Former Circuit City

Picture from April 2019 by author.

The distinctive shape of this building (1003 Harvey) is recognizable as a former Circuit City, which opened in College Station store in August 1995, and much like its other locations in Texas were often deliberately located near (but never in) shopping malls. I maybe went into Circuit City once or twice in this location, but I do remember it as a dimly-lit place with computers on display (typical of Circuit City, and that was their gimmick, for the darker lighting to better show off computers and televisions), and nothing like Best Buy, which was brighter and better organized.

In January 2007, Circuit City moved to a new location at University Drive and Highway 6 (about where Half-Price Books is today) and closed down their location, only for the new location to close down a few years later. ("Bryan-College Station sees boom in businesses" from The Eagle). In early August 2012, Guitar Center opened a store at the location but it retains most of its original architecture.

UPDATE 04-24-2024: A few extremely small updates, like "opened in August 1995" rather than "built 1995".

Loupot's Northgate

Loupot's in 1995. (PH)

Prior to when College Main was closed off (June 19th 2012, a day that will live in infamy), it was the only block which was resembled a dense city in College Station. And sitting on the corner of this block was Loupot's (335 University Drive), which closed the same year (in March). One of the oldest establishments on Northgate and once the "official" bookstore on campus, Loupot's had been around for years, though from what I've read, it wasn't always in the building, and when it was, it wasn't in both levels.

From what I've found, it wasn't bought by Loupot until 1979, and in the past, Loupot's was named "Loupot's Trading Post" and "Loupot's Books & Britches". The upper level was added in the 1980s not too long after the building was bought, as that had been the previous home of an X-rated bookstore (The Adult Library, though I read an ad that mentioned it being the home of "Sun Theater", same business, different name). Some ads I had found (but sadly don't have a copy right now) mentioned that they had shows for a quarter (and escorted ladies were free), which was around in the 1970s and 1980s. This had an address of 333 University. The adult theater was upstairs at 333 University, with Loupot's downstairs. At some point, they eventually closed and Loupot's ultimately would expand upstairs.

Anyway, Loupot's managed to expand to a few different locations, namely a location in Southgate (now home to TexAgs) and in a location at Holleman and Texas Avenue (now Salata). These closed shortly after the Northgate location. A fourth location was planned (according to a sign) to the grassy area just north of Blinn College on Villa Maria (where Blinn later added more parking). Loupot's continued to maintain its large store on Northgate, which later upgraded to electronic signage and made Internet history with its "reverse-boarded up windows" in 2005 (around the time of Hurricane Rita). However, in 2010, the family sold to Nebraska Book Company (Neebo), which already owned the Traditions bookstores (formerly Rother's), and then they started closing stores. The Loupot's-branded stores went away in March 2012, but eventually, their other stores, branded as Traditions (Southgate, University Square, and one closer to Blinn at Briarcrest and Villa Maria) closed as well.

One of their last messages on the message board was "HOLY CRAP!!! TEXTBOOK RENTAL SALE!!!", which always felt a bit tasteless due to the mild swearing but that distracted from the fact that if they're selling rental textbooks, they're probably going under.

The former Loupot's in 2013.


After Loupot's closed, by late 2014, it was to become a place called Z Bar & Bistro, which made me hope it was something better than The Corner across the street (sticky chairs and tables, smells like old beer constantly, poor service), though it eventually fell through.

As of early 2016, there appears to be some work going on at Loupot's. It will probably be a bar, but it's better than an empty building, right?

UPDATE 03-07-2021: After six years after its annnouncement, Z Bar & Bistro opened around October of 2020. It serves sushi and has a rooftop seating area. Also, the post had [2010s] removed from it.
UPDATE 09-20-2021: Renamed post from "The Loupot's Building", added [restaurants] and [College Station] to post. Also made a few smaller fixes.
UPDATE 06-21-2023: Sometime around 2022, Z Bar closed (with its time spent at 335 University a fraction of the time it spent under construction), with "Toku 12" in its place.
UPDATE 04-24-2024: Clarification to above. After December 2022, Z Bar briefly closed and reopened as Toku12.

Former Pizza Inn

Picture taken late October 2015, shortly before rainclouds rolled in and drenched the town.
The rather ragged-looking "Rodney D. Young Insurance" is shown here at 413 Texas Avenue, which looks like a candidate for demolition should something better come along (the Exxon at the corner is constantly being ragged on as being an eyesore in a prime location). It was a Pizza Inn (No. 65) opened in 1966 and remained operational until sometime in the mid-1980s. Shops and services since then include Star Video (1987-1990), Brazos Sleep and Sound (1990-1992), and EZPAWN (1992-1995). I am not sure what it was between 1995 and 2006 but by 2007 it was Rodney D. Young Insurance and by 2018, Legacy Tattoo Lounge.

1970s phone book. It still looks remarkably similar.

UPDATE 05-13-2024: Upgraded post again with all edits integrated.

