Archie's Taco Bell

Half-page advertisement from opening in 1976 (The Eagle). Taco Bell needs no introduction¹ and has thrived in the Bryan-College Station with seven locations, the most recent one (as of this writing) opened in Jones Crossing as mentioned earlier this month. However, we haven't covered Taco Bell that much because other than the short-lived Blinn location and at Northgate (built as a James Coney Island)², we haven't done much discussion of them, partially because once they're there, they haven't closed.

The exception to that (besides the Blinn one) was the first Taco Bell in the area was 3901 South Texas Avenue, Taco Bell #1261. This operated from September 1976 to 1996 and was colloquially known as Archie's Taco Bell (even in advertising, though not on the building).³ Archie's Taco Bell had a unique (and annoying) quirk—for whatever reason (allegedly due to traffic flow), the drive-through window was on the passenger side. The 1996 closure date lines up with the opening of the Taco Bell at 3501 East 29th Street (which has the drive-through window built correctly, but like Northgate's it wasn't built as a Taco Bell), so it might have moved at that point⁴. In 2003, the abandoned building was expanded and heavily modified to be Frittella Italian Cafe, operated by the sons of the owner of the original Pino's in Houston. Frittella closed at the end of March 2022, but reopened in June 2023. (I'm not sure of the reason.)

1. In the 1970s, which this entry covers, most Taco Bell food was prepared fresh, not overly processed like it is today. This 1970s commercial may seem like propaganda, but in those days they really did do stuff like make beans from dry.
2. Updated as of this writing. It doesn't change much but confirms the dates and adds a bit on the Texaco it replaced.
3. Archambault built a few more local Taco Bell stores before he retired, the Harvey Road Taco Bell was "Archie's Taco Bell" as well.
4. Indeed, in 1998, even after Archambault had divested his share in Taco Bell, 3501 E. 29th Street is listed as "store number one" for local purposes.

The Veggie Garden

Advertisement for The Veggie Garden shortly after opening. (The Eagle).
The rapid clip of updates (at least once a week) of 2025 came to a screeching halt after the former Roy Rogers and I figured it was a good place to stop as I had been feeling burnout, in the meantime I continued on with updates when relevant.

One of the "hidden" pages of the site, the Comm. Building Permits College Station in the Late 1980s, mentions a business called "Veggie Garden". While I've long wondered where and what this was, it was the original tenant of 3122 Texas Avenue South, a garden center/specialty food store, with produce, meats, cheeses, gifts, and other plants. It unfortunately had a short life, opening in March 1987, turning into a full restaurant in September 1987 (salad bar and deli, though kept the produce sales) but closing in the fall of 1988. While it would never be a restaurant again, in 1990, it became the new home of Valley Cyclery, before moving in 2001 to 107 Walton, then became the third home of Petal Patch, a long-running local floral shop.

The former "The Veggie Garden" building has gone through tenants over the years. (Picture by author, June 2025).
I haven't talked much about Petal Patch but its relatively recent demise without much press and its long history deserves a mention. It opened as Petal Pushers in late 1975 but renamed to Petal Patch a year later at 707 Texas Avenue (it appears to have been because it was sold to a new owner, Pat Humphries). In 1992 it moved to 1919 Texas Avenue South (while the old location was reopened as another flower shop under the name "A Flower Cottage"). 1919 was where it would remain until until the early 2000s when it moved to this location. Around 2011, it moved out to Bryan where it would be for over a decade before winding down business in the early 2020s (at some point ownership had changed again).

Back at 3122 Texas Avenue South, since around 2012 it has been the home of Ashley & Company. Ashley & Company keeps a low profile these days—it's appointment only (and this seems to have happened before 2020, with the removal of the overhead sign around 2017). For what it's worth, an ad from 2011 (when it was empty) mentions the building had two floors.

Editor's Note: The Century Square article received a big update. Pooh's Park received a smaller one.

Updates to Jones Crossing

From the page linked below. It's been watermarked precisely because of reposting purposes. Something a bit different today—among the casualties in the most recent Carbon-izer rework was the FM 2154 page. It wasn't that well developed anyway, but it also included a fairly comprehensive look at Jones Crossing that I just can't recreate elsewhere. And with several places at Jones Crossing having gone out of business, I would need to cover that, wouldn't I?!

Based on the current analysis the page appears to date from 2021.

- I Heart Mac and Cheese closed both locations in February 2022 (which is mentioned on the Century Square page. The Jones Crossing store reopened in April of that year. The restaurant operated a few months more (it was open in August of that year) but it folded and was replaced with an AT&T store.
- In spring 2023, Urban Bird Hot Chicken opened to replace Zero Degrees.
- Just south of Chick-fil-A (instead of the strip mall depicted), a Taco Bell opened at 1696 Harvey Mitchell Pkwy. South on December 27th, 2024.
- Suite 800 at 11667 FM 2154 opened as Lucky Goat Coffee in May 2025. It is adjacent to a playground, which is owned and operated by the landlord, not the restaurant. At least kids don't have to play next to boarded-up windows now.
- In April 2021, Caprock Health System sold its two Urgent Care centers to Integrity Urgent Care (one of which being at Jones Crossing, the other at Century Square). In November 2024 Caprock went under entirely.

The website for Jones Crossing has gone under as of this writing, so please check back for updates.

Gizmo's Cafe & Bar

Doesn't sound like a bad place, but I like eating outside when the weather's nice, which sadly doesn't happen very often. (from InSite Magazine)
I've been unhappy with the post what was Boyett Street Businesses for a while now (see the archived original version¹), so I've decided to focus on 107 Boyett (one building) and checking on the history of that through Battalion archives. While I'm going to re-examine 103-105 Boyett in the near future (as of this writing--the new post will basically be a cleanup and update), it should be noted that 107 Boyett doesn't really exist...it's the "official" name of this building but no references to it exist only as either Boyett Properties or one (1) reference to a campaign office for George Boyett running as local Justice of the Peace. It has four addresses, including one for Patricia.

