Rodeway Inn of Texas Avenue

Official picture...probably taken before it became a Motel 6. Welcome to 2025! I meant to retire the blog a decade ago but ended up fixing it up and adding over 150 new posts, even if the release is spotty (2019 and 2020 got over 40 posts, 2021 and 2024 had around two dozens posts, some had less than ten, and a conspicuous absence for 2018).

Speaking of lack of activity, the [hotels and motels] tag hasn't seen much since I covered Hampton Inn and predecessor Sands Motel back in 2021. Several of them got updates (most notably relating to the original Holiday Inn in College Station, but a true new post has been lacking.

We've mentioned Joe Ferreri before, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 103 and some of his ventures over the years including Ramada Inn, the Triangle Drive-In, and Ferreri's Italian.

First announced in 1965 as a Rodeway Inn (opened in 1966) with a Kettle opening a year later (24 hours—though it looks like the "separate luxury restaurant" never came to fruition).

The motel stayed as a Rodeway Inn under Ferreri's ownership and was lost in 1988 to foreclosure and in the early 1990s rebranded as Preference Inn. In 2004, it changed names again to Americas Best Value Inn & Suites. For a very brief time in the mid-2010s was a Rodeway Inn again, before becoming a combo Motel 6/Studio 6 by 2017. Unlike other combo hotels, they operated as one business with no difference in rooms, nor had the old Studio 6 logo before it changed to look more like the Motel 6 logo (which also got a slight redesign).

I did visit here a few times in the late 2010s as a Motel 6 (knew someone who lived there for months), it wasn't great. (This is the motel's current website under Motel 6 where the picture came from).

Obviously the Kettle doesn't exist anymore. While it did briefly co-exist with the Kettle at 2712 South Texas Avenue, it appears to have closed sometime in the late 1980s and appears to have been vacant until Coco Loco moved in around 1998. Also at some point Coco Loco got its own address (1607)...

Babe's Doughnut Company

February 2020 (mine). Had to brighten it up a bit.
TexAgs has reported that Babe's Doughnut Co. has closed so now seemed like the perfect time to post about it, being timely and all. (Man, have we lost a lot of restaurants this year—Casa Olé at the mall, Fargo's, Amico Nave, Hooters, Mo's Irish Pub at Century Square, the final Fat Burger, Fuzzy's Taco Shop, the Northgate IHOP location, the unusual death of Krispy Kreme, Bahama Buck's there at Tower Point, and I may still be missing a few yet).

In any case, to look at the history of this one we need to go way back to 1965, when Streetman's Drive-In opened in January 1965 at 3409 S. Texas Avenue, featuring hamburgers, fried shrimp, doughnuts, and other orders. Within a few years, this became Sam's Drive-In and later switched to serving Jack 'n' Jill Donuts exclusively. (I have no idea where Jack 'n' Jill Donuts came from, but they still have a few stores in the Waco-Temple-Killeen area, even today). Around 1985 Jack 'n' Jill Donuts closed, giving way to the second chapter in the building's history.

Jungsen & Jookyung Baek opened Live Seafood (also known as Live Seafood & Oriental Grocery) around 1986, a seafood restaurant and small store selling Korean groceries. This would change hands and ownership over the next thirty years but remaining a Korean grocery (eventually full foodservice was largely dropped). By 1995 it was Dong Yang Market, by 2003 it was simply Oriental Market. In the early 2010s I often visited the store when I was in the neighborhood, either buying a small snack or drink, or eyeballing the large jars of homemade kimchi in the ancient refridgeration units in the back (I don't mind a good kimchi but never in the size of gallons). In February 2016, a large fire tore through the building. The building was saved but the inventory was ruined and the interior was damaged, and it didn't reopen.

In 2017 it reopened as Babe's Doughnut Company, and was a popular place for morning donuts (a nice change from Shipley's). It had some unusual donuts like with cereal on top, but with Babe's closing, we're left with only Shipley's and other no-name donut shops. Too bad!

I intend for this to be the last post of the year (updates will continue)—yes, I suppose I could fit more in but I need to focus on other projects like Numbered Exits and Carbon-izer,com. Similar to how I tacked on a bit following a eulogy for the Bryan-College Station location of Mr. Hamburger (this post) last year, we'll look at the ones that got the highest views this year like we did a year ago.