The Diamond Shamrock at the End of Texas Avenue

Burger King was the only occupant of the former Diamond Shamrock site for years. (Photo by author, ~2014)
This post is just on a Burger King (3129 Texas Avenue S). Before I get into that, let me tell you this. I would be lying to you if I said that nostalgia was not one of the driving forces behind this site. After all, I grew up here, and in these posts, published in the last few years and updated since then (such as this post, which received a rewrite nearly a year after its creation) detail most everything I remembered or should've remembered. I've already told about the shops and restaurants here, many of which I grew up, and in versions past of this site, even included things like my old schools, or Adamson Lagoon, and probably if I had more time and research, the doctors and dentists as well (the old pediatric dentist office is gone, with the old Scott & White building at 1600 University Drive East to come soon after).

This part of Texas Avenue, originally explored in a full post with all the descriptions of the stores nearby, including the pool store and the curiously unnoticed empty spot was really special to me in years past. You see, back in those days, the only reason why we would go this way is to go somewhere cool, like my uncle's house in Baton Rouge or perhaps Houston. Even in the early 2000s, there just wasn't a lot out there. Rock Prairie Road had stuff on it, of course, like the hospital, junior high school (whoops, middle school), or even the nice new Kroger that opened in 2000, but that was just about it. There wasn't even another interchange until Greens Prairie Road, and that just had the water tower and an Exxon/McDonald's combo.

Since the Highway 6 bypass was built in the 1970s, prior to around 2006, there was an intersection here with the southbound one-way traffic from the bypass intersecting with Deacon. To the south was Texas Avenue turning into an entrance for Highway 6 south with the northbound lane going from Highway 6. To the south at Deacon was a two-way frontage road that paralleled Texas Avenue up to Wal-Mart and became the southbound Highway 6 frontage road for the section south of Texas Avenue. Yes, for a time, you could drive straight from Nantucket Drive to the Wal-Mart parking lot and back without making a single turn or getting on the highway.

Around 2006, that all changed, and the set-up was altered. The road that paralleled Texas Avenue was cut off at an apartment complex, and the two lanes from Texas Avenue went to the frontage road south (now all one-way) or the highway. The post here also features another change to the intersection: for years there was a Diamond Shamrock (listed as "Big Diamond No. 1" in some materials) that based on listings and aerials, opened between 1984 and 1989. It even featured a car wash station in the back. I'm not sure when it closed (2005?) but it was torn down by December 2006.

Opening in 2007 (late 2007, since the Villa Maria/29th location opened first), this Burger King opened to replace the one at Culpepper Plaza, which was torn down and replaced with a Chick-fil-A. Many years later, a restaurant was built next to the Burger King (in previously unused space), Boomtown BBQ Company out of Beaumont, located at 3125 Texas Avenue South. This restaurant opened in August 2020.

UPDATE 10-02-2020: Updated the post for the first time since August 2015 when the rest of the "end of Texas Avenue" material was largely stripped out, including more information on Diamond Shamrock and the new Boomtown BBQ, making the post the first to use the [2020s] tag.
UPDATE 10-27-2020: Date added for Boomtown BBQ.
UPDATE 07-06-2021: New name as part of eventual page re-do. Added [College Station] to post.
UPDATE 03-12-2022: Boomtown BBQ Company closed in February 2022.
UPDATE 06-08-2023: Another restaurant has come and gone. So-Fly Chicken Sandwiches (part of the Eccell/Burger Mojo group) operated from July 2022 to mid-March 2023. Allegedly, this was because the owners reportedly had a good offer on the building, but nothing has replaced So-Fly following the sale.

Marooned on Northgate

Courtesy Project HOLD
Editor's Note: Originally, I had created this page as "104-115 College Main". It was created to follow the breakup of an even larger page on Northgate (now offline). This page was later slowly broken up to make new pages like Kyoto Sushi, Antonio's Pizza by the Slice, Sarge's, Dead Lazlo's Coffee Pub, and Former Aggie Cleaners on College Main.

Pictured here is what is now known as Social Lounge but was Marooned in the 1990s (1990-1998), a record store that many still remember today. After a brief stint as a Quizno's, in 2005, it transitioned permanently into bar space, originally named V-Bar. In 2007, V-Bar had a bit of bad publicity when a Rice basketball player was killed during a stabbing, but ultimately, the story came out that the man (and his brother, who was also injured) were killed because they were beating another man to death and the man's friend came to his aid. That's the short version of it anyway, but because of the bad publicity from the attack, in the late 2000s, V-Bar became "Social Lounge" (same ownership).

From what information can be found on the building, here is a rough chronology: Stereo Shack (fall 1972)
The Hanging Tree (1973-1974)
Taipei Express (1989)
Marooned (1990-1998)
Quizno's (2002-2004)
V-Bar (2005-~2007)
Social Lounge (~2008-present)
Due to the fact that there are large gaps in between, this probably isn't the complete chronology of the space (see below). Making this complex is it's technically a part of the same building that holds Foundation Room (colloquially "Foundies") today. As mentioned before, that building was previously covered on the blog; however, the gaps don't seem to indicate that a larger tenant occupied both at the same time. UPDATE 04-02-2022: Cut down post to just 110 College Main and updated that section.

