As soon as Covid was viewed as a serious threat in the US, they immediately put up plexiglass barriers to protect their cashiers. Immediately and not just half assed barriers. They did as good of a job as I would have done if I were the cashier. Then they transformed their stores to have more warehouse space and ran a free curbside pickup service. All of this and they are still the best grocery store in TX if you care about prices and wide selection of products.
The history of HEB is something I want to learn about. I know from reading Robert Caros LBJ volumes that Howard Butt was funneling a lot of money to LBJ staring in the 30s or 40s. Not to judge that, I’m just curious how they dominated Texas.
they also gave (temp) raises to their workers.
Viruses do not "fester" on flat surfaces, if they fester in anything it is cells
H-E-B stared preparing for the pandemic some time before it started. Texas Monthly wrote about it and I thought it was pretty interesting:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heb-prepared-coronavirus-p...
> The grocer started communicating with Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.)