Leaning Tower Pizza / Primo Pizza / My Daily Bread Bakery

Primo Pizza in better days, September 2013

Originally I was going to rewrite my old Eastgate page, but then I figured I could easily rewrite it into several posts, not to mention it was several years since I did anything with it.

109 Walton, from my records, seems to have been food related during most of the recent past. "Wing Zone" was here in the early part of the 2000s, records indicate, and during the 1990s it was home to Partners Food Delivery. In 1989, it was "Guitar Shop", which was the actual name of the store and "associated with Holtz Music Company" (ad scan pending). My personal experiences deal with the current tenant and the two before it. First, there was Leaning Tower Pizza, which if I recall was here since the mid-2000s. It was an interesting place, with a particularly greasy pie with a unique cheese pizza. It was also very grimy for a College Station restaurant, but I didn't mind because that's why you have pizza...hot enough to kill any dubious bacteria. It had some garden furniture for an "eat-in" area and had "free delivery" that had a significant discount if you picked it up in store, which means it wasn't actually free at all.

Well, for whatever reason, Leaning Tower closed in spring (May) 2013. Luckily, it was said on MyBCS that Charles Stover, fresh from creating Flip & Peel at Post Oak Mall, had bought the store and recipes and would reopen with a new name and theme. Well, that didn't quite happen, and instead in late summer 2013, Primo Pizza & Rolls opened with an entirely new concept of gourmet takeout pizza, which included pesto on every slice (this opened in late summer 2013). Unfortunately, gourmet takeout pizza without an eat-in area wasn't something the market could handle (especially located in a neighborhood that was populated by college students and minorities) and Primo shut down in February 2014 due to underperformance, but the way it was worded indicated that the closure could be temporary. After all, the sign remained up. But in May 2014, new pictures revealed that the restaurant was gutted. (One more thing regarding Primo: Primo Pizza's webpage, archived in PNG form)

While an Eastgate pizza place was no more than a memory, it did have one more tenant afterwards that opened by fall. This is still open today...My Daily Bread Bakery. This was one of my favorite places in my neighborhood when I lived on Eastgate, cinnamon rolls for breakfast if I was running late for school, decent coffee and espresso, and even (though I don't know about it today), a selection of used video games (from her husband) for sale, where I bought Pikmin and I believe Metroid Prime. I haven't made much progress in either, or you would see it in Carbon-izer GAMES, my "game review" page.

Here are a few other pictures that I took in May 2014 after the restaurant was gutted.

• Gutted PP, May 2014
• Gutted PP, May 2014. This is where the counter and menu were. The kitchen was behind that wall. This configuration was intact for both LTP and PP&R.

UPDATE 01-21-2022: Removed old update that mentioned in 2017 the bakery was renamed as La Gabriella Coffeeshop & Pastries. Also removed the [2010s] entry since the building was not built in the 2010s. Further work on this page will be done eventually.

The Exxon on Boonville

Stover Boys still had remnants in 2014, long after the restaurant closed.
The Exxon at the corner of FM 1179 and Boonville, which I have only recently seen, as shown here in a picture I took this February. It has been open since 1995 and has had several restaurants in it (a bit unusual for something not off of a major thoroughfare), since it has a kitchen and an eat-in area. "Fratello's Pizza Company" is the only one I've found at this address (3200 Boonville Road) but they also have their location as at the old Daylight Donuts space a bit west of here.

In late 2007, it became the home of Stover Boys, a hamburger-and-fries outlet that kind of had a "rural outlet, specials written on a chalkboard" feel to it that opened to much local acclaim. It was where Bryan-College Station was acquainted with Charles Stover and his restaurants.

Stover's restaurant was an instant success, and people would come out to this little gas station and fill up every available parking space. When it turned out that people would pass it by rather than fight for parking, it was clear that Stover's had outgrown itself and Stover Boys moved into an old restaurant pad in Westgate Shopping Center, clear on the other side of town. This was in 2008, and although it opened around early 2009, the Stover Boys signage still hangs at this Exxon, which also suggests how rarely new restaurants come in.