Torchy's Tacos

Once again, my phone's camera interprets red neon as having a harsh orange effect. (September 2014)
I originally wrote this post about 1037 Texas Avenue South in January 2014. At the time, it was the recently-closed Sully's Sports Bar & Grill, and the restaurant had some difficult times in recent years with a revolving door of restaurants over the years. Sully's (née Fowl Digits) had been one of many, many failures over the years and was somewhat of a "cursed" location. But now that Torchy's has been here for almost a decade and still draws consistent crowds, did it break the curse? Probably. But how old is the building anyway?

Here's a bit from The Eagle from its 1962 groundbreaking as "Coach Norton's Pancake House", the first restaurant in the spot.

Coach Homer Norton, coach of the 1939 Texas Aggie national football champions, and his wife expect to break ground Monday or Tuesday for a $200,000 restaurant on Highway 6 in College Station. Norton, 56, was in the city Wednesday and today, making final arrangements for the groundbreaking of the establishment to be known as "Coach Norton’s Pancake House." The approximately 200-capacity edifice will be constructed on the corner of Highway 6 and Kyle Street in College Station. The former Aggie coach has a similar business in Rosenberg—-gathering place for members of the '39 champs when A&M is playing football in Houston. Norton officially announced the new B-CS restaurant, which is to be completed in about four months, today. R. B. Butler is general contractor for the restaurant. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time," Norton stated. "Actually I feel like I’m coming home. We have many close, dear friends in College Station, Bryan and throughout the state. So many of them travel in and out of College Station it’s going be a great chance to visit. Actually I dreamed of this long before I quit coaching," the white-haired Aggie mentor said. "I always wanted to do two things; own a motel and a real high class eating place." After a 14-year tenure as head coach at A&M, Norton resigned the post in 1947 and opened his motel business in Rosenberg, "This place will be my big prize," he added, "and I imagine it will be the largest and finest of its kind between Dallas and Houston." The 200-seat restaurant will feature 25 varieties of Norton’s nationally famous pancakes as well as steak, shrimp, chicken and other foods. Completely carpeted throughout, the pancake house will provide the finest of kitchen equipment and fixtures, according to Norton, with all-around parking and an eight-foot covered walkway on the sides and front. Norton indicated a manager would be in charge of the establishment, as in Rosenberg, and that he would commute from Rosenberg. Coach Norton stated he would probably spend most of his time in College Station, however. The building was to be lined off today and set on the lot for construction to get under way immediately.

Sadly, Norton would not see his new restaurant for very long, as Homer Norton would pass away in 1965, but his legacy still stood (the motel in Rosenberg existed as the Homer Norton Motel for many years, though around 2016 was renamed as the Lone Star Inn). The Pancake House in College Station had a much shorter life. Without Norton at the helm (and the hopes for a chain restaurant dashed), it ended up closing around late 1969 or early 1970. The building still stood, however.

A phone book advertisement for Coach Norton's, showing the original sign. Note the triangle-shaped sign base. One of the first restaurants to reoccupy was Fontana's Italian-Mexican Restaurant (we'll come back to this later). The first reference to Fontana's appeared in 1970, not long at all after the demise of the Pancake House. Like the later incarnation, Fontana's would specialize primarily in Italian and newspaper references to Fontana's would continue into the late 1970s.

In 1980, Mama's Pizza moved from 609 Texas where Oakridge Steakhouse had been (the building was eventually demolished in the mid-1990s for the shopping center).

Here's where things get complicated. Mama's Pizza left sometime in the late 1980s for the end cap restaurant space at Culpepper Plaza, 1601 Texas Avenue, and from there, the building would have a revolving door of restaurants. In the following sections, I will try to best address what I can find and how long they lasted.

Rockyano's Pizza, which later was shut down for tax evasion reasons, opened in August 1991 (it seems the building was shut down for a few years), though because it was shut down for tax reasons, it's unknown when exactly it closed. (relevant post on TexAgs).

In mid-1992, the building finally stopped being a pizza restaurant when it became Shanghai Restaurant (later renamed/changed hands to Shen Zhen Restaurant sometime in mid-1995) but closed by the end of the year. This is another point of contention--a 1993 directory (but not a 1993 phone book) lists "Shanghai Chinese Restaurant" as well as a 1996 directory, however, a TexAgs poster claims that it was open for a "week or two", which seems to be a gross exaggeration. Did Shen Zhen serve sushi like the forum thread implies? Probably not. A lot of places and times get transposed when it comes to this.

When it moved in around early 1996, successor restaurant Porky's Hamburger & Onion Ring Company officially was in business for three months but had already moved twice since its founding in 1994 in Fredericksburg, first to Round Rock, then to College Station. Officially, the restaurant only operated for about three months but eyewitnesses report it was only open for "six weeks" (after all, Front Porch Grill didn't last a long time either).

Snuffer's opened in February 1997 per ribbon cutting information from the Chamber of Commerce, a branch of the Snuffer's restaurant chain out of Dallas. Unfortunately, not too long after that, that part of Texas Avenue began widening and within eight months, they got "snuffed out" by the construction.

