Former Valero at Holleman and Wellborn

Pore Jud's is Daid (Picture by author, 12/15/20)

The Valero at Holleman and Wellborn was demolished this month. The original convenience store at the station at 1011 Wellborn, dating back to at least 1993 was Jud's Food Stores out of Brenham. The station was built in 1989 as per BCAD but Jud's Food Stores was established in 1990, so depending on when the station opened, it may or may not have had that name. In fact, by the time the station opened, it was Jud's Food Stores #9. The first four stores were located in Brenham, with store 5 being in Seguin (2999 North Highway 123 Bypass) and 6 at 701 East Pierce Street in Luling. (This indicates that stores one through eight were older rebranded stations).

In any case, 1011 Wellborn was originally branded as an Exxon and remained that way for years. It also had a drive-through car wash and when I was younger it was occasionally used by my folks. I believe this was because there was a deal where you could use for free or very cheaply if you purchased gas, but at some point in the late 1990s this was dropped.

In 2000, the station was expanded with U Wash, which opened at the same address (though technically, the address by BCAD's number was 1001 Wellborn) and same ownership. U Wash was a self-serve car wash with several docks and was accessible only through the Exxon's parking lot. More change would come to the station a few years later, when it became a Valero in the mid-2000s (2006?). This Valero came slightly before the local Diamond Shamrock conversions to my memory, and was the first time I saw such a station.

Sometime around the same time of the Valero conversion, the convenience store became "Cross Roads Corner Store Aggieland" (the signage where Jud's was, on the left side of the door, was whited out). From then on, the station didn't see much activity in the station. The station did add Krispy Krunchy fried chicken inside in 2016 but this wasn't well advertised (not even on the outside of the store). However, U Wash was later closed and torn down within a few years of that without much fanfare, signifying (if subtly) that things were coming to an end.

In any case, I found in December that the Valero had removed the prices from the sign (though it was not covered in any way), with the gas station store emptied of merchandise, though the power was sill connected, given how the Monster and Coca-Cola coolers were still glowing. The drive-through car wash also had not been gutted yet. The whole thing looked as if it might reopen as something else, or at least be weeks away from being torn down.

Not so much—when I got around to it a few days later, the canopy was gone, the sign was gone, and Jud's wasn't much more than a foundation. (The car wash was still intact but gutted).

The rumor mill states that the corner of Holleman and Wellborn will be the home of a new McDonald's restaurant, moving from the corner of Marion Pugh and George Bush as part of the underpass construction. Unfortunately, this almost certainly means that the new restaurant will be a soulless brown building with silver accents rather than an example of the slightly nicer restaurants McDonald's was building/renovating with in the early 2000s, as the current restaurant is.

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE 04-06-2021: Took out the other Jud's Food Stores mention, as it looks like the numbers were wrong, and they reused #7. Maybe if we ever do Brenham-related stuff, it might be worth a mention. Either way, College Station was the largest market Jud's settled in.
UPDATE 11-30-2021: McDonald's has been confirmed for the site, at least one half of it.
UPDATE 10-2-2023: In or around September 30, 2023, McDonald's opened at the site, replacing the location at George Bush Drive and Marion Pugh.

George Bush Drive McDonald's

Picture taken by author, May 2019

I couldn't bear to tear apart my original Marion Pugh article, so this is to replace it. Additionally, as of this writing, I'm in the middle of changing the colors and themes of the page, explaining it why it looks like it does. It's not final, and in need of some tweaks and QoL upgrades. I'm not even sure if it's the direction I want to go (such a change would also alter the US 290 page, and I like the blue and gray).

The "George Bush" McDonald's (111 George Bush Drive West) opened in 1996 with what I remember having a white roof alternating with maroon (mansard roof, similar to the common red or brown roof alternating with white or yellow), though I always felt it would've looked better with maroon and white. After all, it was next to Kyle Field, why was it using the away colors? It renovated sometime in 2003 or 2004 to the current form it is now. I think the reason McDonald's isn't in a hurry to upgrade the exteriors of this restaurant is that it will likely be demolished whenever they do the George Bush underpass project.