Post Oak Mall Stores, 1982-1992 takes #1 this year (it was #3 last year). I keep telling myself to get the new page up, it's a big project but I keep delaying. Furrow Building Materials takes second place. Former Fitzwilly's comes at #3...Texan Restaurant is #4 (#1 last year), and finally, Fajita Rita's, The Building of Which Eventually Burned Down comes at #5.

Notable updates this time around included...
- Albertsons (freed from a disastrous planned merger) is expanding outside of Dallas-Fort Worth again with a new store in Waxahachie opening a few months ago (as a Tom Thumb) and the first Oklahoma since pulling out in 2007 but the long-vacant store of University Drive East was filled (partially) with a REI. I still miss Albertsons' presence in our community, but at least Brookshire Brothers fills that "third supermarket" niche.
- The article on Grand Station now has an opening and closing date for Lowe's. Yes, for those new here, that was the area's first Lowe's store! It didn't do so well initially, though.
- We have an article now that the Long John Silver's in College Station closed after it was discovered to be a drug front.
- The Post Oak Square article was updated a few times to better explain Mariel's and "Home Town Foods" as well covering the demise of Krispy Kreme.

And of course, if you're new, there's an ever-growing catalog of existing posts in the archive to peruse. See you next year!

Oh, before going here are a few others from that photo set (February 2020).

Ku-Ku Burger

From whence did this building come? (Photo by author, June 2024)
When it comes to long-gone fast food restaurants, no one talks much about Ku-Ku Burger, a 1960s-era chain that marketed 15-cent hamburgers (like McDonald's at the time) in a cuckoo clock-themed building. Apparently up to 200 stores existed at one time before the chain's failure circa 1970; now the only one is in Miami, Oklahoma (and even that one has been modified with additions). From looking at old newspapers there wasn't much press surrounding the opening of Ku-Ku Burger, located at 2500 South Texas Avenue. In fact, sometime between 1966 and 1970 it was closed and replaced with a Baskin-Robbins. From the late 1980s to 2005 this was Subway (it moved to Tejas Center) and has been World Nail Spa since at least around 2007.

To my surprise, when I stopped by in June for a few photos I found that they were building a new structure behind World Nail Spa, which would replace the old building, very similar to how the original building of the nearby Ag Solar Guard met its demise. By October, the old Ku-Ku Burger building was gone, replaced by a parking lot. There was very little left of it beyond its strange building, anyway. Two other pictures are below (neither of the new building, which is nothing to write home about, though you can take a look at the Facebook page):

Bryan Kettle

It's difficult to get a good shot so this Google Street View will have to do. Besides, they replaced all those mercury-vapor lamps back around late 2019. With the demise of the College Station Kettle in 2022, the Bryan Kettle (at 2712 South Texas Avenue) still remains, the last remnant of the Kettle chain (now with three independent locations--Tucson, Arizona and Laredo, Texas (which I'm not even 100% sure is open anymore) it's time to look at the Bryan Kettle.

The oldest records for the address (1955) comes up with the home of Sunset Trailer Court which occupied the block. In 1962 Beltone Hearing Testing Laboratory opened under H.R. "Tex" Mayhall though within a few years Mayhall relocated to Austin. (It likely used Sunset's office.) By the mid 1960s the address was home to Wilie Trailer Sales, with Denny's opening a new restaurant on the site in 1969.

After a run of ten years, the Denny's changed hands. Under new owner J. Carlos Hongo, the name changed to Carlson's, which dropped 24 hour service while adding items like Kobe Teriyaki Steak to the menu. However, Carlson's closed in early 1982 and soon reopened as Kettle, which featured 24 hour service once more, and that 24 hour service would continue for almost forty years (ending in 2020).

The demise of the College Station location meant that this is the only Kettle remaining in the area. Besides the Arizona one, that Laredo location I'm not 100% sure is open anymore. It looks rather desolate these days.

Normandy Square

April 2024 picture by author. Ever since November 2021 I've adopted a new policy that all new posts going forward would "be demolished or otherwise closed, had tenant changeover, had some significant change themselves, or are part of a larger story." I wanted to model it a bit closer on Columbia Closings. Columbia Closings, however, does occasionally cover defunct apartment complexes and while many crumbling College Station apartments and duplexes still stand, Normandy Square (b. 1965) on 501 Nagle (with addresses up to 509 Nagle) seems to be not long for this world. Their Facebook page (archive) indicates that they were operational for the 2022-2023 season. However, in April 2024, the apartments were boarded up.

