Circle K Reentering San Antonio & Houston Markets

SAN ANTONIO and HOUSTON — Circle K Stores Inc. is returning to San Antonio and Houston after exiting the markets in the late 1990s, reported the San Antonio Express-News.

Construction on the chain's first new store, a 5,881-square-foot location, will begin at 3804 N. Foster Road in San Antonio in February and is expected to finish in August, according to Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filings. Four more stores will be built in Houston later in 2016. 

Circle K already has a footprint elsewhere in Texas, which includes approximately 10 stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and more than 20 stores in and around Austin.

The convenience store chain operated as many as 24 San Antonio stores in 1991 before shrinking to 13 in 1996, according to the report. It sold its final six Bexar County stores in 1999.

It is unknown why Circle K departed the market, although it may be related to aftereffects of the chain's 1990 bankruptcy.

Now a subsidiary of Laval, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., Circle K has more than 3,300 c-stores throughout the United States.