The parking lot to the south is owned by Callaway House. The properties were originally part of Marion Pugh Lumber Co. at 101 Jersey Street West (which dated to the 1940s, notably when the International & Great Northern railroad skewed southwest), which would eventually give way to J. Arnold Construction Co., as Marion Pugh (a former football player and class of '41) would pass away in 1976 at the age of 57. J. Arnold actually had a small railroad crossing just to the south of Jersey, which you can still see today (venture a bit south of the McDonald's and around that area).

Treehouse is the ONLY thing that hasn't changed much since this time (Courtesy Henry Mayo)
Marion Pugh Lumber Co. would eventually give way to J. Arnold Construction Co., as Marion Pugh (a former football player and class of '41) would pass away in 1976 at the age of 57. J. Arnold actually had a small railroad crossing just to the south of Jersey, which you can still see today (venture a bit south of the McDonald's and around that area). An Amtrak station had been built in that area, but the area at the corner of Marion Pugh (originally a dirt alleyway after the railroad was abandoned, and upgraded to a full road later) and George Bush (originally Jersey Street) was abandoned for several years before McDonald's filled in.

Apologies to whoever helped me with the Marion Pugh/J. Arnold Construction Co., as I lost the reference...

UPDATE 10-02-2023: As of around September 30 2023, the McDonald's is permanently closed, having relocated to 1011 Wellborn Road (the former Valero site--see here).
UPDATE 04-08-2025: The McDonald's opened in 1996, not 1997. The article has been amended to reflect this. Also added [defunct] to the tags.

McDonald's at Northgate, The Area's First

From The Eagle, courtesy John Ellisor

Almost anything is interesting when you find enough to it, and today, we're looking at the original Northgate McDonald's (and its replacement).

Opening in December 1973 at the northeast corner of Spence Street and University Drive (801 University Drive) built by Philip Springer, the original McDonald's in Northgate was in many ways one of a kind with the only McDonald's in the area until 1977 when the Manor East Mall location was built. The Northgate location actually won a landscaping award (local only) when it opened when a 1976 article described that the McDonald's cleans up all the trash in and around the area, with "small pines, evergreens and grass [comprising the landscape]". It's a far cry from the island it is today surrounded by concrete.

In 1985, it added a little curved "solarium" window much like a Wendy's would have was added in the front (enclosing some additional outdoor seating), which McDonald's did as well for a time.

This I remember being demolished and rebuilt in the very early 2000s, though I can't remember if it was rebuilt with the new "front" or not. I think it was. I vaguely remember the little "ATM" flags flying over it (as Wikimapia reports), which were after the rebuilding but before a renovation. I can't tell what that thing is in the pictures post-demo pre-remodel (which happened around 2007, as it points out). Looking from a side-view aerial looks like it's some sort of covered playground area, which must have a post-rebuild touch, but it doesn't matter because it was demolished for an expansion of the eating area (and featuring a study area). Actually, a MyBCS thread reveals it was to be used for live music, which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a failure, so it just became outdoor seating.


From a University Square lease plan

Two things that also made this a bit cooler than the average McDonald's, both of which are gone:

#1: This McDonald's did delivery. Yes, I know that a select number of markets did it in the 1980s (featuring a commercial which has unfortunately been removed from YouTube for some reason or another), it's being done in other countries, and they want to do it again (newspaper articles from April 29-30 2013 too numerous to link to). From what I could tell, it was a franchise-specific thing, and of those, only this location. This ad was from 1992.

#2: This McDonald's did tours as well. Here's a bit from a "Things for Children to See & Do in the Bryan-College Station" guide from the mid-1970s. This was back when it and the Villa Maria location were the only McDonald's locations in town. They definitely don't do this today anymore.

#3: This comment: I was in College Station from 94-99 and always thought this was a weird McD's location. When I first moved to CS, there was a weird game room/arcade in the back of the building that couldn't be accessed from the inside--you had to go outside and around back. I remember when they redid it and added the "live music" area in the front--I only remember ever seeing one band play there, right after they reopened. It seems like it was within weeks of opening that they reconfigured it to just be outdoor seating. I believe I read this was part of a basement area (which early McDonald's had, but rare in Texas).

Additionally, since this was last updated in 2014, it's not at the "northeast corner of Spence Street" anymore when the stoplight was removed and a median built between the entrance to University Square and Spence Street. In 2018, the McDonald's updated its exterior to a modern prototype.