Nearly a year after the closure of Snuffers, there was El Arroyo (1998-1999). Following this, there were two restaurants and I'm not sure either of them opened. I've found listings for "Gin Seng Garden" that only lasted for a month as well as "Nari Inc." (unknown to what the restaurant was).

La Familia del Mar, a Mexican seafood restaurant that operated in spring 2001, was operated by the same owners of La Familia Taqueria. This is the one in the TexAgs post, that refers to "maybe something-Del Mar".

Another buffet, the Hong Kong Buffet would follow, in late 2001 and early 2002 (no confirmation here)....followed by El Ranchito Mexican Restaurant (again, no confirmation).

Cazadores Mexican Restaurant (#4, actually had other locations including Houston) was here from 2003 to 2009 was the next one here, but actually making it a few years was an accomplishment.

From Fontana's Facebook page, which itself was from ShopBrazos.com, which has since taken down this image
Fontana's Authentic Italian Food operated from 2009 to 2011. This was actually the same owner of the "first" Fontana's here that opened some 40 or so years earlier but it was too little, too late, to work off any nostalgia.

In early 2012, a restaurant called Fowl Digits opened in the building, now fifty years old. Fowl Digits looked to be different than the other restaurants. Stucco was added to the building, the "triangular" sign was restored, there was a huge marketing blitz, there was the whole promoting the business as part of "Chicken Strip Row" (with Layne's and Raising Cane's on either side of them), and...it was a huge failure. Part of the problem was they didn't know their own marketing—a drink coozie I still have states that it's a "sports bar disguised as a chicken finger place"...and the prices were more expensive to match (inflation of course makes Fowl Digits seem cheap in retrospect) but it was too expensive, and the only other thing it had was dozens of televisions with different channels (not just sports, one was on Boomerang which even then was showing 1990s programming during daytime hours). That's not even mentioning its failure as a bar as well, beer was only served in plastic cups.

Around October 2012, Fowl Digits closed and was retooled into "Sully's Sports Grill & Bar" with another new coat of paint. That seemed to do better for them (even if the name switch seemed pretty desperate) as the menu expanded to add things like hamburgers. It still wasn't enough to gain a following (and reviews were mixed). In the end, Sully's closed in December 2013, once again, becoming another failed restaurant in the spot. I was able to get a few pictures during this time--you can see the Fowl Digits/Sully's patio shortly after it closed in late 2013 with side view.

Enter Torchy's Tacos. Based out of Austin, Torchy's did extensive work to the property. After the rumor of Torchy's was confirmed in early 2014, in summer, the demolition of Sully's commenced. It wasn't a total demolition (nor was it the "everything but a few walls" demolition that happened to the Deluxe Diner or Egg Roll House) but did strip off nearly every element that the Fowl Digits/Sully's owners added on, including exposing the Fontana metal siding before replacing that too. It also dismantled the 1960s era triangular sign for the purposes of more outdoor seating, instead opting to have a large sign facing Texas Avenue with a huge colorful neon sign with the "baby devil" logo. It officially opened October 16, 2014 to huge crowds and has been here for nine years, more than any restaurant had been there in the twenty years prior.
• Torchy's September 2014. Almost the exact same view of the Sully's side view above. Compare and contrast!
• Looking in
• A closer look at the red and white. These are road reflectors!
• Inside--the soda fountain dispensers.
• For some reason, the menu boards were replaced before opening.

UPDATE 06-24-2023: After previously being updated September 2014 (new title, photos, and substantial information), July 2015 (further integration), and August 2016 (part of site upgrades), this latest update is a major rewrite which adds more information on the Homer Norton Motel in Rosenberg, some more defunct restaurants, and so forth. The post title was renamed to simply "Torchy's Tacos". UPDATE 02-16-2024: A few tiny updates. Integrated address back into the article.

Post Oak Square, featuring Weingarten

Picture by author, c. 2019. This shopping center's success hasn't always been here.
Like some of my other older posts, this one has gotten numerous rewrites and updates, and initially the original version of the post actually had some wrong information. This was because the supermarket in question only lasted two months. Post Oak Square was built in 1983 as a strip mall companion to Post Oak Mall. The center struggled in its original incarnation because it was built by different developers than the mall and had very few inlets and outlets. An attempt to connect to Post Oak Mall's ring road was also shot down as the mall decided to take advantage of their property rights and put barricades blocking the access road, and eventually posting guards there before the driveway was removed. (A shout-out to Henry Mayo who helped me nail down where Grandy's was, and also gave information about the ring road access).

Post Oak Square had just one main anchor when it opened, an outlet of Weingarten. The intrigue I've had with this plaza goes back some time, as according to the HAIF's DrFood, "Weingarten's in College Station in the shopping center next to Post Oak Mall. The store was very upscale when it opened. They had gourmet food like Central Market does, a coffee bar, and a huge candy/nut bar. They had a bakery that today would rival Central Markets. Being a Weingarten's they had the only Kosher section in the [greater area]. It then became another name when Weingarten's sold out on the verge of bankruptcy."