Given the transient nature of Facebook, I've attached a few of the pictures from said Facebook page that show the interior of it, as well as a publicity shot from better days. (Note the lack of a big apartment building behind it). There aren't many Google reviews of the complex but they don't seem good.

While it's Northgate, I do like the architecture. It's an improvement from most of the 1970s apartments that crowd Southwest Parkway.

Truck Stop Cafe

The drawing of the crazed cook (it's all in the eyes) seems to be stock art, notice the copyright symbol. Around four years ago I embarked on an ambitious plan to do a series on Texas Avenue with a bunch of all-new content. I put the kibosh on that fairly early (nothing to do with COVID, just some poor choices of what I actually had. As far as COVID went, it was a productive year otherwise, over 40 entries were added, and while many were on Texas Avenue these were coincidental (it is very popular, you could spend at least an hour reading all 70+ posts—do it!).

Anyway, Truck Stop Cafe! This long-forgotten restaurant operated officially from 1970 (phone book scan from c. 1970) to 1973 as a 24/7 restaurant and what appears to be the first tenant in the spot of 2609 North Texas Avenue, and according to records, the building hasn't seen use as a restaurant (or commercial establishment, for that matter) since. However, a one-off crime report indicates Truck Stop Cafe was still open in 1976, and a phone book shows the restaurant was active since at least 1963.

Since then, although the building hasn't been used as a restaurant in years and has been modified since, the current tenant is Royal Priesthood Christian Fellowship, which it has been since at least the early 2010s.

Former Tokyo Steak House

1984 phone book

We're back with a post from the archives which had been mothballed at least for the last few years. From what my current resources have, this building was built in 1966 and the 1969 directory lists "Bank of A & M" (certainly unassociated with the university, as many businesses used the "A&M" name until the early 1990s). From 1977 to 1980, it was "The Last National Bank", which from what I can tell was a chain of bank-themed restaurants back in the 1970s and 1980s.

From 1980 to 1984, it was Tokyo Steak House, which moved from Townshire. Fast forwarding to 1998 (resources are sparse), this was Coldwell Banker (as it is today) but the head realtor was Richard Smith. Cherry Ruffino was associated with Coldwell Banker at an office off of Tarrow, at some point these merged and the Coldwell Banker at 411 Texas Avenue became Cherry Ruffino's.

Fairfield Inn Bryan

Fairfield Inn in August 2021 (by author)
Fairfield Inn opened in 1994 (early plats read "Heritage Inn #1", there's no way to prove that it actually opened as such), which is a budget/economy chain launched by Marriott in the late 1980s to compete with lower-end motels and hotels like Days Inn and Hampton Inn, and has remained since. The hotel, at 4613 S. Texas Avenue, is the furthest south business on Texas Avenue in Bryan (even across the street is College Station).

Of course, the site it sites on has its own history, with two lots originally on the site, 4613 and 4611. 4613 was the first building on the site, opened in 1957 as "U-Pak-M", a small locally-based convenience store. Following a new schedule set forth by a Dallas based convenience store that made the schedule its own gimmick, the store was open from 7 am to 11pm, and had one other location, at 3800 S. College Avenue, which is now Mini Mart (or "Mini Mini Mini Mart"). In the mid-1960s, U-Pak-M closed and became a new restaurant in 1967, the Barbecue Barn. Barbecue Barn would soon become Arnold's Barbecue, and by 1971, was owned by Thomas Beltrand. In 1976, Beltrand changed the name to his own, despite advertising "New Name in New Location", Tom's Barbecue (no "Steakhouse" yet) was the new name of the restaurant. (It would move to 3610 South College Avenue in 1985...and later, open a College Station location).

In 1965, an A&W drive-in restaurant opened at 4611 South Texas Avenue. According to the Facebook group Bryan-College Station, Texas: Now and Then (friend of the blog), the last reference to A&W found in newspapers was November 1975 that mentioned the restaurant needed a new owner. Well, given what was happening to A&W's parent company United Brands at the time, it's no surprise that A&W closed up shop locally!