109 Boyett opened as sandwich shop New York Sub-Way in 1977 (no relation to the more famous Subway sandwich chain). In 1981 it changed hands to Aggieland Subway (again, no relation to Subway, and may have even been closed for a time). In 1985 it closed and became Gizmo's Cafe & Bar in the 1980s. I received a comment a number of years ago about this place: "I worked at Gizmo's in the late 80's as a server and bartender. It was a great little lunch place with good food. At night, it became the place where all of the Northgate bartenders and servers came to drink, as it was (notably at the time) the only place with a full liquor license on the Northgate strip. Fun times." Gizmo's also used the 111 Boyett space.

In 1990 Gizmo's closed and the space reopened as Spanky's in 1992, which operated until 1994. Paddock opened in 2005 as "Paddock Lane" (name change in the late 2010s). It appears it was vacant for all that time. 111 Boyett was Redbone Jeans in 1977 before disappearing by the end of 1978. It appears that New York Sub-Way took over the spot, and that would be permanent.

For 113 Boyett, first reference was Randy's Liquor in 1978 (#2) which became Coaches Liquor by 1981 (also #2, with "BJ's Package Store" between them in 1980). Later on, it became U.S. Marine Corps recruiters offices by the late 1990s and eventually became Pinky's New School Tattoos by the 2000s. It operated from 2005 to 2008 and was turned into The Tipsy Turtle, which opened in 2009. It may have been Marine recruitment offices from when the liquor store left in the mid-1980s to when the recruitment offices left for the mall in the 2000s.

The most interesting part of these stores is that they are, or were, an example of mixed-use construction. Above Paddock and Tipsy Turtle were some studio apartments, located at 214 Patricia. I'm not sure if these still function as apartments or not (and of course, the noise would be unbearable).

The studio apartments as of circa 2013 (picture by author).

1. As of this post's publication date both are the same. It is for future-proofing purposes.

Former Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers has been gone for a LONG time. (Picture by author, 5/25)
My friend Mike over at Houston Historic Retail has cataloged a bunch of restaurants that tried to make their stand in the Houston area that no longer exist (or at least in the Houston area). Most of these, of course, never made it to the College Station area (or in the case of Wienerschnitzel, never left)—Herfy's Hamburgers, Piccadilly Cafeteria, and Steak N Shake were no-shows in the area. Of course, in Bryan/College Station a number of restaurants have come and gone as well. As B-CS is a small market, most of these had a single location if they came and went. Texadelphia of course counts (their total store count ebbs and flows) and so would Luther's Bar-B-Q (it exited College Station soon after the chain was sold in the mid-1980s—if Luther's stuck around to 2005, we would have had Pappas Bar-B-Q in that space). Beyond that, there's not a lot of good examples, though, as the area isn't big enough to have its own cluster of restaurants try their hand at the area and the chains that have closed (On the Border, Luby's, Red Lobster, Hooters, etc.) have done so as part of larger chain retractions. An early case of this was Roy Rogers, a restaurant chain named after the eponymous Western film star (and today only left with a few dozen locations). It was built when parent owner Marriott was expanding the chain, with the Texas stores owned by franchisee Ram-Hart Systems. The Bryan location at 2706 S. Texas Avenue was one of the stores Ram-Hart Systems opened (opening in 1969)¹ but just a year later, Marriott slammed on the brakes of the chain's expansion due to many locations underperforming (stores like this one, no doubt). In particular, Ram-Hart Systems went bankrupt in 1971 and this was one of the stores it went down with.²

Marriott would eventually sell Roy Rogers (part of divesting their restaurant operations) and today the closest Roy Rogers restaurant to here is in the Washington DC area. There's only one picture of what was once Roy Rogers in Bryan. The picture's a little dark but this is how most Roy Rogers stores of the time looked, and a better picture can be seen here on Reddit (even though that Roy Rogers is in New Jersey, not Bryan). By January 1972, however, less than three years after Roy Rogers opened, a drug store called Discount Apothecary was operating in the space. Within a few years, it had renamed to Ellison Apothecary, eventually becoming Ellison Pharmacy before moving out to East 29th Street around 1998. In 1999, the site was redeveloped as Guaranty Federal Bank (later just Guaranty Bank). With the failure of Guaranty Bank in 2009 (in which it was merged with BBVA Compass), the bank was closed instead of rebranding and reopened as Extraco Bank in April 2011, which it continues to be today.

By the way, the definitive list of "Texas Avenue Restaurants" if you want to explore them all (should be around 60+) can be found here.

1. The Denny's next door opened the same year and fared significantly better. It operates as the Kettle today.
2. The Houston stores got new franchisees, but these eventually closed in the 1980s.

The Westinghouse Building

The plant in its idle days (2010). It used more land than it sat on. Maybe they had plans for further expansion once.
Long before even the Southwest Parkway overpass was built, around 1980, Westinghouse Electric Corporation purchased a large 50-acre site off of the "East Bypass" and on it, opened a plant for their Westinghouse Electronic Systems division, employing just under 500 people, and featuring amenities such as a cafeteria, an infirmary, and even a racquetball court. This plant opened around 1983-1984.

Westinghouse began to scale down the plant's employee count in the early 1990s, starting a wave of layoffs that would ultimately gut the facility. In 1995, corporate at Westinghouse made a major purchase that would change the company—CBS Incorporated, which would become the main focus of the company. It would rename to CBS Corporation in 1997 and divest most of its remaining assets until it merged with CBS's former spin-off Viacom in 2000.¹

In 1996, Westinghouse Electronic Systems (as a division) was sold to Northrop Grumman, and the College Station plant went with it, but its best years were behind it. When Northrup Grumman shut down the plant in 1999 (just three years after buying Westinghouse Electronic Systems), it had only 100 employees down from a peak of 470 when Westinghouse was running it in the 1980s and early 1990s before the layoffs. For a period of about 10 years, the facility sat vacant. In 2005, I remember hearing the news about some vandalism of the facility, but I can't find an article for it.