When it opened in November 1983, Weingarten was on the small side, but relatively upscale
This was because Weingarten opened in November 1983, just a month before parent company Grand Union decided to divest the company. The older Weingarten near downtown Bryan got sold to Safeway but no such luck for this store.

Definitely some resent there. This has to be the shortest-lived supermarket in Texas. After some seemingly conflicting information, the supermarket did reopen under a new name, Mariel's Fine Foods, in May 1984 (a second location of a Conroe-based independent). By November 1984 (when the ad is from) they had rebranded as Mariel's Home Town Foods associated with Schepp’s Grocery Co. of Houston. Note that it offered video rental (rare in 1984) and delivery (also rare, and before 2020 had long fallen out of fashion for smaller markets).

The Conroe location until 2003 but the College Station location closed in 1985 as Schepp's Grocery and the Home Town Foods co-op collapsed.

As I said before, there was also a Grandy's between the two entrances.

At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, Grandy's lost the "Country Cookin'" name.
With a second attempt at a supermarket dead, in the late 1980s and early 1990s it began to transition to a modern power center. In 1986, Cavender's Boot City was built at 1400 Harvey and a new retail building was built in 1987 close to Harvey Road on the west side of the property. In 1990, Pier 1 Imports was built in front of Cavender's in a new building (making Cavender's impossible to see from the road). Grandy's was closed in 1992 for the biggest redevelopment of the center which demolished a good part of the main building for Toys R Us (opened c. 1993, this was the address for Linen Warehouse from 1984 to 1987)), T.J. Maxx (opened 1994), and Hobby Lobby (opened 1993 in Weingarten's former space). As a result, the shopping center finally saw success over the next decade. Hobby Lobby moved out in the early 2000s and of course Toys R Us failed with the chain in 2018 (keeping the original logo until toward the last few years), but the center has done well, all things considered. Going clockwise from the former Pier 1 Imports closest to the mall...

1402 - Mattress SleepCenters - Formerly Pier 1 Imports until the early 2000s when it moved to Texas Avenue Crossing at Texas Avenue and George Bush. This building was built in 1990 but is considered part of the shopping center.
1400 - demolished - Former Cavender's Boot City, moved out around 2006 and NEVER retenanted (it's the blank spot behind Mattress SleepCenters, and nearly impossible to see). Brazos CAD (had to go back in the archives to see) says this was built in 1986.
1306 - Ollie's Bargain Outlet opened in April 2020 following the closure of aforementioned Toys R Us.
1200 - The aforementioned former Weingarten, Hobby Lobby was in the location for much of the 1990s (since 1994) and left for its current location as soon as the center at Texas and Holleman was built (around 2003). After it left, it was divided into two stores (1200 Harvey and 1210 Harvey), which at the time was a store called "The BOUNCE!" and the 99 Cents Store, which was expanding heavily during that time. The BOUNCE! (hereafter referred to "The Bounce") was a bit overlooked, though it had a colorful facade. According to a surviving ad I found, The Bounce was a "locally owned and operated 12,500 square foot party facility featuring your favorite inflatable castles, obstacle courses, huge slides, rock climbing walls and more, all in a safe, climate controlled environment" and featured "four private party rooms with a private jump arena are available" along with "diner seating with drinks, coffee and snacks plus WiFi access."
These things tend hinge their existence on birthday parties, and for whatever reason, it failed within a few years (maybe lasting from 2006 to 2009), and I think that it's the same reason why Putt-Putt and Gattitown declined and ultimately closed.

Burkes Outlet opened in 1200 in 2013 but closed a decade later (being replaced with an O'Reilly Auto Parts in 2024) and 1210 Harvey is still vacant. Tuesday Morning closed it in an early 2023 bankruptcy round with the remaining chain going under a few months later. 1140 - LL Flooring - This used to be Avenue (with the address of 1200A), opening in 1994 as part of the center re-do. 1140 - LifeWay Christian Stores - used to be Avenue, a plus-sized women's clothing store. LifeWay Christian Stores opened in spring 2014. It may have absorbed two smaller stores at some point in the past. The store announced closing in February 2019 shortly before the remainder of the chain one month later.
1128 - TJMaxx - Here since 1994 in the corner. 1120 - The current space combined the former 1112 (Wild Birds Unlimited was here from 1997 to 2004) and 1120. It has held GR8 Laundry since November 2019. 1106 - This has been Once Upon a Child since early 2019, which relocated from Brazos Square. From about 1996 to 2010 the space 1108 was Treasures Gift Shop, later home to Q Beauty. Q Beauty later moved to the former Taste of China building.
1104A - Plato's Closet - This opened around 2009 and still remains open.
1102 - Gumby's Pizza - My records say that this was Imperial Chinese Restaurant from 1984 to 1994, related to the later Texas Avenue location but unrelated to the one on the bypass today). Ninfa's opened in January 1995, according to InSite Magazine. When Ninfa's moved around 2008 to a new spot on the bypass, the space was vacant for a few years before Houston-based Wolfies Restaurant (2012 to September 2016).