Wow, it had an eat-in area? That's better than Sonic ever had.
The good news was by that time, United Brands had started a subsidiary to sell bottles and cans of A&W root beer in stores (today owned by Keurig Dr Pepper after it changed hands several times) but the A&W restaurant (separated from the bottling side) would not return to the area until the late 1990s, and then, only briefly.

Unfortunately, at this time, information on what happened to the addresses after the departure of their respective tenants is unknown. This may be explored by a future update.

UPDATE 12-19-2023: In 2023, the hotel was converted to "SureStay by Best Western" (SureStay by Best Western Bryan College Station). No other changes have been made to the post other than removing the link to Marriott's website, which no longer works.
UPDATE 09-20-2024: As of this writing, Best Western converted it to a regular Best Western hotel (no sub-name).

Cattlemen's Inn & Steak House

It's a rare color picture specifically advertising the restaurant, but that's about all we'll get from this elusive place.

24 hour establishments are a lot more rare these days thanks to you-know-what from last year, but one even rarer is a place without much 24 hour traffic, like North Texas Avenue, 1805 North Texas Avenue to be exact, north of Highway 21, just beyond the Old Hearne Road intersection.

The above photo is from a 1999 phone book, but nothing of remains of the motel and restaurant today. This is the current view of the property, the sign is still around but it's been gutted and used as an equipment lot.

As BCAD listings for the motel no longer exist (at least no longer publicly accessible), it appears that the lobby/restaurant building predates 1960, while the hotel was added on sometime in the late 1960s or very early 1970s ([1960s] is given as the address tag here). In fact, as late as 1978, the restaurant was called Buona Sera Restaurant (and was still open 24 hours, even back then), and a 1973 article refers to Buona Sera Motel & Steak House (but not does not give the address). It appears that the Cattlemen's Inn name for both appeared around the late 1970s.

The motel itself appeared to be very low end even in 1999, which probably contributed to its ultimate demise, and the poor location meant it was unable to be rehabilitated like others I've covered before, like the Villa Capri Motel in Waco. Villa Capri at least had a modest location at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Valley Mills, not near freeways, but near well-trafficked roads and a healthy commercial base. Not so much here, it was located across from Producers Co-Op.

Much like "Buona Sera Restaurant" and "Buona Sera Steak House" were used interchangeably, it looks the "Steak House" and "Diner" are one and the same, and it appears that the motel closed around the mid-2000s and was torn down in 2009.

Jose's

Picture from August 2020 by author.

It's been a really long time, hasn't it?

Despite some updates to several posts behind the scenes (mostly in regards to new tenants—nothing groundbreaking), there hasn't been a new post since Christmas of last year. That changes today.

From 1964 to 1991, 3724 South Texas Avenue was the home of Randy Sims Bar-B-Cue, which for decades was a popular barbecue restaurant, but in late December 1991, Sims retired from the business to focus on other pursuits including working as county commissioner. This page from The Eagle has some articles on it.

In 1993, it reopened as Jose's, a Mexican restaurant that continues operations to this day, with Jose's being in the building longer than Randy Sims' ever was. Jose's has a history of its own, from 1977 to the early 1990s it was located at 4004 Harvey Road. (The restaurant site burned down).

The exit/entrance signs are original to Randy Sims. (8/20, by author)

There's not a lot I can say about either since I never went to either, and as a result it comes off a lot of what I've been working on Carbon-izer recently, which is a bit like this blog but a wider scope, like a whole page on Westheimer Road in Houston, Loop 340 in Waco, and many more to come.

UPDATE 08-12-2021: Added in information on the old location of Jose's.
UPDATE 08-14-2024: Around 2022 Jose's added an atrium to replace that covered overhang as seen in the picture. The signs are still Randy Sims' originals, though.

Holiday Inn Bryan

Before its ill-fated life as apartments, the Holiday Inn became an independent motel.

While we have discussed the College Station Holiday Inn in the past (and recently updated it with a new restaurant ad with delicious-sounding entrees) Bryan's Holiday Inn began construction in 1964 and presumably opened in 1965. From what I can tell, it was a fairly standard Holiday Inn of the mid-1960s, all exterior-entranced rooms, swimming pool in the courtyard (which appears to be still functional today, if operated seasonally), and equipped with a small restaurant/coffee shop and meeting rooms. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, it co-existed with the Holiday Inn in College Station (with this hotel being dubbed as the Holiday Inn North in listings). In the late 1980s, it briefly became "The Bryan Inn", though had ditched the restaurant inside the motel. From there, however, the fortunes of the hotel changed. It fell into the hands of Leonard Ross' holdings, and like the former Ramada Inn was converted into private dorms (and listed under "Furnished Apartments" in the phone book), going under the name "The Forum" through the 1990s, and by the mid-2000s had shut down entirely.

