Did you wonder about all those HEB ads that kept popping up on The Dallas Morning News Web site the past couple of weeks? Did you go, “Hmmm. Why is HEB running ads if they don’t have any stores here?”

Turns out, they will have a store. It will be in Burleson, but that’s a lot closer than driving to Waxahachie. So, despite HEB’s various denials, it looks we were right after all.

Remember the gas-price wars stations once had when the price was under a buck a gallon? Even if you don’t, you’ll probably like this: Aldi stores in Dallas will be lowering the price of its gallons of milk beginning Saturday to 99 cents apiece; the promotion is scheduled to run through Oct. 6. That’s down from $1.29 a gallon recently and $1.79 when Aldi came into the market. Wal-Mart has promised to match Aldi’s price, according to the DMN, but Kroger and the other big players haven’t decided what to do, according to the DMN story. If you’re an Aldi newbie, remember to bring your own bag (or pay a nickel a bag for theirs) and bring plenty of cash — Aldi doesn’t take checks or credit cards.

The future site of IndieGenius

We were so sad to see the words “final show” in the recent promotion of Make Shop and Studio‘s biannual Urban Street Bazaar. But when Make owner Julie McCullough Kim told us not to worry, we figured something exciting was on the way.

How’s this for exciting: The Urban Street Bazaar is evolving from a twice-a-year outdoor weekend event to a six-days-a-week indoor market. Kim is leasing a 5,000-square-foot building at 216 W. 7th (pictured), which is just north of the former Quinn, and turning it into what she calls a “micro-boutique marketplace”. Essentially, the concept is an antique mall but with booths showcasing 50-80 Etsy crafters along with local local fashion and furniture designers. The indie shopping mall, IndieGenius, is Kim’s answer to the dilemmas of the bazaar (weather uncertainty; how much and which products to make for a weekend show; customers who wanted more frequent bazaars) and a way to help independent crafters of handmade products who can’t afford the overhead of their own boutiques, and often have day jobs in addition to the craft-making.

Plus, this October 2-3 will be Kim’s 11th Urban Street Bazaar, and since the original, others have followed suit in organizing indie craft shows. “I’m flattered,” she says, “but we can either compete, or we can innovate.”

Eleven vendors have already signed on (Kim is offering specials for the first 25), including neighborhood crafters such as Lisa Lindholm of FreeLisa and Stephanie Hindall of Tefi Designs. Kim also is hoping to collaborate with other neighborhood businesspeople — for example, The Soda Gallery and Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters will sell cold drinks and drip coffee for customers to sip as they shop. (Not a standalone coffee shop, Kim was clear, just coffee machines.) She plans to open IndieGenius for business in October. And don’t worry, she told us — the Make Shop and Studio is an entirely different concept, and is not going away.

Last week the Observer‘s Robert Wilonsky gave us the scoop that low-cost, high-fashion store H&M may be announcing plans to open a Dallas store — possibly even early this week. I’m a huge H&M fan, and have always wondered why Dallas, with its reputation for trendy fashion retailers, hadn’t yet lured the international company.

In fact, I’m working on a story that included interviews with two commercial real estate experts on this very topic. What they both told me is that H&M’s arrival in Dallas is only a matter of time. After the jump, find out more on why it’s taken so long, and what H&M is looking for in terms of real estate. (more…)

In San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter is a single intersection with a diagonal crosswalk. Every few minutes, the stoplights in all directions turn red, and pedestrians are invited to cross the street on all sides — and even walk diagonally from one corner to another.

This is part of the quarter’s commitment to be pedestrian-friendly, according to a tour guide who led us around and told us the history of the quarter. Another nod to pedestrians is the streets in the southern portion of the quarter that have stop signs, not stoplights, and pedestrians always have the right of way. (Granted, that’s the law pretty much everywhere, but we all know that law is oft broken in Dallas.)

A slight problem exists with the diagonal crossing intersection, however: No one knows how it works, not even the locals, our tour guide told us. More after the jump. (more…)

Is the man in your life looking a little scruffy? Haggard? Hairy? I’m not complaining that mine is, necessarily, but let’s just say this Metroplex Baby and Kids Father’s Day makeover contest caught my attention this morning. All you have to do is upload a photo of Dad/hubby/baby daddy and, based on votes and comments, the Metroplex Baby folks will select a winner who will receive an assortment of prizes including massage and a “seven-course haircut experience”, “foot repair” in a “custom foot repair throne” and a head-to-toe outfit from Dillard’s. And, come on, doesn’t every dad deserve to sit in the foot-repair throne on Father’s Day?