The 1100 building as of August 2022 features, from east to west, Victoria's Variedades y Tipicos (this was Merle Norman from about 2006 to 2015, suite D), Bea's Alterations (Suite C, home to Merge Boutique before it moved to Century Square), RA Salon Spa (suite B, Edward Jones until the early 2010s), and Al's Formal Wear (from 1987 to its abrupt August 2023 chain-wide closure).

Finally, for a long time it was rumored that Grandy's was torn down for visibility issues: it did not seem to be stop current management from signing a genuine Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store to be built in the parking lot closest to Mattress SleepCenters. Previously, the closest College Station-Bryan had to Krispy Kreme was some products sold in Shell gas stations around 2003 and 2004, which were made in Houston (as it had a small handful of stores at the time). If you want to hear about the Krispy Kreme's first attempt in Houston, I suggest you visit Houston Historic Retail, which is not my site but I recommend it anyway.

Krispy Kreme opened in April 2019 at 1312 Harvey Road.

Get them when they're hot!

UPDATE 03-20-2021: After a previous update in July 2020; changed bit about no store doing grocery delivery (at the time), man has that sentence aged poorly! Also a bit more precise on Mariel's arrival and death.
UPDATE 04-04-2021: A few minor touch-ups, including new date on T.J. Maxx.
UPDATE 04-21-2024: Major rewrite, from "Post Oak Square, featuring Krispy Kreme" to "Post Oak Square featuring Weingarten".
UPDATE 05-13-2024: In the early morning hours of 5/13/2024, the Krispy Kreme caught on fire (explosion suspected, possibly gas) and burned to a husk. We'll update this post again if Krispy Kreme rebuilds or not.

Shiloh Inn, Now the Days Inn on Texas Avenue

The architecture seems to be original. Taken August 2016, and modified to increase exposure.

We talked about Fort Shiloh, the restaurant, and in the early 1980s, a new two-story motel opened just adjacent to it: Shiloh Inn. Unfortunately, Shiloh Inn didn't actually last long under that name, switching to the nationally-known Quality Inn soon after:

Before Quality Inn switched to the "circle" logo, soon after the Shiloh Inn change
Sometime in the early 1990s, names changed again and it became Days Inn (the first and only Days Inn up until the middle of the 2010s). The motel still has 98 units as always.

Aerial view from Google Earth

By the way, the playground equipment mentioned in the old advertisement does in fact still exist as of summer 2020.

Last updated July 2020

Fort Shiloh

It would be fair to say that the contrived "fort in the wilderness" theme was played well. (See below for source)

Fort Shiloh was one of the things that I wanted to cover on the blog when I first started it (it was originally mentioned on this page back when it was called "Tales of Defunct Restaurants").

Until around 2005, the overgrown sign of this restaurant (Fort Shiloh Steakhouse, though some phone books listed it as the Fort Shiloh Grille) could be seen as well as some wooden teepees, with a (much older) building in the back. I don't know the exact history of the restaurant, but from this link, which shows the demolished restaurant, it says that it was opened as an agricultural co-op (Shiloh Club) in what was Shiloh, a (very small) community established in the late 1800s. I don't know when the building was built, but it was an era when the land was farmland (whether it was a considered a part of Shiloh or College Station, I don't know). Before opening as a restaurant in 1976, it had most recently been a dance hall (see link above). If I got my facts straight, the restaurant was owned by Ken Martin Restaurant Group (owning numerous restaurants) and shut down in or around 1996 (per the Eagle article).

The above picture is from Project HOLD, which have other photos in and around Fort Shiloh, though regrettably none of the teepees or the sign, though the sign looks like the advertisement below.

From what everything I've heard, it was a rather nice place in its heyday. Here's a comment from the original TODR thread, which I saved:

Back in high school, I washed dishes at the Fort Shiloh Steakhouse. At the time, it was one of the more fancy local restaurants (filet mignon, anyone?). Sorry that a local landmark closes and is replaced by a dozen chain restaurants from Dallas/Houston.

Additionally, soon after I originally posted this post in 2013, on November 4th I found a 1980s phone book ad that further backs up it being Steakhouse.

Note that despite the fancy surroundings, it was a dry establishment even though the county was wet.
UPDATE 02-17-2024: The article was last updated in June 2017, and there were a few things that I wanted to update and trim. (Specifically, the part about manager Joe Ruiz, as I was mostly working off memory having met him once as he was working for Sysco...but that information is more than a decade old and I'm not sure that's still case). I also somehow missed adding several categories to the post. Currently, Aggieland Express Car Wash & Lube is under construction here having finally begun work around late 2022/early 2023.

First American Bank at FM 2818 and Texas Avenue

Sorry I don't have a real picture for this one. (Source: The Eagle microfilm).
Part of the Don Adam bank group, First American Bank opened at the northeast corner of FM 2818 (yes, that was the official name at the time) and Texas Avenue (2717 Texas Avenue South) on January 31, 1994, and was converted to Citibank in 2005. In June 2014, the bank was rebranded (again) to BB&T following a sale of some Citibank properties affecting the local stores. In early 2022, it was rebranded once more to Truist following BB&T's merger with SunTrust Bank. Other than the four signs it has worn over the years, it still looks identical as it did to its opening 30 years ago (on the outside, at least).