Updated in August 2014 and June 2019

McDonald's & Blockbuster

Opening in December 2001 as the first of its kind (remember, the "heady times" mentioned yesterday) and renovating circa 2008, the McDonald's features an adjoining Blockbuster. It used to be really cool at the time but also an odd combination: McDonald's and movies? (I guess the Redbox kiosks installed circa 2006 at most McDonald's fulfills a similar purpose). The 2008 remodel cut down on the huge cavernous feel of the original store for a separation into the three "zones" developed around that time, an area for kids near the Playplace indoor playground (which it always had), the "Grab n Go" zone, and the "couches" area. I didn't really like the post-remodel version. I remember when I went for a "McTeacher" night when teachers made burgers for charity in middle school.

The Blockbuster closed in spring 2013. I wanted to take a picture of the inside of the Blockbuster, for posterity (this site) last summer, but was stopped by a clerk, who no longer works there for obvious reasons.

I think it would be interesting if the Blockbuster side was filled in with some sort of new concept...now, I know that McDonald's divested itself from Chipotle in 2006, but sure would be awesome to see it occupy the other side, provide some competition to the nearby Freebirds, as well as giving those who don't like McDonald's another option...or perhaps another seemingly wild concept (McDonald's + haircuts?)...but in all likelihood it will be remodeled into an expansion of McDonald's.

UPDATE 1: As of July 2013, there's some McDonald's signage and decor on the outside of the Blockbuster side, which is cleared of all décor. It doesn't exactly look aesthetically pleasing.

UPDATE 2: Well, the "haircuts" might have come to pass...sorta. As of December 2015, it has become a location of Sola Salons, a chain of rentable salon spaces. Unfortunately (but understandably) it lacks a connection to the adjacent McDonald's.

1748 Rock Prairie Road (Blockbuster)
1750 Rock Prairie Road (McDonald's)

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.

While I have written a more extensive page at Carbon-izer.com, I wanted to cover the overview here.


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 has kept poor records itself and there's only newspaper articles and tax records to go on. 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, allegedly for a recreation center owned by the city, but it continues to languish.

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.
UPDATE 07-20-2025: Updated to account for new Carbon-izer page.

Parkway Square

Kroger used to look better than this. (Photo by author, 2015)
Like many of the older posts on this blog, this article has gone through numerous rewrites and the version you see today wasn't even the first time it appeared (the very first version of this post appeared in 2010 and was later changed later).

Parkway Square opened in 1982 with Kroger as its primary tenant (at Southwest Parkway and Texas Avenue) and received an update in 2016, which made Kroger look a bit better but was short-lived as Kroger closed that year.

To help explain the layout, I'll be using this PDF which is already several years out of it as of 2025 (archived from here). 2400 - Originally known as Len George Firestone, the Firestone is on the corner at Brentwood and Texas Avenue. It renovated sometime in the mid-2000s or so, but about the time it happened, we had quit going there (it was once the "go-to" spot for car fixes for my family and others until around 2005).1 In the late 2000s the building was renovated.

2402 - King Buffet takes up what used to be several smaller stores. There was Pet Paradise in this section from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, a liquor store called For the Good Times, and BB's Oriental Restaurant, but by 1994 the whole space (officially 2402D) was taken by Old Country Buffet, part of the growing Buffets Inc. company, but it closed in 2004 (the company would continue until COVID-19, but would file for bankruptcy no fewer than three times before then). It was quickly filled by China King Buffet (the renovation took away the distinctive "peak" of the storefront of OCB, but I'm not sure if predated it). China King Buffet managed to hold out for years until around 2021, and then a few years after that was replaced by a similar restaurant simply called King Buffet.

2404 - RAC Rent-a-Center has been here since 2013. It absorbed old space from other retailers, like Paradise Scuba, which was located at 2404C prior to moving to the old Putt-Putt site in 2008. At 2404B, there was Champion Firearms (moved from College Station Business Center, which moved out around 2003 when the new center with Hobby Lobby and Ross Dress for Less was built. Some of the other tenants that used to be here included Oreck Vacuums (2003-2010, replaced Champion Firearms), Rascals, Pack & Mail (this later relocated to 2416B2, this was replaced by Champion Firearms).

