Eventually, we opened two Hypermarts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, one in Topeka, and one in Kansas City. By now we had gotten enough respect in the business so that Kmart jumped right in behind us with their own Hypermart concept called American Fare. Our Hypermarts weren’t disasters, but they were disappointments. They were marginally profitable stores, and they taught us what our next step should be in combining grocery and general merchandising—a smaller concept called the Supercenter. But I was mistaken in my vision of the potential the Hypermart held in this country.