In early 2009, Lynntech Inc., a local firm, purchased the site for their consolidated headquarters. Lynntech's idea was that they would use some of the space, and develop the rest of the space, including the area behind and around the facility. One of maps from the defunct AbouTown Press had a map of what the whole thing would look like when filled out (it would've had more buildings and facilities, though it did not have an extension of Appomattox, at least from what I remember), though I no longer have it.

From the start, it did not go well. The purchase was finalized in March 2009 but they could not move into the building until early 2010 (don't ask me why it has the year 2012 on the article). A biofuel company was scheduled to move in² but I can't find proof of that ever went through.

By 2014, The Science Park hadn't even filled the original building, much less build out anything on the massive 53-acre campus it sat in. However, a new proposal would completely fill the facility when Blinn announced they were considering the building for a campus expansion. The idea faced heavy resistance from the nearby Raintree subdivision residents on traffic noise³; the highway was essentially one-way in, one-way out, and didn't nearly have the outflow capabilities of the Villa Maria Blinn campus. Within a few months, Blinn dropped their plans and would continue to focus in Bryan.⁴

The next stage in the life of the campus would come in 2016 when Oldham Goodwin acquired the campus and renamed it to Providence Park. The big difference here was that the acreage was hybridized for commercial opportunities, and soon after, a good part of the parking lot of the facility was removed for the construction of a new Academy Sports + Outdoors store, moving from their old store at Horse Haven Lane. Additionally, one part of the building was removed near the front (probably the old cafeteria) and Northrup-Grumman Road, a small access road off of the highway that provided access to the back of the facility (and another access to the parking lot of St. Thomas next door), was largely rebuilt and renamed as Providence Road (though St. Thomas put up a gate that possibly opens on Sundays but it's closed most of the time).

The Westinghouse building has a common corridor to access the office tenants inside. (Photo by author, 1/2020).
New parking was built directly in front of the what is now known as "The Westinghouse Building" at 2501 Earl Rudder Freeway to replace the parking lost to Academy. Lynntech and a few other tenants still occupy the site. I haven't made anything about the current Academy—probably not since it's very much still there (what am I supposed to say about it?) nor the La-Z-Boy store that opened earlier this year...or VeraBank...but I do have something on the short-lived Varsity Grillhouse which you can read about here.

1. The drama between CBS, Viacom, and their on-and-off relationship is mildly interesting, but you can read about it elsewhere. Up until 2021 when the newly re-merged ViacomCBS (since renamed Paramount Global) sold the trademark back to former Westinghouse division Westinghouse Electric Company, they still owned the trademark through a licensing subsidiary.
2. If that link is slow, also check this one.
3. Raintree residents never did like the Westinghouse idea from day one. I'm not sure what the compromise was, or if the questions they had were just not applicable to what Westinghouse was doing.
4. After the Westinghouse plan was abandoned, Blinn settled on the northwest corner of Leonard Road and North Harvey Mitchell Parkway. This was ultimately abandoned when Texas A&M announced the "RELLIS" campus and ultimately the second Blinn campus was moved there.
5. Before around 2000, the address was 7807 East Bypass.

Wendy's "Tiger Town"

The Wendy's/Exxon signs are original, but are unfortunately getting faded. (Photo by author, 5/25)
With this post we'll cover all of the local Wendy's restaurants, the first one in Bryan (since closed), the College Station location (still open), the Holleman/Harvey Mitchell Pkwy. location (now closed), and finally the combo gas station one.

In 1998, a combination Exxon/Wendy's opened at the corner of Highway 6 and William Joel Bryan Parkway (initially as "2000 South Highway 6" but 891 North Earl Rudder Freeway within a year). This was the very first combination true gas station/fast food restaurant in the Bryan-College Station area (if you don't count stuff like that Subway inside the Texaco in south College Station, among other oddities).

Wendy's served nachos?! I guess they still had access to Superbar-type ingredients...but pitas too! (source)
It was always an Exxon, and initially the convenience store was "Tiger Town" but in 1999 was bought by Kolkhorst and ended up being Rattlers' Country Store #3 when the chain was rebranded as such around 2003. Basically it was the twin of the Holleman/Harvey Mitchell store (except with an Exxon). While the Wendy's roadside signage has yet to receive the 2013 logo (phew!) the convenience store hasn't been as lucky. It became Stripes in 2015 (officially) which got bought by 7-Eleven a few years later, but rather than convert the stores (it never even got Stripes' version of the ICEE) it ended up becoming a "zombie" Rattlers with no 7-Eleven association.

Abandoned Baskin-Robbins Factory

I don't have a good picture for this other than this imprisoned VW Rabbit that was here for several years. (Picture by me, 12/2015)
This is another Texas Avenue entry that doesn't have a Carbon-izer.com equivalent but something I wanted to talk about for several years at this point. 1918 S. Texas Avenue started out as an ice cream plant built in 1955 per Brazos CAD and expanded in 1956 under Sanitary Dairies out of Houston. The plant made ice cream for retail sale (the "Quality Chekd" brand), but also manufactured Baskin-Robbins ice cream under license (Sanitary Dairies was the franchisee for the Texas area). In 1969, Sanitary Dairies was purchased by National Convenience Stores Inc., which would be better known for its Stop N Go chain of convenience stores. They would buy 7-Eleven out of Houston in the late 1980s, get bought by Diamond Shamrock in the 1990s, and eventually disappear in favor of Corner Store and eventually Circle K...but that all came later.