As of 2018, "Taqueria Poblano" operates in the space.

UPDATE 06-17-2023: I know I previously updated this to account for Taqueria Poblano but I wanted to clarify that beyond Fratello's (which was here and did move to the other Boonville address), Stover Boys, and Taqueria Poblano, the other place I found was "Deli Depot". The gas station opened in 1994.

Former Square One Bistro

Picture taken by author, 2013.
This historic building was built circa 1924 as the McCulloch-Dansby Funeral Home and by 1940 was known as the Hillier Funeral Home after the director. (The first floor was the home of the business, with second floor used as a small apartment for the family and presumably extra storage)¹ having just added air conditioning a year prior.

In 1945 it moved out and the McCulloch-Dansby name was revived as it reopened a few years later as the McCulloch-Dansby Appliance Store which by 1949 was going as McCulloch-Dansby Complete Home Furnishers Company (specializing in small appliances).² Around 1957 McCulloch-Dansby Complete Home Furnishers Company moved out and The Scribe Shop, a shop specializing in writing supplies and printing, moved in by May 1957.

In 1965 the business was renamed "Wallace Printing Company and the Scribe Shop", reviving the former name which was previously used as a different business by the same owners prior to the company. The Scribe Shop name was dropped by the late 1960s, but the owner, Madge Wallace, kept the store. She later sold the business (but kept the building) until it closed in spring 1985. From then on appears to have been vacant until January 1996 when Square One Bistro (serving primarily Italian cuisine) opened (by now the address was 211 W. William Joel Bryan Parkway, the road was renamed in the late 1980s or early 1990s). In early 2009 by local restaurateur Charles Stover purchased the restaurant as was what he wanted, a small fine dining establishment.

However, as it turned out, the Square One Bistro building in horrible shape: wiring was antiquated (the building was built in the early 20th century, expansions to the building were powered with extension cords) and the plumbing was in poor shape (pipes went up before going down--which has all sorts of potential problems, including grease build-up and sewage backups), and Stover had to spend an astronomical amount to fix those problems.

Unfortunately, this renovation marked the beginning of the end. While Stover Boys and Square One were both profitable (Square One's wine list grew from 10 to 110, and offered class and variety like no other area restaurant did), the problems stemming from Square One's renovation caused the owner to go into debt and it just got worse. Instead of turning profits and fueling what could be a prosperous chain bound for great places, the profits were funneled into debt payoffs. According to an old The Eagle newspaper, in October, Square One closed down and converted to the lower-end but more profitable Stover Boys brand, but it was far too late. Stover Boys was crushed under debt by late 2010, and the Westgate and Downtown Bryan location shuttered.³

After the shuttering of Square One Bistro, the building was reopened in Summer 2011 as Square 1 Art Studio with lofts above. It appears that the art studio closed around 2020, but it reopened as The Tipsy Trinket (a wine bar) a few years later, though that also closed in December 2023...and today is the Bryan location of Elevated CBD Smoke Shop.

1. This was according to a comment I got in the old version of this page and corroborated with newspaper archives.
2. The name appears to be a coincidence, as the store had existed since 1919.
3. From personal interviews.

UPDATE 05-15-2025: Massive post overhaul done (slight update to the name, used to be just called "Square One")

Westgate Center

Westgate Center as it stood in the early 2010s (from an old lease plan)

Westgate Center was off the index for several years, and actually one of the earliest topics I wanted to discuss but was pushed to the backlog to other projects. It was built in the early 1980s but struggled and by 1993 was at 50% occupancy.

The most recent PDF can be found here and archived here. The 2013 version, offline for many years due to the way Dropbox handled the Public Folder, can be seen here. From north to south, here's the tenant directory best I can assemble it: 4201 - Starting with "Building One", this is currently Kai's Doughnut Company since 2013. I can only go back to 1997 for this one, but it used to be The Cork (sold out in the late 2000s to Whiskey Charlie's, like the Parkway Square location) but Whiskey Charlie's closed within a year and became Sunny Food Mart, which operated for just a few years before closing a few years later.