Remarkably, in the late 2000s, the building managed to reopen as a Travelodge despite minimal remodeling done (and even getting the Travelodge name to begin with, how the mighty have fallen), but trouble soon surfaced when Rossco Holdings defaulted on loans. Not too long after, the hotel changed hands again and became University Inn.

Here's the Google Street View of the motel today.

UPDATE 12-29-2023: University Inn closed in 2022. ([defunct] added).
UPDATE 09-03-2024: New signage up for "Cosmic Suites" ("Coming Soon").
UPDATE 01-11-2025: Cosmic Suites opened late 2024. ([defunct] removed).

Military Depot

You can barely make out the EAS (from Eastgate) here, but I think the shadow next to it was from Military Depot, not its predecessor tenants (May 2014).

Military Depot was on the short list in 2017 ("Season 3") and probably would have come after "At Home" on the Boriskie Ranch but as that post describes, things happened and it got shelved (it got close enough to have a post mostly written up). This post is intended to replace the the big Eastgate post.

105 Walton started out as a UtoteM, with a 1961 aerial appearing to show it under construction and a 1967 article mentioning it was going to 24 hour service (which must have been rare at the time, even 7-Eleven had only experimented with 24 hour stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and Las Vegas) and continuing to do so until the chain was bought and rebranded as Circle K in 1984. By the late 1980s, the convenience store changed hands to become Eastgate Food Store (Circle K's absorption of the outdated UtoteM stores ultimately proved to be a mistake, and by 1990 it would file for bankruptcy, with major market exits coming soon after). Some time around the early 1990s ('92-'93), Eastgate Food Store closed up shop entirely and Military Depot (which had previously been at Post Oak Mall) moved in soon after.

The 1992 date sounds right for the last time Eastgate Food Store saw the light of day, you can see it listed as part of this 1992 streetscape study:


There's also a green roofed building next to it that held a few tenants years ago, including Robinson Pet Clinic in 1989, but it's been vacant for a number of years now. The picture was taken in May 2014 with no activity since.

Here's another view of the sign, from May 2014.

Editor's Note: So Blogger is pushing out a new update that is due to go "full" in less than three weeks (as in, the old one no longer operational). It's slow, cumbersome to go through post archives, makes adding labels to posts much harder, et cetera.

The end result is that unless things change (unlikely), I'm going to move forward on an idea that until recently was a fairly drastic option...to functionally shut down csroadsandretail.blogspot.com and move it to Carbon-izer in the style of my existing Waco page, except with a nicer layout, and some newly updated pages (an idea of updating almost every existing page was in the works). It means that while the blog format will be going away, the content won't...the Facebook page will continue to update, the Maps page will continue to update, and even the "comments" page might continue--though again, comments were a failure for the most part, and having a robust comments area like Columbia Closings or some of the retail blogs I still frequented when I created this site, would never happen.

Sadly, this also means that some other of the blog's features, like being able to locate all the buildings under a similar category, like all the [hotels and motels], will be gone. The new posts will be arranged by neighborhood and will be undated (besides, all the old posts, like 2013 and prior, are so extensively modified that they hardly resemble their original incarnations).

In the meantime, new pages will continue to appear on this site.

Jimmy Jackson's Enco, 3000 South Texas Avenue

Nothing remains of the first Jimmy Jackson's Exxon but a rather standard Eckerd-turned-CVS. (Photo by author, 3/20)
Built in the 1960s at 3000 South Texas Avenue, "Jackson's Enco" eventually became Jimmy Jackson's Exxon (in the early 1970s, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed to Exxon to unify the Esso and Enco brands), and by the early 1980s, gained a second entrance when Restwood Drive was rebuilt as an extension of Villa Maria Road. The gas station was eventually sold to focus on the College Station location and in 1998, an Eckerd was built at the site and eventually converted (around late 2004) to CVS/pharmacy when parent company J.C. Penney decided to liquidate the chain.

Dixie Chicken

Wish I could get the picture from BEFORE the barrier was put in, but it is what it is. (Picture taken 4/20 by author).

