Walton Shopping Center

Some of Eastgate's tenants. (May 2014, picture by author). Years ago I had a blog post that was titled "Random Eastgate Thoughts" (later retitled as just "Eastgate") that was a large, unfocused post that told of some of the buildings at Walton and Texas Avenue, but also some of the neighborhood around it going up to Thomas Pool (RIP). In the interest of metrics I decided to permanently remove the older post and focus on this post, which used to solely focus on 109 Walton, rather than the strip around it, which was built around the 1950s with some later additions in the 1970s.

I should preface this with a note that the addresses found are very, very spotty and addresses don't necessarily run sequentially at the same time. So some of where things should be can be inaccurate.

All the tenants here have a Walton Drive address (I lived on Walton Drive once with roommates during my college years, though it's been demolished...it won't be getting a post). Despite the age of the center, the oldest reference I can find for 107 Walton is The Guitar Shop¹ in 1990. (105 Walton, of course, is Military Depot). References are spotty prior to 2000, I can find a few businesses that may have operated here (a Catholic bookstore may have operated here in 2000, but if it did it was only for a few months, and there was a tuxedo rental shop just prior to that). But the most reliable stuff I have for this address only starts in the early 2000s when Valley Cyclery (with its capital-Bauhaus font) moved here from 3122 Texas Avenue South before closing permanently around late 2003. In 2004 it was replaced with vintage clothing store Left-Handed Monkey but that only operated for less than a year before becoming Blissful Wishes Bridal (closed 2008) before becoming Textbook Solutions for another decade, and between 2018 and 2022 Textbook Solutions closed and became a larger location of TooTer's Vape Shop, which relocated from 113 Walton.

Primo Pizza in better days, September 2013
Moving onto 109 has more information behind it. The first hit for this address is 1952 as "Battle's Plumbing and Sheet Metal Shop. In 1955 it was Venetian Blind Factory (not actually a production facility, but custom-made blinds and repairs of existing ones) until it moved in 1958 to 3506 S. Texas Avenue in Bryan ("We Are Next Door to Orr's). In June 1959 a Greyhound terminal was established there as a depot for a few years. In 1961 it was the Red Star Cafe, then a few years after that became University Flowers (they didn't immediately move out to their current home and I have yet to find if it's even the same business)...by 1971 it was the East Gate Lounge, then a nightclub called "The College Station, then a second location of The Peanut Gallery², then Murphey's (which closed in the early 1980s but reopened under new management) before giving way in the mid-1980s to Eastgate Live, which opened in 1986. By 1989 it was The Guitar Shop, then Partners Food Delivery by 1990. (I'm guessing that around this time the storefront was divided to the previously-unused 107). Partners operated for a number of years (food delivery outside of pizza was generally rare, and would be for another few decades). A dining guide from 1999 mentions it specialized in stuffed baked potatoes but also offered hamburgers, salads, and sandwiches. It moved in 2000 and was replaced by "Wing Zone" (still there in 2005) before giving way to Leaning Tower Pizza in 2008. I remember that Leaning Tower used a blend of cheeses for its cheese pizza but was particularly greasy (a bit of an acquired taste) and rather grimy for a College Station restaurant, but I didn't mind because that's why you have pizza...hot enough to kill any dubious bacteria. It had some garden furniture for an "eat-in" area and had "free delivery" that had a significant discount if you picked it up in store, which means it wasn't actually free at all. For whatever reason, Leaning Tower closed in May 2013. Local restaurateur Charles Stover, bought the store, along with recipes and equipment, promising to reopen with a new name and theme. Unfortunately, a wrong turn was taken from the start and the resulting restaurant, Primo Pizza & Rolls, opened with "gourmet" takeout pizza, stuff that included pesto on every slice (this opened in late summer 2013). Unfortunately, gourmet takeout pizza without an eat-in area wasn't something the market could handle (especially located in a neighborhood that was largely populated by college students and minorities) and in about six months it was gone (the way it was worded in February 2014 indicated that the closure was temporary but by May it was gutted). I did get Primo Pizza's webpage, archived in PNG form before it disappeared. (Also some photos from May 2014, Gutted PP, May 2014. This is where the counter and menu were. The kitchen was behind that wall. This configuration was intact for both LTP and PP&R. While an Eastgate pizza place was no more than a memory, it did have one more tenant afterwards that opened by fall, La Gabriella, a pastry and coffee shop.³ This was one of my favorite places in my neighborhood when I lived on Eastgate, cinnamon rolls for breakfast if I was running late for school, decent coffee and espresso, and even (though I don't know about it today), a selection of used video games (from her husband) for sale, where I bought Pikmin and I believe Metroid Prime. I haven't made much progress in either, though. They're still on the backlog!⁴

111 Walton is another one I don't have much on. In 2000 it was the old location of Blissful Wishes, then in 2001 became Eastgate Barber Shop, with four stylists, two of which came from other shops. By 2005 it was known as Eastgate Hair Shop for Men, and is currently (since 2024) "Main Street Barbershop".