Rascals and BB's Oriental Restaurant appear together in this 1983 ad from The Eagle. 2406A - Bricks & Minifigs opened in February 2024. It replaced Resale & More which had been here since 2007. Before that it was Ag Sports Cuts, and appeared to always be a barbershop over the years, despite idling in much of the 1990s, in the late 1980s it was a Fantastic Sams location.
2406B - Jackson Hewitt moved here after 2008, it used to be closer to the Southwest Parkway side, but it has since moved on. (I don't know exactly when, probably late 2010s). 2406B used to be Fit Tanning from 2003-2005 and from 1996 to 1999 Morningstar Travel.

2406D - USA Nails replaced Angel Nails, which was here since the early 1990s. I'm not sure when the changeover happened.

2408 - The original 2408 (please ignore the typo on the official PDF was a huge 60,000 square feet TG&Y Family Center, a souped-version of the TG&Y variety store (basically, a discount store, which almost every variety store did). It opened before Kroger (October 1981, which makes sense given it was further along in construction). The store had a troubled and short life. Not long after it opened, it announced it would be rebranding its larger stores as "AIM for the Best", which would be a more upscale concept designed to compete with Target and JCPenney, with "70 percent wearables and 30 percent will be electronics, sporting goods, and hardware" with no variety-store merchandise anymore (though toy departments would continue). In any case, the full AIM for the Best conversion never seemed to happen, and while some stores got new merchandising, the chain only had 13 stores and was officially ditched in 1984. Local TG&Y ad from October 1985. It wouldn't last much longer.
In October 1985 TG&Y parent company Household International sold it to McCrory Stores and the local store closed. In 1988, craft chain Amber's moved from Post Oak Square, with Gold's Gym taking up the remainder of the space in 1991. The College Station store was one of the last seven stores to close in 1997. In July 1998, MJDesigns opened but that only lasted a year before it went under. In 2000, Stein Mart opened, which operated for two decades before the chain became a casualty of COVID-19. Meanwhile, Gold's Gym departed in the early 2000s and became Harbor Freight Tools and King Dollar.

2410 - Initially a location of "Chuck-E-Cheese Pizza Time Theatre" (as the chain was called back then) opening in late 1982 but closing in 1984 with the chain's bankruptcy3. As Chuck E. Cheese did not return to the area for twenty years I have never once stepped in one of their restaurants. In 1985, the space was taken by Kroger, except there was a problem. Because of the elevation differences between Kroger and the expansion space, a hole was dug in the space and a ramp and a staircase connected it to the Kroger next door. The article implies it was for additional checkout space, but I'm not sure what it was used for in the late 1980s. At some point, Kroger abandoned the idea for additional merchandise and in spring of 1991 opened Family Video Center, its first free-standing video chain (H-E-B had ironically beaten them to the punch). Still, the Kroger connection was technically accessible during the 1990s, though you couldn't take merchandise between the two stores. As Family Video Center was the video rental store for my family, in the original (carpeted) video store, there was a counter near that, in the far left end, plus a big metal "cage" in the middle of the FVC. This was where the kid's videos were, including Pink Panther shorts, Barney, and Bananas in Pajamas, that sort of thing. Around the late 1990s Kroger vacated the space entirely. In 2000, Half-Price Books took over the space and filled in the space. If you walked in HP Books near (ironically) the video section, you could notice a slight depression when you walked near the wall. It might still be there. Half-Price Books took off around 2011 to replace half of the Circuit City on University Drive East and in 2012, it became "College Depot", which sells A&M branded stuff (always a popular choice) and items for dorms (a good idea, actually), and despite being a bit pricey, it ended up moving up to a slightly larger place when it took to half of the old Winn-Dixie/Lacks in mid-2014 (it has since closed), and 2410 remained vacant until January 2020 when Uptown Cheapskate moved in.

2412 - We know get to the star of the show...Kroger! Kroger Family Center #997 opened in February 1982 to complement the Bryan location though by 1985 didn't seem to have the larger merchandise selection the Bryan store (and the Family Center chain) had. Even by 1980, the Texas Kroger Family Center stores were a bit of an anomaly, as it was already a concept that Kroger tried and abandoned a decade or so earlier. Even as late as September 1991, Kroger was still branded as Kroger Family Center but that went away in the 1990s.