Anyway, a few years later, NCS sold their Baskin-Robbins franchise directly back to the parent company, which at the time was banana giant United Brands (which owned A&W as well at the time) and with this, became a full Baskin-Robbins facility connected to the company. (A Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop was just right down the street). Baskin-Robbins was later sold to British company J. Lyons and Company and after a few mergers was owned by Allied Domecq. Despite serving much of the entire West Coast area and being one of only two plants Baskin-Robbins actually owned, in July 2000, Baskin-Robbins announced it was closing the plant and moving production to Alta Dena Certified Dairy in California, which manufactured frozen yogurt for West Coast stores. A plant in Owensboro, Kentucky continued to operate until it was finally sold in the early 2020s.

I had been a fan of Baskin-Robbins there at Southwest Parkway and Texas, and while Blue Bell made a lot of noise about being a "local" creamery, all this time the ice cream from Baskin-Robbins was made closer to home. (I don't think Baskin-Robbins did tours, though). Anyway, the plant auctioned off its equipment in spring 2001, The plant is currently owned by "TURK-AM PHOENIX PROPERTIES INC", which just appears to be a shell company based out of a private owner out of Spring.

Checkers, Revisited

It's not the greatest photo out there, but I tried. (Photo by author, 4/2025)
Happy Easter, or rather 4/20, depending on how you want to see it. We're taking a brief break from our Texas Avenue-themed locations for a bit (maybe, perhaps, longer). Much like how the recent Finfeather 7-Eleven post was a revised version of an old, removed post, you may remember me covering this (it wasn't your imagination, it was published in early 2013 per records but removed around 2019 because I wasn't happy with it).

Now sporting the address of 1103 Welsh Avenue, the "new" Checkers (opened April 2025 after being under construction for at least a year, the licensed "Big Madre" taco concept opening May) but I remember when the old Checkers, 604 Holleman, opened. Vaguely.

604 Holleman was first developed as commercial property in 1971 as a UtoteM, converted to Circle K in 1984, and closed in 1987¹. Additionally, next to the station (same building) at 606 Holleman², was Holik's Package Store and later Al's Washateria. From what I've been told and can piece together this was completely abandoned during the 1990s.

In 1997, the building was torn down for a new gas station and convenience store called Checkers. You can see what Checkers looked like on older Google Maps Street View images, though as a kid its unusual appearance for a gas station was puzzling, with an unused upper level. (I'm guessing it might've been intended to be leased as office space but never came to pass). Eventually, a stop sign was added at Welsh and Holleman by the early 2000s and ultimately (I want to say 2009) a full stoplight was added.

While there were few updates to the gas station over the years (the only thing notable was repainting the canopy from green to white, around 2011, then ultimately yellow), the gas station had a kitchen space and a number of fly-by-night operations operated there over the years, mostly Mexican and/or soul food. The only one I really remember was "El Taco Loco", which had an anthropomorphic hard taco with sunglasses, and in the 2010s had The Remnant from Nawlins, which was the ONLY space to ever graduate into a full restaurant (now at 1416 Groesbeck Street, which it's been since around 2016, give or take a year).

The Holik name seems to be connected to the former owner of a house at 614 Holleman demolished in the second redevelopment when the original Checkers was closed and demolished around 2023, I remember passing the house by glowing mercury vapor lamp to the west side of the house, and was part of the same property. It finally went away in the redevelopment. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the old property but here's the Google Street View of 604 Holleman.

UPDATE 05-04-2025: Clarified a few things regarding Aggieland Food Mart and its non-open status, as well as making a bit more clear that the 1997 redevelopment was redeveloped completely again.

<sup>1. Tax records indicate it would reopen as "Aggieland Food Mart" soon after, but this appears to have not been the case. Want ads mention "I have the building, just need $ for stock". The tax record expired a year later.
2. Also known as 604-B Holleman.</sup>

Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments

We'll have to make do with Street View for this one; again (2011)
One thing that wasn't covered on that old Carbon-izer page which we've been getting our Texas Avenue information from recently was the old Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments, near the corner of East Duncan Street and Texas Avenue (1800 S. Texas Avenue). The first reference comes in 1942 in papers (not much older than that, they weren't built yet in 1935) and some references of expansion come post-war. I'm not sure when they offered apartments (they had 1&2 bedroom apartments) but there were expansions done to the property post-WWII.

There's not a lot of information to go on otherwise. It rebranded as "Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments" in the early 1970s around the time it changed hands from Preston Dishman to Sheeraz Ali Lakhani, and was initially competitive with other complexes, but eventually fell into disrepair. By 2003, the motel and two other aged motels near it (Casa Loma and Holiday Plaza) were considered to be nuisance businesses with a disproportionate amount of police calls to them (22 rooms and 52 calls for police calls for assistance over a six month period).

Here's the 2012 Street View which had a last-minute repaint as well as removing signage that advertised "color cable TV" (wildly outdated). In 2012 everyone who lived there got evicted and it was demolished within a year. Eastep Auto Sales, a used car dealer, replaced it in 2015, moving from across the street.

Gath's Chicken-N-More

This cropped photo is taken from the article below, but it's unknown to when it was taken. Not from the article, though.
I'm not committing to another Texas Avenue series but I want to continue south from Texas Avenue from Weiner's and go with the same theme of "Carbon-izer's Texas Avenue page", this fast food spot on 720 N. Texas Avenue has been a few outlets over the years. Its oldest records indicate a Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits in 1985 (that's what the restaurants looked like back then), by 1987 it was already Jim & Sue's Catfish & Steaks, then John's Katfish Kitchen (1988-1989), then Gath's Chicken-N-More (1989-1993, see article here, archived from here), then Gath's Wholesale Electric Company (1993 to 2006, but sat vacant into the early 2010s), then Fargo's BBQ (2013 to early 2017, before they moved to the former Western Sizzlin/Barnhill's/New Barnhill's/Ocean Buffet), then Mariscos Perla del Mar (lit. "Pearl of the Sea Seafood", opened 2017) which it is today.

Editor's Note: A number of posts have receieve updates. Just search for "UPDATE 04-08-2025" in the blog's search bar to find them.