4207 - From 1985 up until around 2019, this was a carry-out/delivery only Pizza Hut, at one point it simultaneously existed with the Northgate location which co-existed with the University Drive East location (I lived in a place once where Pizza Hut was the usual choice for takeout pizza just on proximity—it's nothing to write home about). Since then, it has been the short-lived Yumori (still closed as of 2025, though listed "temporarily")...and between Yumori and Pizza Hut was HeatUps, microwave meals to go. The 2025 says "Jara Pizza", I don't know what that is. Company? Unborn restaurant? Future restaurant? We'll keep you posted.

4223 - DCI Biologicals has been traditionally here at least since 2010 and at some point became BPL Plasma (Wikipedia indicates that they are in fact the same company). Tiki Tan was at 4243 from 2002 to 2019 but absorbed into BPL Plasma.

4245 - Thrift Station opened in 2024 but I can't easily find what it was before.

4309 - Moving onto Building 2, Fat Shack opened in late 2019. Previous business records per tax records and newspaper archives are Ernie's (a bar, c. 1984-1985), the one-time home of StageCenter Community Theatre (late 1980s), several non-retail tenants following (West Oak Baptist Church, Texas A&M Employment Office Service Center), "Slides Express" (1995), and The Ink Spot (2005-2006). I have not researched any of those in detail yet, so take that with a grain of salt.

4315 - Holick's moved here in 2006, the home of the Corps of Cadets' Senior Boots. It moved here from its long-time Northgate home.

Much of the third building was vacant in 2013, but this picked up in the late 2010s before becoming mostly vacant again.

4321 - Bentley's Barbershop opened around 2021 (or maybe late 2020).

4323 - This was "Couture Closet" in the late 2010s, but that didn't last for very long.

4333 - Buddies Boutique, a smoke shop, opened here in the mid-2010s.

4335 - This was last home to Westgate Nails 'n' Spa, which had its sign still up in 2021. Either it closed around 2021 or it was wiped out in 2020.

4337 - The first tenant here was Taxidermy Plus, and became Graphic Impact in 1993. It may have had something else in the meantime, but a few years after the Northgate location closed, a Blimpie operated here from 2005 to 2008, and Stover Boys Burgers opened later that year (moving from a gas station location). The restaurant was popular and plans for a second location near the intersection of Graham Road and Highway 6 were drawn up but scuttled due to CoCS requirements1 and closed in 2010 amidst problems with Square One Bistro. It was picked up by Burger Boy Cafe, the new slightly-revamped version of Burger Boy which had been sold to Ken Simmons earlier that year. After that, it became home to Eatology Paleo-Zone, which made meals catering to the trendy "Paleo" diet. Originally, back in 2013, I made a quip about how "we'll see what happens when the paleo diet goes out of fashion" after a pretentious quote on the website by the owner (something about paleo not being a diet but a lifestyle, or some such). Eatology stuck around in some form (I don't think it had been open to the public for years) and even in 2021 there was signage for "Eatology Kitchen Studios" on the outside. By 2025 Eatology was finally gone-gone and replaced with Aroma Indian & Nepalese Cuisine. All the while there were parking spaces marked off for Blimpie, though every passing year these chip away.

4341 - Majestic Hair Studio. In 2013 this was "Wes-Gate Hair Salon".

4345 - This was last home to "Pin-Toh Cafe" but looks like it's been absorbed by 4353 as of this writing. For many years (1984-2002) it was Texas Burger but I'm not sure if it was the Texas Burger. The one in Bryan wasn't and I can't find a definitive link between it and the modern company out of Madisonville that made its home further down Wellborn Road (FM 2154) in 2017. This one served egg rolls as a menu option.