UPDATE 04-26-2024: Post revived and accounted for Truist.

Defunct Madden Concepts

This picture was taken by the author on a miserable December 2021 day. Editor's Note: This page was originally titled "All Hail the Late, Great, Madden's Street Cuisine" and de-indexed in September 2019. In 2021, the page was rewritten to focus on 404 Jane Street and added to the Index as a full article as "Defunct Madden Concepts".

404 Jane Street is one of the rare "in-fill" commercial buildings in College Station, located off of but not on a main commercial strip, but because that segment of the market is still pretty new it has tended to struggle. There is only one known operating business, Tune Up: The Manly Salon, which opened in January 2017.

The second is/was also HUB Collaborative, a "co-working space" which opened in early 2015 and closed (likely) in 2020, and while the website is defunct, the sign still lights up as of December 2021...so I don't really know. Finally, there was one more restaurant, which has since closed. In May 2015, a new concept started by Peter Madden opened—Mad Taco (suite 400). He sold his restaurant in downtown Bryan, Madden's Street Cuisine to focus on the restaurant, which despite a fairly crowded market in that part of town (Torchy's, Fuego, et. al.) and a near-invisibility from both Texas Avenue and University Drive East did fairly well. A second location opened in south College Station in the next year. In 2020, however, the student market was gutted, and Mad Taco, which already struggled during the winter months, was converted into a new concept, which opened in late 2020 to focus on sandwiches and soups. The restaurant closed around May 1, 2021, and little trace of it remains on the Internet today. The Yelp page has 569 reviews of the restaurant, but only 18 of them are actually of Mad Melt, the pages were merged. While I did manage to get some menu copies from Facebook's cache, someone did take a few photos of the menu on Yelp, as Mad Melt came and went without much bravado, and now the restaurant, which began with so much hope as Mad Taco, is closed.

It was not, however, the first concept that Peter Madden had tried and closed. Before Madden's Casual Gourmet in Bryan was sold (and eventually closed), a food truck was operated by him, known as Madden's Street Cuisine.

The sad fate of the food truck as of 2012, now a second Chef Tai's Mobile Bistro.

Madden's Street Cuisine, which stopped delivering deliciousness around town in summer 2011 is covered here. I ate there and got a repeat customer card (completely useless now) and a menu, both of which are pictured here for your infotainment.

The menu actually was printed on old scratch paper: the other side has some sort of multiple-course "Civil Engineering Staff Appreciation Lunch" with classy things such as "Tomato Bisque garnished with fresh mozzarella, saffron whipped cream and fresh basil chiffonade", but I didn't scan it since it's in poor shape (and only half of the page).

UPDATE 12-14-2021: Just three days shy of this article's 9th year anniversary, this page has been updated as "Defunct Madden Concepts".
UPDATE 04-17-2022: Tacobar is to replace the Mad Tacos/Mad Melts spot, having moved from Southwest Crossing; however, it isn't open yet as of this writing. [Restaurants] was also added to the post.
UPDATE 02-10-2024: Tacobar did in fact open in May 2022.

Post Oak Mall

Post Oak Mall as how I best remember it, picture by author, 2007
Today, Post Oak Mall is a shadow of its former self, with an increasingly shrinking food court and empty storefronts, or larger storefronts combined, or odds and ends that don't look like they "belong" in a regional mall.

Post Oak Mall opened February 1982, at a time when Houston malls were flourishing, each with multiple department stores, featuring some combination of the popular department stores in the region at the time: J.C. Penney, Joske's, Foley's, Sears, Montgomery Ward, or Lord & Taylor. The stores at Post Oak Mall opened with Dillard's, which was growing fast but had no Houston stores (they would enter Houston with their purchase of Joske's in 1987), Sears (moved from Townshire), Bealls, a small family-owned specialty department store out of Jacksonville, Texas, and Wilson's, a chain of catalog showrooms out of Baton Rouge.

Unfortunately, the mall's history is largely lost, as no online newspaper archives exist past around 1978 (predating the mall) and the ones since are pretty patchy. Additionally, because I lived on the opposite side of town growing up, the mall and other area stores (including Toys R Us at Post Oak Square) were few and far between growing up, but the department store lineage is fairly well-known: Houston-based Foley's opened in 1984 (despite original plans for Joske's to join the mall) with the only two-story store in the mall, and JCPenney (moved from Manor East Mall) in 1985, the latter including some additional stores including Wyatt's Cafeteria (as well as a space for a seventh anchor on the other side). That same year, Service Merchandise acquired and rebranded Wilson's, and that continued until 1999 when Service Merchandise closed (when they closed their first round of stores). This would become a second Dillard's (men's clothing and housewares, while the original store continued to carry women's and children's clothing, though briefly at some point in the late 2000s it carried exclusively women's clothing).