Weiner's Bryan

From July 9, 1972. The "North Bryan Shopping Center" was never built; Weiner's was besides itself.
As part of a bigger project that is involving breaking down/updating the Texas Avenue page on my other website, Carbon-izer as well as adding some much-needed Bryan entries to the site, comes another entry, Weiner's, at 1520 N. Texas Avenue. We briefly mentioned Weiner's in the Culpepper Plaza page, but the Houston-based discount apparel store existed from 1972 to the chain's bankruptcy in 2001, with not even Weinerman able to save the store chain from its demise.

Best Pawn quickly picked it up and opened in 2002. By that time, there was more commercial development in the area, with H-E-B Pantry catty-corner (well, hidden behind on Old Hearne Road anyway) and the AppleTree-anchored Culpepper North. Best Pawn also had a long run (not quite as long as Weiner's) and operated until September 1, 2021. After a full renovation of the building, Poco Loco Supermercado opened in July 2023, though it doesn't have a fuel station component.

Finfeather's 7-Eleven

It wasn't too long before this 2005 picture that the gas station was conveniently located. (source). I fixed it up from Newspapers.com so it looked a little nicer.
One of the posts that was added in 2010 (March 2, 2010; there were originally far more posts from 2010 and 2011 than the current Index would suggest) focused on the north end of Wellborn Road and Finfeather. Today, we're re-visiting that (a post resurrection of sorts—parts of this post are fifteen years old!) by examining a former 7-Eleven at that corner.

In the mid-to-late 1970s Villa Maria Road was extended from Texas Avenue all the way out to FM 2818, creating two stoplights, one at Finfeather and the other at the extension of Wellborn Road from F&B Road. In the days when pre-bankruptcy Southland Corporation was first on the scene with new 7-Eleven stores/Citgo gas stations on the fringes on the development, a store opened up at Finfeather and West Villa Maria Road in 1978 (3300 Finfeather Road). In 1993 it became E-Z Mart due to Southland selling off hundreds of stores across different markets. (In Houston, the stores had already been sold off to National Convenience Stores, aka Stop 'n Go; in Waco, the stores were sold to Circle K; it really depended on the market).

Despite the fact that going to Bryan more often than not meant a visit to the pediatric dentist, I always liked the intersection growing up. Maybe it was because it was unique among the other crossings on Wellborn Road that Wellborn dipped below the railroad grade by up to sixteen feet before they came together again at the light, maybe it was the fact that both signals would go down even if it was only one train on the track (for safety reasons, obviously, even though it wasn't a true "two-track" crossing), maybe it was the fact that one track curved and one didn't.



The intersection as it was c. early 2004. Click to see full resolution.
The underpass construction officially started in late 2004 (though the real construction began in 2005); around this time the convenience store converted to "E-Z For You" (as I mentioned before here). By late 2010 the intersection was complete and the gas station, rather than closing, converted its signage to electronic. I think by that time it also changed over to an Exxon. Sometime between 2016 and 2018 the "fake" E-Z Mart was rebranded as "Just 4 You", a completely different logo but still keeping the old orange-and-green theme. No doubt that the station suffered due to the construction but the apartment communities along Finfeather kept it in business, but if the gas station did poorly following its complete cut-off from Villa Maria, the shop portion facing the Villa Maria side did even worse.

Casey's Wash House was one of the oldest tenants I can find in the space, but it appears to be built at the same time as the main store. Other tenants that have come and go included The Fishman (fish market, 1990s), Omar's Upholstery (early 2000s), and a few barber shops. (It appears that there is a hair salon in the spot as of this writing).

Wendy's on Texas Avenue

Picture by author, March 2025. The construction barrel in front contributed to WHY I could snap this picture from a (sort of) moving car.
Much like the other day, in the post "H-E-B Bryan Times Two", I referred to the "City Directory" of Carbon-izer.com and my efforts to phase it out (current version here, archived edition here). In this case, we're going back down on Texas Avenue to Wendy's, which the page puts as being open in 1977 (per tax filing) but it actually opened in 1978.

3216 South Texas Avenue was the address of the restaurant and it operated for thirty years at that location¹, as the number of Wendy's restaurants in the Bryan-College Station area grew to two (with the opening of the Southwest Parkway East location in 1984), three with the addition of their WJB store in 1998, and a fourth with the opening of the Holleman store in late 2004.

In 2005, Wendy's tied for third with Whataburger and Jack in the Box, with both of them being behind McDonald's and Sonic. Since the Whataburger practically across the street at the Tejas Center lines up fairly closely with the demise of this Wendy's (pulling them ahead to third place, meaning Wendy's was now tied to Jack in the Box for fourth by definition) and likely had a hand in their demise. Game over.

By summer 2009, the restaurant has been repainted red, yellow, and white as Loanstar Title Loans ("CASH LOANS ON CAR TITLES" in the front). Today in the local burger wars, Wendy's sits at just two restaurants locally behind Whataburger, Sonic, and McDonald's (the top three, in no particular order), with Jack in the Box and Burger King tied for fourth, a lousy sixth place showing. Do they deserve it? (Maybe—considering they haven't built a new one locally in over twenty years).

From the newspaper, June 28, 1978.²
It should be pointed out that although the mid-Bryan Texas Avenue fast foods all continue to thrive today to some extent. Maybe not "thrive" but the former Church's Chicken is still a restaurant, Jack in the Box is operating after a tear-down and rebuild, and work continues on Long John Silver's. All three of those sit at a stoplight with easy access. Now, sure, Mr. Hamburger is vacant (at a stoplight) and KFC still operates (but not at a stoplight); yet I can't help but thinking that the lack of access was a problem (even pre-medians). Wendy's had an access point to Doerge Street behind it but I guess that wasn't enough. I'm not sure about KFC, and especially with those medians it seems like it may be a tough sell. Heck, jumping over to the old Mr. Hamburger spot may be in their future.