4353 - This has served a rotating cast of restaurants and bars that struggle to make it. The first reference I can find to the address is Le Cabaret in July 1984 (a nightclub with jazz and occasional comedy performances). There was another nightclub called "Retro" that announced opening in 1993 (I'm not sure if it opened under that name...and what would qualify as "Retro" in 1993, anyway?). There was "Xtreme" in 1995, before becoming Barracuda Bar around 1996, briefly becoming "The Lighthouse" in late 1996 before reopening as the second incarnation of Barracuda Bar in early 1999. It is listed in a newspaper entertainment guide as having as an "authentic Texas coastline atmosphere"². Barracuda Bar (the first incarnation, looks like) was the one that did build an "upper deck" area (basically loft seating), which was still intact as of Swamp Tails. In 2001 Barracuda Bar gave way to The Salty Dog, a similar establishment that had the exact same description ("authentic Texas coastline atmosphere") as Barracuda Bar did. Circa 2010 it was Garpez Mexicana Food and Cantina. In late 2015/early 2016 Swamp Tails opened. I guess it struggled partly because Razzoo's Cajun Cafe had opened around the same time and it folded within a year or two. By 2017 it was Knight Club, which I remember hearing on the news was considered a "nuisance business" and either closed or moved in 2020 (later reappearing in College Station) with its replacement being Toya's Kitchen (there seems to be photos on Yelp) but it closed in 2021. As of 2025, the current contender is "E11EVEN Bar & Grill" (I think it's pronounced "Eleven") which serves hamburgers and Mexican food (I don't know what that literally sandwich soaked in salsa is) as well as a full bar.

I visited the restaurant building once when it was Swamp Tails (roughly 2015-2016), a Cajun restaurant and I seem to remember it having a second-story "loft" with additional seating that was obviously not built by them (and from a previous tenant).

While Westgate has struggled over the years it's not that hard to see why. Wellborn Road in Bryan isn't the major thoroughfare it is in College Station (no turn lane)³, even narrowing down to one lane going north (due to adding a dedicated left turn for F&B Road), and a lack of a major store has likely contributed to its struggle.

1. Per an interview. Apparently the rule about "no visible HVAC systems" was a bridge that could not be crossed.
2. Insert joke about "decomposing fish" here.
3. Also, one of the few roads in the area that ever had permanent Botts' dots, removed in 2017.

UPDATE 10-14-2025: Major rewrite of the page done.

Briarcrest AppleTree

Village Foods back in the AppleTree days. (Picture from Holcombe of Hidalgo, used with permission)
In the late 1980s the Houston Division of California-based Safeway Stores began planning a new larger, store to replace store #720 at Briarcrest and East 29th Street (located catty-corner to it). Less than six months before the store opened, however, it was announced that the Houston Division of Safeway was spun off as a new company (officially management-led but in reality highly leveraged) licensing the Safeway name and products. It was under this arrangement that Safeway #1193 (1760 Briarcrest) opened in November 1988. Less than a year later, it was renamed as AppleTree, becoming one of the largest and best-looking stores in the chain at 55,000 square feet (it seems it was based after the "Food Emporium" prototype, based after a similar Safeway at 2300 Gessner in Houston).

The new AppleTree chain's issues with debt, the unions, outdated stores, and the lack of financial stability (Safeway held most of the real estate) caused the new company to suddenly face death, just five years after the opening of the new supermarket the whole chain was being dismantled and looking for buyers.

The Bryan-College Station stores were unusual in that they were the last six stores remaining and operated as an independent supermarket chain. By 2003, that was knocked down to just three stores. In 2008, with the Culpepper Plaza store long since closed as well as an abortive attempt at a new store in Spring¹, the store was sold to its landlord Jim Lewis². Once again it would keep the name it had before before renaming officially to Village Foods in spring 2009. The store was also kept open with city benefits, with the City of Bryan promising a 50% sales tax rebate if Lewis employed a minimum of 30 employees.

Under Village Foods, interior upgrades were made as per agreement (the c. 1988 big glossy photographs of food were replaced with Benjamin Knox paintings, with other upgrades happening during the store's lifespan). New gluten-free items and organics were added to differentiate it from H-E-B and Kroger, but that created a problem with long-time customers, believing that it might be too "fancy" and upmarket for regular shopping, while creating a disappointment for everyone else. (Village Foods didn't have a bulk section) and mostly relied on the "local" store schtick (complete with all the problems of a "local" store from higher prices to nepotism hires³). Despite trying to improve some of its features, after the collapse of Stover Boys in 2011, Charles Stover was brought on to manage the luncheon and deli area, which was merged into "Stover Bros. Café".