Other than the big "Northgate post" written several years back (and then eventually removed as part of website upgrades), I never saw fit to really cover Dixie Chicken on Northgate all that much. It was never a place with nostalgic value, never went to it as a kid (for obvious reasons!), and it never changed either, which would give it the allure of documenting it for future generations.

The Dixie Chicken started in 1974 when Don Ganter bought a pool hall that had only been around for a few years (estimated to be built in the late 1960s) called the Aggie Den (at 307 University). From some forum threads, you could buy or sell old issues of Playboy, view vintage pornography on (based on how it was described) microfiche, smoke (a no-brainer, everyone smoked inside back in the day), and play pool. The walls were covered with half-naked pictures of movie stars. Don Ganter converted the pool hall to a bar and changed the appearance to, as ESPN writer Scott Eden once wrote, "a honky-tonk as dreamed up by the Disney people who designed Frontierland".

The bar expanded in the early 1980s by adding a kitchen to serve food, and eventually, combining a building next door. This building was even older (from the mid-1950s), with the last tenant being Miranda's, a fern bar. This too was converted to the Dixie Chicken's décor, the exterior entrance covered up and the only major remnant of being it was a painting not covered up by wood (near the snake cage).

Miranda's is visible; source unknown

309 University had its own history. The earliest I can find (1963) shows it as being a location of Loupot's Trading Post, long before it moved into its iconic location at the corner of College Main and University. It was vacant in 1972 (shortly before Dixie Chicken's opening) and as of 1978, it was Farkelberry's Domino and Pool Parlor. There may be a few others I may be missing.

Editor's Note: Future posts in the [Series: University Drive] will skip around somewhat, so next cycle's post will not be about Duddley's Draw, and instead go further down University. Also, as per the last article, a number of entries were upgraded with new photos, tenants, and advertisements. These details will be revealed in future installments.

Former Zapatos Cantina

Before Zapatos Cantina, this was DoubleDave's PizzaWorks. (Photo from Project HOLD)
Once again, we continue the walk down University Drive, and next to the former Aggieland Flowers & Gifts was, for years, Zapatos Cantina at 211 University. Like Bill's next to it, this was once "Don's Barber Shop" in the early 1970s (Building as marked as "1960s", assumed build date). After it served as DoubleDave's PizzaWorks by the 1990s (not the original location--the original-original is now Good Bull BBQ on George Bush Drive), it became Zapatos Cantina, which was a Northgate hangout known for years known for "trash can lid nachos". There's a few other reviews of the old establishment, and even that review predates 2009 (when smoking was banned in bars).

At some point after Bill's at 215 University closed (no 213 University, just an open-air area between the two buildings), Zapatos expanded to that location, until spring 2013, when Zapatos closed. This was almost certainly because of Chimy's Cerveceria opening and providing more space and likely better overall for a similar menu and theme.

Most of the building's recently history has been empty, with only serving briefly (around the middle of the 2010s) as a leasing office for Aspen Heights off of Holleman Drive South, and in fall 2018 opened as The Draconian Lounge.

UPDATE 01-03-21: As part of integrations with the University Drive "City Directory" page (still in its original form as this writing), this building was "Pyramid Audio" in 1980.

Aggieland Flowers & Gifts

Original from Project HOLD, c. 1994
Aggieland Flowers & Gifts (at one time, at least according to directories, "Aggieland Flowers & Gift Shoppe") has been in the 1965-built 209 University from before 1980 to around 2007, when it moved to the bypass as Aggieland Flowers & Chocolates. After a few years of being empty, it was replaced with The Ranch, which replaced the roof with an upper level area. What I'm not sure about is as of 2012, was the upper level of The Ranch part of The Ranch or was it Schotzi's SkyBarr/Sky Bar as described in the previous post 4.0 & Gone? Furthermore, there's evidence that The Ranch was filed in New Development files as "Aquarium Bar", but it never opened as such.

The conversion to The Ranch came about the time when on-street parking was removed in favor of a wider sidewalk. Sometime by 2015, The Ranch closed and became The 12 Rooftop Bar & Lounge.

UPDATE 01-03-21: As part of integrations with the University Drive "City Directory" page (still in its original form as this writing), Aggieland Flowers has been at this site since at least 1972.

