White shows the recognition of the store by a prominent East Austin community leader as an important cultural hub to connect with.
The legacy of Green and White Grocery Store was all but enshrined in the memories of three generations of Austinites by the time the business model changed in 1996. “Green and White Grocery An Austin Institution” reads the headline of a 1991 Statesman article. The article details a brief history of the store, and explains that the specialty handmade tamales, that still used Norverto’s original recipe, are more of a tradition. Green and White still serves the East Austin community today under the ownership of Norverto’s grandson, John L. Cazares, as a Botanica and religious store. John L. sits behind the same counter that has always been there, he will ring you up on the same cash register that Norverto used, and send you off with the same sense of community and belonging that patrons of Green and White have been getting for over seventy years.