I only went to the pre-Stover deli once—it originally offered "Blue Plate Specials", which were things like lasagna, but Stover soon expanded the menu to include gourmet hamburgers and fries (carryovers from Stover Boys) but unfortunately wasn't able to use/brand everything due to complications from the Stover Boys bankruptcy. Stover changed some things in the deli, including vastly expanding the deli meats and cheeses to the standards of other supermarkets (I remember the part that originally faced the front of the store, which now featured Boar's Head deli meats, originally had things like chips, including a brand of tortilla chip I enjoyed). While much of the traffic from Stover Boys was gone except for a small band of loyalists, Stover Brothers eventually built up a new following, enough to talk about expanding the seating (which never happened). Stover Brothers eventually deteriorated over time, by 2013 a number of items had been discontinued, such as a milkshake made with homemade Mexican vanilla ice cream (replaced with stock Blue Bell) and a great pastry called the "White Trash Donut" (later rebranded to "Southern Fried Doughnut"), basically a beignet with tres leches sauce (and I think vanilla sauce as well). Despite Stover's departed presence after a few years, many items remained permanently changed, like the potato salad. (Possibly the rotisserie chicken as well--unlike the greasy mess of other roti chicken, it was a rich recipe that involved a citrus/garlic marinade)⁴. In 2013 there was even a return of Hebert's Cajun Food, having been evicted of their shack at University Square, and briefly operated out of the "Southern Comfort Road Trip" food truck Village Foods had.

Despite the City's subsidies and Lewis' own subsidies (reducing Village Foods' rent by a third by 2015)⁵ the store was a loser⁶ and Village Foods was closed permanently in February 2016. Over 2016, the building was slightly altered, including removing the peaked roof for what would be the Urban Air Trampoline Park, but also adding ALDI to the eastern third of the ~50,000 square feet building (on the left side if you were looking at it head-on), though it completely gutted the building, down to removing even the concrete floor. The only thing really left is the columns, and despite ALDI's fairly bare-bones nature, it is much cheaper and much nicer than Village Foods ever was. Urban Air opened over a year later in January 2018 with the new 1758 address and ironically retained more of AppleTree's architecture. I took a look into Urban Air's re-use of the upper level of AppleTree, which used to have restrooms (nominally for employee use, but was often used by customers; the ground-floor restrooms were much smaller), a break room, and offices, but it was completely gutted. There was a new staircase where the restrooms were.

<sup>1. See Houston Historic Retail.
2. There were other stores in the center including Pro-Cuts (later "Brazos Cuts" and currently "Level Up Barber Salon") at 1770 Briarcrest, Clinica Hispana (there in 2013; 3410 East 29th Street), Austin Driving School (3412), and Molly Maid (3414).
3. I held off on a LONG time about this but there were nepo hires who were wildly unqualified for the job they were given.
4. I have no idea if Safeway was doing rotisserie chicken in the late 1980s, and what was the program before. Was it a carryover from an AppleTree initiative from the early 1990s? Was it put in under Kubicek's ownership? Who knows!
5. I think this was mentioned on TexAgs as to why the store was closed and leased to ALDI instead.
6. There were a variety of factors working against the store but the biggest hit post-sale was the construction on Briarcrest in 2012-2013 that added medians but also permanently sealed their main entrance off of the road.</sup>

UPDATE 03-23-2025: The last update was in 2019 but it was revamped again with less emphasis on Village Foods itself (despite being closed by 2019 the post STILL read a bit like an advertisement) and more as the history as a whole. There's a few pictures more of VF as AppleTree from Holcombe of Hidalgo as seen here (for instance); the forest green color was AppleTree's efforts. You can also see another page with some Village Foods pictures I took in the early 2010s with (mostly) my old cellphone camera here. Removed [2010s], added [29th street], [barber], [retail].

UPDATE 06-09-2025: Pro-Cuts opened in January 1990 per newspaper.