Finally, I should mention that on a personal note, I don't remember ever going to this location; in fact I don't even really remember a Wendy's being there. I remember Church's and McDonald's and the KFC (pretty sure remember it when it had a bucket on the sign) but not Wendy's. Maybe I wasn't the only one...

UPDATE 05/04/2025: Added link back to the WJB Wendy's location as that has gone live now.

<sup>1. I'm not sure if had a salad bar at this location since I barely seem to remember it. You can see a great page for Wendy's (ignore the former restaurant portion, it will be gone after 3/31/2025 again) here at Carbon-izer.
2. Reading the full page requires a subscription. I only clipped the relevant part.</sup>

H-E-B Bryan Times Two

The new H-E-B opened before the old one was torn down (Google Earth 2011)
Having covered both the H-E-B Pantry at Holleman and near Townshire, it's time to cover the third and final H-E-B Pantry in town...the North Bryan location. And, because of its same lot, by extension, the H-E-B that replaced it. (It's part of a broader plan to phase out the "City Directory" page on Carbon-izer).¹

While H-E-B built a new building in 1991 at 1905 Old Hearne Road, the address was previously used as "Pots of Pride" (florist) and later New Beginnings (hair salon) until around 1990, with H-E-B Pantry opening October 16, 1991. H-E-B Pantry remained nearly twenty years in the spot², though at some point rebranded to simply "H-E-B" as the company sought to eliminate the Pantry brand. By 2009, with a brand-new H-E-B to open at Tower Point and its two sister Pantry stores replaced with larger versions, work began on a new H-E-B store to replace it, almost immediately behind it.

When H-E-B opened store #644 in mid-2011, the store was three times the one it replaced (around 80,000 square feet vs. 24,000 square feet) but it was smaller and more downmarket than the other H-E-B stores. In addition to a pharmacy, a bakery, and a deli (well, "deli" by H-E-B standards anyway—they slice meat and cheese to order), it featured H-E-B's "Flaming Bird" roasted chicken concept. The larger store replaced several smaller businesses at that corner, including Sharp Propane (1609 N. Texas Avenue), Longhorn Tavern (1900 Highway 21 E.) when it was at that location from 1988 to 2009, and 1908 Highway 21 East, a car dealership, holding Atlas Motors as one of its last tenants (previously several names, including M & M Auto Sales in the mid-2000s) and Douglass Nissan Used Car Center in the late 1990s.

The address of 1601 North Texas Avenue is used for the smaller shops next to the store (attached to the building as a strip mall portion). From the H-E-B toward Brazos Valley Community Church on Highway 21 there's Fade Masters Barber Studio (formerly the spot of 4.0 Cuts, changed hands to current name between 2022 and 2025 but opened sometime in the late 2010s, a space that used to have Papa John's Pizza (it did not have the traditional logo of the chain and ended up closing after two robberies in a single day (the employees all quit), closing in early 2014. A few years later, it reopened but never gained any traction and closed for good), Safari Dental & Orthodontics (since 2011, occupies two separate storefronts), T-Mobile (opened between 2018 and 2021) and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service (at least since 2012).

As for the old H-E-B Pantry building, it was soon demolished for additional parking and an H-E-B Fuel/car wash center.

<sup>1. Archived here. Note that a number of entries are outdated and have newer/updated posts here including Mr. Hamburger, Fat Burger, Fargo's Pit BBQ, Kettle, Planet K, and Long John Silver's...among others.
2. According to the previously referenced BTU article, the store looked almost identical to the 2031 South Texas Avenue store. It was also technically signed as "H-E-B Pantry" rather than "H-E-B Pantry Foods". For more information on H-E-B Pantry Foods, please see this link.</sup>

UPDATE 05-30-2025: This ad for Zip'N shows that there was a Shell/Zip'N at the 1615 N. Texas Avenue address. It appears it was demolished for the H-E-B Pantry (just north of the current parking lot access from Texas Avenue).
UPDATE 06-08-2025: As the removal plan has been consummated the link has been removed.

Bush's Chicken at Tower Point

It certainly wasn't invisible from the highway but how did you get to it? (Google Maps Street View, c. 2018, with edits for brightness)
I've never covered Tower Point before, partly because it's a sprawling development (separated by a huge detention pond) rather than a cohesive shopping plaza, and mostly, hasn't seen many dramatic changes. Some spaces adjacent to H-E-B have gotten evicted for an expansion (might be worth covering that at some point) but the subject to cover is Bush's Chicken - Tower Point (4344 Highway 6 South). I've enjoyed Bush's Chicken in Waco-Temple-Killeen over the years (still do), but for whatever reason the local locations flopped.

Bush's Chicken operated from January 2016 to October 2017 (around the same time the Texas Avenue location closed).

After sitting vacant for nearly two years, the space was filled in with Conroe-based Pie in the Sky Pie Company, which tried its hand at a second location.¹ Unfortunately, PITSPC became another victim of COVID-19, closing permanently in October 2020.

After a more extensive renovation (mostly painting the building black and removing the drive-through), Le Petit Cochon² opened in November 2022. A French restaurant with decidedly fancier food (though still with a "casual restaurant" vibe), but just before its two-year anniversary (something neither Bush's Chicken nor PITSPC could manage) in August 2024, Le Petit Cochon rebranded itself as Napa Flats Bistro, a "French-inspired American Bistro".³ This French restaurant has some decidedly fancier food than either of the two spaces before it. As of August 2024, it's been open for close to two years, which is already something Pie in the Sky Pie Co. and Bush's Chicken couldn't manage.

When it was approaching its two-year point (something that neither Pie in the Sky or Bush's Chicken could manage), Le Petit Cochon rebranded as Napa Flats Bistro, calling itself a "French-inspired American Bistro".