This concept art was from the mid-1990s that showed a new arrangement of the intersection but the tenants are accurate for the time. 113 Walton's first tenant in 1951 was "Beall Floor Covering Company" and then became, in 1954, Battle Plumbing Company (moved from 109). In 1957 it was Manning Smith (an office of Insurance Company of North America back when they did home insurance), then Redmond Real Estate, then not much until an outlet of Daylight Donuts in 1991,⁵ which became a franchise for Southern Maid Donuts by 1996 and after that classifieds start appearing for Partners.⁶ References to Partners end around late 2004 (last mention was a restaurant report card from January 2005, but Partners would've closed by then). Occupying both spaces makes sense if there wasn't a reference for Wing Zone until fall 2005. In any case, "113A" was Russell's Aggieland Boots in spring 2006. By spring 2012, it was the recently relocated Oasis Pipes & Tobacco. It used to be on University Drive before that whole strip was demolished for the Northpoint Crossing development. When checked out 113 in 2014, there was some baking equipment inside the space. By 2016 it was TooTer's Vape Shop, by 2022 they moved to 109 Walton; as of 2025 a Farmers Insurance office occupies the space.

References to 115 Walton could only be found in the 1950s as Redmond Real Estate, leading me to believe that 113 and 115 were the same physical tenant. By the late 1950s it was Dishman Real Estate, which continued into the 1960s, by 1970 it was known as Seaback Homes Incorporated. No other references appear after that date.

There doesn't seem to be any references for 117 Walton, but 119 Walton's oldest reference is Denco Photo & Camera in 1980 (guessing one of the newer buildings in the strip). By 1986 it was yet another address used for Partners Food Delivery according to classifieds, indicating they might've used all three of the spaces simultaneously, though I can't Partners using this address after 1997. As of 2012 this was a piercing studio called "To The Point" (and before that it was the old home of Textbook Solutions), though by 2017 it was absorbed by Aggieland Apartment Finders next door (at 123 Walton).

121 and 123 Walton appear to be the same, the first reference for 121 was Culpepper Realty in 1951, however, this is complicated by the fact that in 1960 this end of the shopping center did not exist (wasn't built yet) and no other building was on the site, indicating the "old" 121 was west of here. Other hits for this address are Three-C Construction Company Inc. (1975), Executive Secretarial Service (1979), under that company they became Executive Temporaries in 1980, then Executive Employment Consultants⁷sup>. After 1990, there's no more results until Advanced Cellular Aggieland (1998)...yet Executive Travel appeared again in 2001 with the same address! After that, references for 121 Walton end, with 123 being used for Executive Travel until 2004. It was Apartment Aggieland Finders by 2007. That has been the case since, though the block of stores from the barbershop to the apartment finding agency was upgraded from a cedar shake roof to a metal roof around 2024.

Another Eastgate shot from 2014, this one showing the ones to the east.

1. The Guitar Shop also used 109 Walton as the address.
2. All this rapid turnover means I'm almost certainly missing something.
3. Originally named "My Daily Bread Bakery" until 2017. 4. A sizable portion of Carbon-izer.com is dedicated to video games with the games section being renamed as "Exor's Dungeon", named after an enemy from Super Mario RPG. If you would like to visit that site, click here. Also as far as video games and my other projects go, there's also Yoot Tower Guides.
5. I'm suspecting I'm missing small offices over the years.
6. Given how both appear simultaneously, I'm guessing Partners occupied multiple non-adjacent spaces, but I don't know.
7. Additionally, "Executive Travel" was operated out of the same location.
UPDATE 01-27-2026: Extensive update that transformed the Primo Pizza page into a full Eastgate page, integrating from the other older Eastgate post. Many of the original content of the Primo Pizza page has been left intact. New tags were added.