Awhile back, I mentioned that I hoped Mayor Tom Leppert would stick around for for the upcoming city budget year because now that he’s done running big deals like the convention center hotel and the Trinity Tollway past voters, he’s going to have to get down to the actual business of running the city.

Thursday, he did just that.

Leppert is leading the charge against a no-bid Love Field concessions sweetheart deal with companies owned and/or operated by U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, State Rep. Helen Giddings and former Citizens Council chair Gilbert Aranza, according to the DMN in a good story by Rudolph Bush Thursday.

Sure, to regular people like you and me, Leppert’s position is a no-brainer: Of course, it’s idiotic for the city to award a multimillion-dollar contract to sell concessions at the airport on a no-bid basis. It doesn’t take a brainiac to know that a contract bid-out to all-comers is likely to bring more money than one simply awarded to the incumbent concessionaires (see above).

But to some of the councilmen who surround Leppert at the horseshoe say giving a no-bid deal that benefits politicians like Johnson and Giddings makes sense because of all they’ve done for the city as part of their political jobs; they brought us all kinds of federal and state dollars, so of course they deserve a big contract from the city without having to suffer the indignity of actually bidding for it.

So last week, Leppert set up a special council committee to review the deal, and Thursday he took it upon himself to be judge, jury and executioner during the committee meeting, attempting to kill the deal on his own.

He even ferreted out some information that will come back to haunt him if he’s still around when the convention center hotel is completed: City staff originally wanted to bid the contract out, but “some council members” didn’t think that was a good idea. So the city hired a consultant to tell them what the council members wanted to hear (the incumbent concessionaires deserved their deals), and the staff went about trying to make that happen. (Convention center hotel operations clue: The assistant city manager running this concessions deal, buckling to council pressure and hiring the consultant is likely to be the same guy overseeing the third-party manager operating our hotel; what do you think he’s going to do the first time a council members asks for 10 comp rooms for a party?)

Anyway, Leppert is doing the right thing here by making the Love Field deal subject to so much light that even the council reps who argued for a no-bid deal last week are going to have a hard time doing that next week.

I don’t know what the implications of this council-splitting will be on the city’s coming budget battle, but I can tell you this: Some of the people who have been Leppert’s pals up to this point are going to be looking for a soft place under his suit to stick their political knives in a few months.

Have at it. Tell me what I’m missing because I’m sitting at home this morning typing this instead of running through a shopping mall or strip center looking for holiday shopping extravaganzas. But, really — Pep Boys with Black Friday specials? How many of are us going to give car batteries for the holidays?

A few observations, based on what I picked up during my reporting for this post:

· Black Friday started yesterday for an increasing number of retailers, including big names like Gap. How desperate must they be to open on Thanksgiving? And Black Friday-style discounting? That has been going on, in some form, for the last week or so, which is also a new development.

· Thanks to the recession, this year’s shopping season will be make or break for many retailers. I was told. It’s not about turning a profit, but about generating enough cash so they can pay the bills and stay in business in 2010.

· One reason why I don’t understand Black Friday, I was told, by experts and parrents, is that I don’t have kids. Since I don’t have anyone to buy a Wii for, I don’t see why I need to get up early to buy one.

· And it’s not about getting up early. It’s about not going to sleep. I talked to a bunch of people who are out at the stores this morning, and most of them told me thy stayed up last night to be in line at 4 a.m. Though one noted that as much as she loved her kids, she didn’t want to run the Walmart gauntlet again. "That was dangerous last year," she said.

House of Dang, which closed its East Dallas store last week, is having a garage sale at the fashion line‘s new space in Oak Cliff. Andrew Bayer and Doug Voisin, who are getting out of the retail business to focus on design, are selling vintage clothes for $1, vintage bags and shoes $3, plus home decor, fabric, mannequins and fixtures.

The new House of Dang studio is on Tyler, and the sale starts at 7 a.m.

A Back Talk holiday tradition is our annual Black Friday shopping post. That’s where I wonder in awe and amazement that anyone would get up before breakfast to go shopping for a TV set, and our regular visitors point out that I am woefully out of touch with reality. So go at it — if you went shopping today, leave a comment. Or, if you didn’t, tell us why. The rest of the blog will be off (and I’ll be in Oklahoma without TV set, telephone or Internet access, as far away from shopping as possible).

And, as a public service (and because I think it’s odd), after the jump: A list of Dallas-area stores and when they opened today.
• The Black Friday shopping website. This site tracks ads and sale items for more than 50 retailers, including store hours.

• 4 a.m.: Kohl’s, JC Penney.

• 5 a.m.:Best Buy, Sam’s Club, Sears, Wal-Mart

• 6 a.m.:Burlington Coat Factory, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Kmart, Target

• 8 a.m.: Southwest Center Mall

• 9 a.m.: NorthPark