Nearby: Spice World Market, The Sandstone Center, and Rock Prairie Crossing<sup>4

1. This was not PITSPC's first attempt at a second location. One had existed in Houston proper in the early 2010s.
2. Lit. "The Little Pig"
3. I don't remember the exact arrangement but it definitely was connected to Napa Flats' ownership in some way from day one.
4. Much like these footnotes introduced in the Texas Hall of Fame entry, this is a new feature I'm adding to new or significantly updated posts. It is all written manually.</sup>

Texas Hall of Fame and Rudder's Landing

I have no color pictures of the Texas Hall of Fame so here's some 1978 ads instead.
As I mentioned for what is now the post covering Foxhole Lounge, there used to be a whole post called "Stories of the West Loop" which was developed into other posts on this blog. That post also talked about the areas "beyond the border", the places where while they weren't technically far away from home, they were enough out of the way that I never saw them unless I was going on a bigger trip. Texas Hall of Fame, was of course, one of them.

Seeing as how most of the College Station-focused FM 2818 posts have been developed in some form or fashion, there needs to be more on Bryan specifically (and while Bryan content has increased in recent years--of the 110 posts from the 1/1/2020 post of O'Reilly Auto Parts Texas Avenue, College Station and 3/1/25's On the Border, nearly a third of them have been in Bryan, and I expect the trend to continue.

Most of what I could say about Texas Hall of Fame, the warehouse-like building that sat here since September 1978 and was another sight off of FM 2818/Harvey Mitchell Parkway when traveling that direction was written by The Eagle in 2003. If you still deign to give The Eagle your money you can see at the top of the page here. But I don't like broken pages and pop-ups, and neither should you, so here are the scans reproduced below.

This page is large. Click to see full size. Johnny Lyon, the sole owner of the club at the time, kept his promise—he kept the Hall alive as long as he lived....but in November 2010, Lyon passed away at the age of 73.

New ownership kept the Hall open for another year but in late December 2011, the Hall cancelled their New Years Eve events and closed permanently. The loss of the area's biggest (and most inclusive—the other dance halls catered exclusively to college students) was a mournful one, and the dance hall did not reopen (nor did a similar project announced in early 2012, the "College Station Hall of Fame", which was to be built somewhere in south College Station).

While the Hall was north of the Villa Maria/Harvey Mitchell Parkway intersection (it was north of where Panda Express is now with the address of 649 N. Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.¹, the whole thing was redeveloped as a strip center called Rudder's Landing, anchored by a new Walmart (Supercenter) which opened in March 2014.

I imagine the opening of the "west side Walmart" really cannibalized the recently-opened Townshire Walmart Neighborhood Market, but even with that the whole development was a bit anemic. Despite some plans with buildings on the north side (where the Texas Hall of Fame actually was), it remained little more than just the Walmart itself and a few smaller stores (most of the stores in the PDF in the smaller building joined in 2014-2015). Notably, Panda Express (639 North Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.) opened December 2014. Chick-fil-A joined in the early 2020s at 1542 West Villa Maria Road.

According to the most recent PDF (archived from here), the second phase of Rudder's Landing will not only incorporate the old Texas Hall of Fame space but Bryan Mobile Truck & Trailer Repair (at 683 North Harvey Mitchell Pkwy., former home of Bryan's Central Freight Lines terminal) would be torn down for Atwoods.

The PDF has several things that aren't there (yet) including the oil change place, Greater Texas Federal Credit Union (hope is dimming for that one as they gave up on their proposed Deacon/FM 2154 location amid rumors of heavy losses), and Dollar Tree. The Rapid Express Car Wash ended up opening as a Club Carwash by the time it opened in 2022², and the Subway in the shopping center moved there sometime around 2014 because of a claim of loss of business at the gas station location due to the Villa Maria/FM 2818 overpass.<sup>3

1. This only was bestowed around 1998-1999, I could find NO records of an address for them prior to this.
2. This was due to a buyout of the chain.
3. This is according to Centex Subway. Due to my experience in dealing with them I don't believe this to be the case as Popeyes continues to operate successfully, and during that timeframe there wasn't a new development that they didn't jump on. Keep in mind that there was ALREADY another Subway inside of the Walmart.</sup>

On the Border

The lights are on, but nobody's home
I'm afraid we have another dead restaurant to report on. Developed as part of Lone Star Pavilion , On the Border Mexican Cafe opened in late summer 1997, replacing part of Texas 707 (a few buildings were torn down, notably the old Charli location). Although opened after the golden days of when it was a great Tex-Mex restaurant even for Houston standards, it became another standby in College Station. Even after the fanfare wore off and it became one of those "wow, it's still open" places like Casa Olé was (the Bryan one remains, though is newer), On The Border survived through COVID, past Taco Cabana and its follow-up Las Palapas (now nothing more than rubble), but it seems to be a victim of a number of other closures that have affected the chain nationwide.

I have no anecdotes about OTB. I can't even tell you definitively if I've eaten there or not; if I did it was a very long time ago.

Truth be told I wanted to snag at least a menu but the gate was also padlocked All of the pictures in this post were taken by me February 2025. Additional photos below:

Bonus pic: times are a-changing on Texas Avenue.

Winn-Dixie on 29th Street

Winn-Dixie with prominent "Marketplace" signage, unknown date. Courtesy Michael Gomez (used with permission) Twenty years ago today (February 21, 2005), Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. declared bankruptcy. When I started writing this post back in January, it appeared to be heading toward an ignominious end under parent company Aldi. Earlier this month, though, C&S Wholesale Grocers purchased 170 stores (including Harveys, as well as some associated liquor stores) with the associated trademarks from Aldi Süd. Still, with 170 stores spread across five states and C&S's incredibly bad track record at "rescuing" chains (one reason why the courts X'd their purchase of Albertsons/Kroger cast-offs), the future still looks quite dim.

