The Mexia Supermarket was a 36,000-square foot grocery store located in Fort Worth, Texas. It was abandoned in July of 1999 when the owners of the grocery store went bankrupt, albeit with the food not removed from the building prior to bankruptcy. It was eventually cleaned out by Fort Worth's Department of Environment Management.[1][2]
History[]
Background[]
In 1999, the Mexia Supermarket went bankrupt. Instead of removing the goods inside, the owners simply opted to take what money they had left and fled the country, leaving everything inside the building exactly as is. Ordinarily, the food inside the supermarket would have been sold in a clearance sale, or donated to charity, but this did not take place, as a series of miscommunications caused by the trustee put in charge of the Mexia Supermarket building meant that no management of the building occurred, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the building becoming a serious biohazard.[2]
After neighbors began reporting of a horrible stench emanating from the supermarket, the city's Department of Environment Management were called to the site. They discover that the sheer volume of vermin inhabiting the building, such as flies and rats, meant that the building couldn't be simply demolished or burnt down, as doing so would cause the animals and insects to escape and infest homes and businesses nearby. High levels of noxious and toxic gases were also escaping the building, being generated by the decaying materials inside. This escalated to the point that nearby residents couldn't operate their air conditioning, or risk pulling the dangerous chemicals inside their homes. Thus, a more direct approach was required, which meant that a clean-up crew would need to go inside the building and tackle the mess themselves, then fumigate it to ensure the pests living inside would not survive. At this point, the gas had built up to such a high extent that even the pests inside were beginning to be killed off by it. For obvious reasons, this meant that respirators would be required for the clean-up crew to avoid suffocating to death on the fumes.[2]
Aftermath[]
Following the clean-up, the remediation process was completed, bringing an end to the threat of disease and vermin the abandoned supermarket had brought to the surrounding neighborhood. In the months following the clean-up, local news outlets expressed their frustration over the vast wastage of food, as local food banks would have benefitted from the supermarket's contents, particularly in the lead-up to major holidays over the course of the 1999 autumn and winter seasons.[2]
Coverage[]
The Mexia Supermarket - simply referred to as "a Fort Worth, Texas grocery store" in the episode - is highlighted in The Last Supper to highlight the fate of grocery stores 3 months after people, effectively becoming tombs for culinary corpses. Brian Boerner recalls everything on what happened inside the supermarket.
A Culinary Nightmare[]
As stated in the episode, after Mexia Supermarket went bankrupt in 1999, the owners decided to abandon the market. Everything, including food products, were left inside. Not long after its abandonment, neighbors began to notice a horrible stench inside the supermarket within weeks.
The Cleaning[]
A refrigerated shelf full of products that decayed after the power was cut.
Three months after the supermarket closed, the city's Department of Environment Management entered the supermarket. What they discovered inside the abandoned store is described in the episode as 'a gastronomic nightmare'. The episode give details according to the narration by Brian Boerner.
The cleaning crew working on decontaminating an aisle by putting rotten food into a plastic bag.
Brian Boerner recalls that the bad smell was extremely potent outside, but they didn't have an accurate report about what the smell was like inside the building. As a result, the cleaning crew had to put on protective gear before they went in. Workers in hazmat suits and oxygen masks began the process of cleaning up the abandoned supermarket - which had effectively become a banquet of rot - by picking up the decayed goods by hand and putting them into plastic bags to be disposed of. The task at hand was extremely dangerous; while there wasn't much information on what bacteria had colonised the building, there was a potential for disease-causing microbes to be present. In addition to signs of bacteria and fungi feasting on the food, the crew also observed mice and rats, and the number of flies in the building was reportedly so large that if one stretched out their arm, one could not see their hand simply because of how thick the literal clouds of flies in the building were.
Every aisle the team entered to decontaminate brought its own nasty surprise. Brian Boerner recalls that the apples, lettuce, and bananas had already rotted, but that what remained showed signs of where rodents had gnawed on it, several containers of milk had exploded due to the bacteria inside producing gas, and packaged meat appeared to not have been touched by animals, but a large portion of it had decayed into a greyish-black organic slime from where microorganisms had decomposed it.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
Mexia News Footage
Full video of the clean up operation at the Mexia Supermarket.
- As of 2023, a search for the rest of the footage of the cleanup operation, which is an example of lost media, is underway. While the footage used in the episode shows sizeable portions of the cleanup team investigating the building, it is known that this is part of a much larger amount of film that was taken during the remedial work.[2] A sizeable amount of the original footage taken during the clean-up operation was found in July 2025, consisting of news reports and B-roll footage taken by local news stations reporting on the clean-up and remedial work at the abandoned building.[3] The footage was found with the assistance of the University of North Texas, which had a set of tapes containing the footage that were then digitised.[4]
- It was said that the owners of the supermarket were Dung Chang and Kung Song.
References[]
- ↑ Victoria Advocate Archive
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Mexia Supermarket (partially found footage of abandoned Texas grocery store; 1999), Lost Media Wiki
- ↑ Mexia News Footage, YouTube
- ↑ Mexia Supermarket Cleanup Footage — Found and Released!, r/lostmedia (Reddit)