I've said this before and I'll say it again. Bluebell is about value, not quality. It's not hard to beat it if you're looking for a treat/snack, but it's hard to beat it if you're feeding a family or group.
The thing I've found about Whataburger is that the locations in the smaller towns are SO MUCH better than the locations in the cities. I have to drive to Corpus every now and then and I always stop at the one in Refugio and it's literally like a fine dining experience. But there are 2 different locations here in Kingwood and neither one is all that. Small town locations are always spot on. Yeah, I love that you can tell Kroger when you're 5 minutes away on the app. That way when you get there, they bring your order out seconds after you check in. One thing HEB has over Kroger is that their parking spots are covered. That comes in handy on a rainy day.
Being in Austin where HEB is our only grocery store might have me biased. But over the pandemic and through any natural disaster, they have navigated their supply chain and stores better than anyone else, government included. So they're really appreciated here.
One of the companies I used to work for about 20 years ago had HEB as a major client. I remember going to San Antonio to visit one of their tech areas (?) or where some of their developers worked. It was like a dungeon, looked kind of archaic, etc. If you had told me a company like that would be leading everybody through a pandemic, I would've thought you were nuts. Speaking of which, it's possibly surprising something like Nocona/Justin Boots didn't make it. Or at least I don't see them on there.