While none of the department stores were as large as their Houston counterparts, with only Foley's exceeding the 100,000 square foot mark, the mall was successful for its time. In 2006, Foley's was rebranded as Macy's through a large rebranding (though the new owners insisted on putting dark lettering on the mall's brown brick), which was unfortunate, as like many other similar department stores across the country, had the lines shoppers liked replaced with cheaper Macy's house brands, and the last vestige of Foley's disappeared in 2011 when the worn parquet flooring was replaced with white tile.

 

 

In the late 2010s, two more changes shook the mall's anchors. The Sears, which was a smaller location at 98,533 square feet, had originally been full-line and featured everything that Sears stores had, including Allstate Insurance (which Sears owned until the early 1990s), the catalog department, a garden shop (likely semi-enclosed, no obvious evidence from the outside), flooring departments, house remodeling departments, the credit department, optical, portrait studio, and most everything else. Due to corporate mismanagement, the store eventually shed departments and features, closing for good in November 2018, its store long having been an emaciated corpse. An appliance repair building was built on the other side of Holleman, though it closed a few years before the main Sears did.

Conn's HomePlus signed for part of the store and opened a 40,000 square foot store by fall of 2020, but it did not fill of Sears' space, though still opens into the mall (occupying half of the Sears' entrance on the inside). The other half was signed as Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply, and opened in January 2024. Unfortunately, Murdoch's did not open into the mall.

The next anchor shakeup would affect Bealls. Bealls was involved in a merger in the late 1980s that would eventually put it as a subsidiary of Houston-based Stage Stores Inc. (with Palais Royal and Stage as sister stores) and for years had operated in both smaller-market malls (like Post Oak Mall, but also Richland Mall and Parkdale Mall, located in Waco and Beaumont, respectively) as well as even smaller towns (in strip centers). In late 2019 it was announced Stage Stores would close the store and convert the store to Gordmans, shortly before announcing to do the same to the rest of the chain (with the remaining stores like those small-town Bealls being kicked to the curb). In March 2020, it did re-open as Gordmans, which only lasted a few weeks before COVID-19 shut down "non-essential businesses". It was a fatal blow to Stage Stores (which had been struggling), and after the mall reopened a few months later, Stage Stores began a store closing sale as the whole chain went out of business.

Finally, the mall was hit with the closure of Macy's in early 2021. It was clear that the Macy's rebranding of the mid-2000s had failed and Macy's was clearing out the smaller-town markets. Like many of the other Macy's closed around this time, Macy's at Post Oak Mall had turned part of its space into "Backstage at Macy's", a store-within-a-store with some off-price items. This space actually felt like a different store but was poorly merchandised (the signage for the departments in this section didn't match up with what was actually sold, and some merchandise was just on tables). Within a few years, the Macy's building was bought by the city, and rumors are some sort of Texas A&M University esports arena.

Dillard's (the original building) still has many of its wood paneling from the 1980s (especially the backroom areas, which I unfortunately do not have photos of).

Like Sears, Dillard's carried a broader line of merchandise in the early days. When it opened, it even had a photo studio, too.

JCPenney, despite adding a Sephora (which is now a generic salon) at some point in the 2010s, is rather run-down. The catalog pick-up area (despite continuing to have signage outside was converted to a "jcp" services desk before being ripped out for a luggage area. In better days, I remember getting a "Space Jam" basketball here circa 1996 (pretty sure they still had sporting goods departments) but today, it's kind of depressing, with peeling paint, understaffing, and disheveled displays. JCPenney's short-lived attempt to add a heavy appliances section on the heels of Sears' mass closings was put into place here but I never even saw it staffed, just noticeable with large refrigerators and other items.

The actual mall area has been given a few facelifts over the years. The 1994 re-do added new tile (based on this 2012 picture from the mall's website, the old tile was covered up) and some new neon around the skylights. In the late 2000s the skylights were replaced with new windows that let in more natural light rather than slightly tinted (see an example of the older skylights here on my Flickr account, and the mall was renovated completely a few years later (2012), mostly giving the mall new flooring and seating areas, as well as altering the mall entrances.

This post received a major update in December 2019. Also see: Post Oak Mall Stores, 1982-1992 and Post Oak Mall Stores, 1992-2002.

Additional pages of this type coming soon.

Obviously, this is not the mall's official page but this is.

UPDATE 03-01-2021: Updates made regarding the fate of Sears, Bealls, and Macy's.
UPDATE 03-25-2021: Minor changes and error fixing. Mervyn's wasn't in Houston in 1982, for instance.
UPDATE 09-22-2021: Minor fixes regarding JCPenney and Foley's opening. Updated a bit regarding Conn's, Sephora, and added back the "Ghost Anchor" mention. Added the mall's website too.
UPDATE 01-20-2022: Added 1992-2002 stores link as well as adding a few labels to the main post for some of the chain stores it had over the years that are also covered here, mainly Sonic, McDonald's, and Subway.
UPDATE 02-05-2024: Updated to account for Murdoch's and Macy's building.