In better days, however, Winn-Dixie had locations spread across much of the Southeastern United States (with about 1,000 stores in 1999) and that included two locations in the area, and was part of several other major regional and national chains for what was a very small market in the early 1990s, with the chain, along with AppleTree, Randalls, Albertsons, Kroger, and H-E-B Pantry participating. (One article I have when the College Station location closed mentioned it was probably the most grocery store square footage to capita market in the country).

Despite the closure of the relatively short-lived College Station store and spending much of the 1990s sandwiched halfway between AppleTree and Randall's (later Albertsons), it still operated until the chain departed Texas for good in 2002.

Opened in May 1985, the 45,000 square feet store offered the typical supermarket features of the time including a "New York-style delicatessen and bakery". The paper also mentioned a "prestige meat" department, that was what Winn-Dixie called its meat department in those days and I imagine the inside of the Bryan store looked much the same way. This anchored the new Carter Creek Shopping Center.

Unfortunately, by the late 1990s, Winn-Dixie's problems were apparent through the company. Already by 1996, with their competition locally (Kroger, Albertsons, AppleTree, and H-E-B Pantry) having two or more stores compared to Winn-Dixie's one, no stores in any of the major Texas cities except for Dallas-Fort Worth (and at least in 5th place behind Kroger, Tom Thumb, Albertsons, and Minyard) and Waco-Temple-Killeen, Winn-Dixie seemed to finally catch a break in 1999 as they hammered out a deal with Kroger where they would offload the entire Texas Division to Kroger for an undisclosed price (rumored to be $350M), pending FTC approval.

This would allow Kroger entrance to Oklahoma (where it had no stores and still doesn't), Waco-Temple-Killeen, a few smaller markets, and give Kroger four local stores by the end of the 2000, with their new Rock Prairie "Signature" store, their existing College Station store, and their existing Bryan store. Unfortunately for both parties, the FTC did not approve (even though it was trivial compared to the later Albertsons/Kroger merger later attempted (which still failed) with the deal now dead, Kroger walked away. Instead, in 2002, Winn-Dixie simply shut down the division. Brookshire picked up a small number of stores, Kroger picked up even less, but the majority of the stores simply closed.

That of course left Carter Creek Shopping Center without an anchor tenant. The store's address, 4001 E. 29th Street, was shared with the whole shopping center, so it's hard to find much information on other tenants and gain a clear picture of what was going on. Personally, I don't remember much of the center and I don't think it was ever well-populated, but from 2001 to 2012 a location of Tuesday Morning was located here, before it relocated to Post Oak Square. There were a few others (Career Apparel, Amish Furniture for Generations). By early 2004, Workforce Solutions had moved into the former Winn-Dixie (new address--3991 E. 29th Street) and other government offices moved in soon after.

There were/are other tenants in the shopping center as well. There are two buildings near the light at Carter Creek Parkway, one of which holds Pride Cleaners (Pride 1 Hr. Cleaners until the late 2000s/early 2010s). There was a Dollar General at suite 102 from 1993 to 2007, a DoubleDave's Pizzaworks from 1986 to 1997 (one of the early locations), and a restaurant, Wokamole Healthy Cuisine has somehow hung on for ten years at suite 106 (opened late 2014). The restaurant originally opened as a hybrid Chinese/Mexican restaurant (it replaced another Mexican restaurant called El Gallito de Jalisco, and the spot had been mostly restaurants going back years) though within a year the Mexican menu was dropped entirely.

UPDATE 03-30-2025: This was actually one of the first Winn-Dixie Marketplaces in the chain. (The third, actually). See the Sing Oil Blog post. It went up a few days after mine but contained some inaccuracies (particularly about Kroger's aborted buyout) but it's been ironed out with some features shared.

Varsity Grillhouse

I was in a bit of a rush so I only got one picture of the restaurant and it isn't a great one (photo by author, 2/25)
A few years ago after burning out in 2021, I decided that starting with this post everything moving forward would be "buildings that are demolished or otherwise closed, had tenant changeover, had some significant change themselves, or are part of a larger story" and not merely historic. Since then everything has held to that (I figured there might be an exception or two but thus far everything has held).

The downside of a self-governed policy tends to encourage making a post of recently-deceased businesses rather than looking at a long storied history (one of the things I like the least about Columbia Closings, but it also seems to bring in the crowds).

What was a bit confusing about Varsity Grillhouse (and probably contributing to its demise) was that it was a sports-themed restaurant, but not a sports bar*. Here's the restaurant's menu courtesy Archive.org.

The restaurant came and went so fast (late April 2024 to early February 2025) that the most recent Street View of 2509 Earl Rudder Freeway. Not the shortest-lived restaurant in the area by a long shot but rarely do you see a new-build go under like that.

The restaurant was part of a new development of the old Westinghouse building and surrounding property. That's a post I've been tinkering on for a while now (pretty sure I started it five years ago) but that's still going to be a future post, someday...

* archived from this link

Former T.G.I. Friday's

A harbinger of things to come chain-wide. (source)
My first and better choice for today was unfortunately cancelled due to lack of photos but this is similar enough, plus it's themetically on point (sports bar that would probably air the Super Bowl). It's TGI Friday's, which opened late 2005 when the chain was hitting its peak (600 U.S. restaurants in 2008, now dropped to just 125 domestically).

The College Station T.G.I. Friday's at 940 University Drive East opened late 2005 and closed in May 2013. It appears the franchisee, LBD 2001 Inc., shut down the previous year and was taken over by corporate; however, the College Station location wasn't one of the ones they moved forward with. It was replaced with Willie's Grill & Icehouse in 2014.

Editor's Note: I know I've been churning a lot of posts lately, but a lot of these are stuff I've written previously. (I dare say that a good number of new posts you see now were started/partially written a few years ago). Part of the problem with the current posts is that some of these posts just aren't that thematically exciting. Looking at some of my output from 2011-2013, although most of them have been rewritten from their original drafts (and more than a few got permanently removed), it's noticeably different than the later output, it's very different than 2014 on, especially when I ran out of ideas of stuff that I really wanted to cover.