4.0 & Gone

April 2020 picture again, later on we'll get to some livelier but older ones.

With Hullabaloo Hall now covered, I'm going to try to do a complete "walk" down University Drive, excluding the things already covered. What would be 201 University was a gas station (Magnolia brand) demolished when the underpass was originally built, 203 University was Deluxe Diner most of my life and Chimy's Cerveceria for the better part of the last decade, and now we get to 205/207 University.

It is a building with metal siding, 205 University. While it was an eatery called M&M Grill (not to be confused with A&M Grill of the distant past) in the mid-1990s, it was later the flagship location of DoubleDave's PizzaWorks (moved from 211 University), until it moved off of Northgate for good in 2006. It is unknown as to when it was built, one resource (Northgate Historic Resources) says mid-1960s, while BCAD says 1987. (Presumably, 1987 was when major upgrades were made to the building...with "New York Bagel" possibly being the tenant in question, which preceded M&M Grill as per a 1992 document). As of now, 1960s will be marked when the building was built.

This building also has the address of 207 University (though it has not used it in years), likely used for an upper level area (both what is now as of this writing, Icon Night Club and Loupot's had the same thing).

As of this writing, the libraries are closed so it is difficult to find more information on the building's history, but a 2005 phone book seems to place DoubleDave's at "209A", even though 209 (next door) was Aggieland Flowers & Gifts (and did not have a separate entrance).

By 2007, DoubleDave's was gone (still barely visible under the new Schotzi's sign) and replaced with "Schotzi's & Skyybar", with Skyybar presumably on the upper level of the building (the area above 209 University had not yet been built). Sometime around 2013 or 2014, Skyybar simply became Sky Bar but in 2015 Schotzi's folded entirely and was replaced by 4.0 & Go, formerly located at Park Place Plaza.

As you can see, 4.0 & Go is gone from Northgate. Presumably, the high rent drove them off, despite a workable parking plan. By spring 2020 (before A&M was closed for the semester due to virus fears), 4.0 & Go was out of Northgate, listed on their website (as of this writing) as being "in transit".

UPDATE 12-13-2021: A drive-by of the building reveals that the building has been re-tenanted as "Good Bull Icehouse" (no relation to the now-defunct Good Bull BBQ). [bar] has replaced [defunct] in the sidebar.

Hullabaloo Hall and the Three Dorms Before It

The world was shut down in April 2020.
It has a long time since I added any campus TAMU buildings to this site, the last official one being added was...Scoates Hall, back in December 2014.

I used to work at Texas A&M University briefly in 2017, and I had ideas to add a number of new entries focused on TAMU buildings after the last post was done and the blog went on hiatus for one and a half years, longer than any gap in its history. As a result, those were basically cancelled, and the one post I actually had been working on, "At Home" on the Boriskie Ranch appeared nearly two years after it was supposed to. (I had also planned a big rewrite of The Commons)

This particular post was supposed to be added back in late 2014 as "Defunct Dorm Roundup" and even was to include information on Law Hall, Puryear Hall, Cain Hall (which had not yet been demolished by that point, but was no longer dorms), and Hotard Hall. Perhaps more on those another day (especially Cain Hall!)

Crocker Hall, Moore Hall, and McInnis Hall were all separate buildings but all immediately adjacent to each other and formed a "U" shape (with the open part of the U facing west, and featuring a small dorm lounge building), and from the side closest to University, it was Crocker, McInnis, and Moore. All three dorms, much like FHK, Walton/Schuhmacher Hall, the Corps dorms, and the Commons dorms, had a dorm culture in each dorm, and shared amongst other dorms. (It's weird. Observation or Internet threads only gives you a taste).

Crocker Hall was built in 1942, looking like this. McInnis was a "balcony"-style dorm built in 1964 (FHK complex is another "balcony" dorm, but culturally different), and Moore Hall was more like Crocker Hall and also built in 1942.

In 2010, the announcement came that the dorms would be replaced with a larger dorm (first on campus since the 1980s) and after the spring 2011 semester, demolition commenced. By October of that year, the dorms, the nearby "dorm lounge", and a basketball court between them and Walton Hall were gone, replaced with a big hole in the ground.

