A small shop at the corner of East Seventh and Waller streets has outlasted nearly a century of change in East Austin, surviving as a neighborhood grocery, a tamale destination, and now a botanica stocked with candles, oils and incense. Green & White Grocery has been run by the same family for three generations, and it recently earned protection as an official City of Austin historical landmark.
The story starts in 1936, when Norverto Lopez and his wife Susie bought land to build a neighborhood grocery, according to Preservation Austin. A related account from the same organization pins the exact purchase date to March 28, 1936, when Norverto T. Lopez and Maria de Jesus Lopez acquired the 1201 block of East Seventh Street. That stretch of road was itself becoming a commercial corridor around that time, thanks to an expanded line of city bus routes that began service in 1933, Preservation Austin notes.
Under the Lopez family, the store became known for imported Mexican goods and its tamales, a reputation that stuck even decades after production stopped. When Norverto Lopez died in 1971 at age 65, the store passed to his daughter Olga Lopez and her husband John Cazares Sr., per Preservation Austin.
A Grocery Becomes a Botanica
John Cazares Jr., who began working at the shop as a teenager and learned everything from cleaning and stocking shelves to cooking, eventually took the reins from his father. Preservation Austin's account places that handoff in 1993, while Texas Standard reports the transition happened in 1996. The two outlets similarly diverge on when the grocery store became a botanica: the Austin Monitor's coverage of the city's landmark review points to 1993, while the shop's own website states it reopened as “La Botanica” Green & White on January 1, 1996.
Whatever the exact year, the shift reflected forces squeezing small grocers across the city. As demand for spiritual supplies grew, so did competition from big-box supermarkets, according to the store's own account on its website, greenandwhite.shop. Cazares expanded what had been a modest selection of candles and herbs into a full botanica assortment that now includes oils, statues and incense.
Not everyone realized the grocery store they knew had changed form rather than closed. “When we stopped making the tamales, to some people it's like we closed. We've never been closed,” Cazares told Tribeza. Texas Standard also reports that Cazares still uses the original showcases from the grocery store era, a physical link between the shop's two identities.
A Neighborhood Transformed Around It
The East Austin surrounding Green & White Grocery looks little like it did in the Lopez family's early years. “A lot of the old businesses are gone. My dad's generation is kinda completely gone from here,” Cazares told Tribeza, describing a wave of departures among the small businesses and families who once anchored the area. Preservation Austin's research similarly found that the Mexican American majority among the store's customers has diminished over the years as Austin has grown and changed.
Despite that shift, the shop continues to be supported by loyal, regular customers — some of whom remember shopping there before it became a botanica, per Preservation Austin's reporting. The business has survived nearly 90 years in part because it adapted rather than closed its doors when the old grocery model stopped working.
City Recognizes the Shop's History
In 2024, Austin City Council unanimously approved historic zoning for the property, according to the Austin Monitor. That designation made Green & White Grocery a City of Austin historical landmark, as reported by Texas Standard, cementing its place alongside other sites tied to the neighborhood's Mexican cultural roots. Accounts differ on the building's exact street number — greenandwhite.shop lists 1201 E. 7th St., while a report from austin.urbanize.city identifies the address as 1207 East Seventh Street — but all describe the same corner storefront with its recognizable green-and-white exterior.
As MySA reported, Cazares has said the community itself helped keep the store running, even as cheaper prices at larger grocery chains added financial strain over the years. He has described the shop's neighborhood and the people in it as central to his own life, and he intends to keep operating Green & White Grocery for the foreseeable future.
