When oil prices plummeted in the mid-1980s and 200,000 jobs were lost in Houston, prominent grocer Robert Onstead stepped in to reinvigorate the city he valued so highly.
He raised $7 million from local businesses to establish the Houston Economic Development Council, said Ben Love, his longtime friend and the retired chairman and CEO of Texas Commerce Banks.
“Its purpose was to advertise the attributes of Houston,” Love said. “Bob launched a sustained effort to promote the attributes of moving a company to Houston.”
The effort helped the city recover from its economic malaise, and Mr. Onstead a few years later was elected chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership, which merged the Economic Development Council with two other business groups.
Mr. Onstead, 73, who built the Randalls Food Markets chain in Texas, died Wednesday, Aug. 4, of a heart attack in an airport in the Italian island of Sicily while on a family vacation.
“He was one of the best retail merchants I ever met,” said longtime friend and Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane. “He was one of the most steady leaders I ever knew. … He was deeply involved in developing, inspiring and strengthening the city.”
Born and raised in the small farming community of Ennis, Texas, he attended the University of North Texas before serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War in 1951 and 1952, the year he married Kay Martin.
Mr. Onstead started in the grocery store business at 13, when he worked during the summers at his uncle’s corner grocery store. After the service and moving to Houston, he went to work for Randall’s Super Valu Stores, a three-store chain owned by his father-in-law, Blocker Martin.
When his father-in-law died in 1962, the chain was sold to another company, but Mr. Onstead didn’t like its operation, so Randall C. Barclay, Norman Frewin and he in 1966 started Randalls Food Markets.
The business grew to 116 stores in Houston, Austin and Dallas by the late 1990s. It did $2.4 billion in annual sales and employed more than 18,000 people.
“Bob called both his customers and employees remarkable people,” Love said. “They believed they were remarkable when they were hired, and they tried to live up to it.”
A year after retiring in 1998, when he put his son Randall in charge of the business, Mr. Onstead sold his chain to the Safeway grocery store chain. His son now lives in Hinsdale and is president of Dominick’s Finer Foods, which Safeway owns.
Among his many civic posts, Mr. Onstead was past chairman of the Better Business Bureau of Houston and the Board of Visitors of the University Cancer Foundation of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
He also was a former leader and founding charter member of Westbury Church of Christ in Houston and the First Colony Church of Christ in Sugar Land, Texas.
“My father was a leader,” his son said. “He was a lot of things, but most of all he was a strong Christian man who loved his family and his church. … He loved the City of Houston.”
“He loved life,” his son added. “He played golf. He had a ranch in the South of Texas. He liked to hunt. He was an outdoorsman.”
Despite his great success, Mr. Onstead remained “very down-to-earth,” Love said. “He was truly one of the most modest men imaginable. He talked softly. His mind wasn’t soft. Paradoxically, it was as sharp as could be.”
Other survivors include two daughters, Ann Onstead Hill and Mary; another son, Charles; his brother, Charles; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.
Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday in the library of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons funeral home, 1010 Bering Drive, Houston. A funeral service will be held at noon Monday at Second Baptist Church, 6400 Woodway Drive, Houston.