Not too long after, it was revealed the new dorm to replace it would be called Hullabaloo Hall, despite the fact that Texas A&M Galveston had already had a dorm of that same name. When Hullabaloo Hall (the one in College Station) opened in fall 2013 (at 306 University Drive), it included a new stoplight at Boyett and University, and replacing three other driveways (which were no longer as useful due to medians added on University). Dulie Bell was demolished after fall 2013 to provide more parking space for Hullabaloo Hall, and a new basketball court and a new sand volleyball court at the site of the Special Services Building.

While it doesn't have the requisite "swimming pool for wild parties", Hullabaloo Hall had other features similar to off-campus dorms (including "study rooms", etc.) and two retail tenants, a Starbucks, and a convenience store. When Hullabaloo Hall first opened, it featured a location of Rattlers' inside, but the contract ended within a year (now it's just "Aggie Express" or whatever Chartwells calls its convenience stores these days).

The Notorious Harvey Road Apartments

From here, we see what was originally Tanglewood South.

I don't write about apartment complexes all that often, when I do it's usually as part of something more interesting, like Mansard House restaurant at Doux Chene Apartments. Later, during the period I ran The Houston Files, there were some quirky apartments I did cover but it's still a rarity.

Following the Harvey Road series (it's across from Fazoli's), I titled this the way I did because it's got some bad press in recent years (if we go by examples in Houston, dense, super-large apartment complexes are never a good idea) and it may not even be the Pearl Apartments in a few years from now. By the year 1984, three apartment complexes were operating along Harvey Road: Travis House (505 Hwy. 30), Tanglewood South Apartments (411 Highway 30), and Courtyard Apartments (600 University Oaks).

By 1998, Tanglewood South was now Kensington Place (401 Harvey Road, same block), with BCAD records indicate that the name had been in place since the early 1990s.

By 2002, the apartments were known as "University Place I & II", likely due to the common ownership around 2000.

Down the street, looking east. Note the Circle K in the distance.

Now, from what I could tell, as late as 2007, Courtyard Apartments (built in 1977, wasn't able to find when Tanglewood South was built) still operated independently, at least, as its own brand, with Campus View operating the rest (it had adopted the name by that time). In 2011, Vesper Campus View LLC, the holding company that owned the other two apartment complexes, bought Courtyard, and it was absorbed into Campus View.

In the last five years, the local media has shown a light on how bad Campus View really is, with hundreds of calls to the police every year, with drug issues, public drunkenness, fighting, shootings, domestic violence, along with multiple maintenance issues. At least under The Marc, the new name adopted in 2016, reviews have been horrible.

This picture illustrates all three complexes, notice the different building designs.

From reading, reviews under another name a few years later with new management, Pearl Apartments, have improved, at least in terms of better management and weeding out the worst residents. But these things can change on a dime (it doesn't help the last time I was in the area, the surrounding blocks were being swarmed with cops due to a shooting in the complex), and without living there it's difficult to judge.

Editor's Note: I wanted to mostly write about this for completionists' sake since it deals with the history of three different apartment complexes. In the next few posts, we'll talk about the restaurants along Harvey Road.

Alfred T. Hornback's

Picture from author, May 2014
For many years (at least since the early 1990s), Alfred T. Hornback's was located in Eastgate at 120 Walton Drive and featured a large floor with pool tables and country music. Eastgate was not a huge draw like Northgate was and it closed permanently in summer 2011 though remained open for special events a few years following. It's currently occupied by DC, Inc., after DC (Dixie Chicken, not DC Comics) moved out of the building that later contained Blackwater Draw Brewing Company. There's also a small professional office (122 Walton) that has dental offices (Dr. Dwight Hirsch and Dr. Monica Brown as of this writing). The building was built in 1967 as the Eastgate location of Ralph's Pizza, which it would be until 1973. In 1980, it was the home of Texas Moon Tavern, which featured steak, burgers, and beer, and while it had a different address for some reason (124 Walton) it had the same facade. The only mention of this restaurant on the entire Internet comes from this page though there's another ad for it I found. It was also the home of an even older bar called Sparky's, which is talked about more than Texas Moon Tavern. A comment from one Jim Gates on the old Eastgate page mentioned this about Sparky's: "A bar with a blacked out room lit by - you guessed it - black lights and painted in fluorescent paint graffiti. There were also two neon snow flake looking things on a tall pole overhead that flashed back and forth."

UPDATE 09-17-2021: Added mention of Ralph's Pizza to the article. Removed old Editor's Note.