This is looking straight through to the old entrance from the Kroger circa 2016 (photo by author). Prior to the video store's closure, there was a small area with seating and afterward was briefly a bank.
The Kroger as I remember it wasn't unique as far as your typical Greenhouse store went in that era, though it had quirks that the chain just doesn't have anymore, like the dairy being in a dark, lower-ceiling corner of the store and having small plastic mockups above the display showing milk prices (as well as one for orange juice), or Bauhaus lettering throughout the store, or a continuous red strip running around the store.

This was from a page on Groceteria forum thread; the original image is dead and this is my edit. As much as I liked H-E-B Pantry, Kroger was great in its own way, too. Produce bags had nutrition facts printed on them (of fruits and vegetables), they had sample cookies, which were better than the store-bought pre-packaged stuff and did make shopping at Kroger a pleasure in my growing up years, and the bottom of the cart was spacious enough that even a 9-year-old boy could fit in there. And the store was larger. Well, around 2001 or so, it renovated (very cheaply) to a then-contemporary décor package (the orange-and-green "millennium" decor, as it is also known) and rebuilt the facade so that there could be offices above the old "greenhouse" area, and pretty much meant that everything about the Kroger that was cool was gone, and it became just as dated as before and still not nearly as nice as the Kroger Signature to the south or the new H-E-B to the north.

Originally a red stripe ran the perimeter of the store, which I loved as a kid. Notice in the hack job of a renovation they did, they didn't even bother getting identical tiles.

The 2001 renovation did some offices above but it didn't make the existing store nicer, it made it worse by taking away its positive qualities. Most of my visits to Kroger post-renovation have been for convenience. I remember being mildly impressed post-renovation in early 2002 just because it did feel new for a brief moment, when my brother took me there to buy some dry ice, but it got dated and dirty VERY quickly, and most of my subsequent visits have been disappointments. It wasn't anything like the Rock Prairie Kroger or the H-E-B. The produce was sub-par (with a "little too ripe" smell), the international foods section was a disappointment (they put taco seasoning in this department), and generally everywhere else was slightly smelly and generally disappointing. In August 2016, the Kroger closed permanently. For a brief time, the empty Kroger would come to look pretty rough, with graffiti on the windows, but it re-opened around June 2018 as another "TruFit Athletic Clubs".

This is where the original exits were. You had to go straight and then left out through tiny doors.
2414 - In the 1990s this was Jenny Craig Weight Loss Centers and in 1999 became Roly Poly Rolled Sandwiches (by 2019 the chain had shrunk dramatically) which closed in the mid-2000s. Roly Poly sat vacant for a while, then it became "Next Level Sports" circa 2008-2009 (mostly tennis), and after that it became Brazos Valley Mixed Martial Arts for a few years (until around 2013), then sat vacant for a few years more until becoming Palm Beach Tan. I'm not sure if Palm Beach Tan occupies all of the 2414 space. The signage certainly suggests it does but there were two other tenants next to Roly Poly. The first was Texas State Optical (2414A), which moved around 2018 after being there since the mid-1990s, and then 2414B which was The Cork Liquor Store (mid-1990s at least) and became Whiskey Charlie's in 2009 following a purchase of the local stores. Liquor stores usually did good business next to supermarkets as Texas law prohibits hard liquors and spirits on grocery store shelves, and every supermarket in town has a nearby liquor store that supplies the "harder stuff" you can't get at the store...but in the early 2010s Whiskey Charlie's closed the location.

2416A - Like China King, this space (a restaurant) takes up the 2416 space as well. The earliest record for 2416A is "Books & More" with Honey-B Ham & Deli (not to be confused with Honeybaked Ham) taking up the space, which was a franchised deli restaurant (lunch specials with sandwiches and chicken salads, but also meat and cheese to be sliced, and some merchandise for sale). In late June 2009 it closed and was replaced with Taz Indian Cuisine in late 2010, an Indian restaurant/buffet. I finally ate there in 2015 (and the first time I had goat in well over a decade). It was fine, and might share more when the restaurant eventually closes.

2416B - Advance America Cash Advance is next and Advance America's own website mentions that this opened in 2003. Sounds right. In previous versions of this page I was confused because I remembered a Christian bookstore being here (Bob & Larry from VeggieTales were on the front windows, usually) but there being Pack & Mail instead. This article seems to confirm that it was in fact one and the same (though the College Station location had closed by that time).

2416C - Smoothie King was here in the early to mid 2000s before moving to near the College Station H-E-B. Later on, it became My Party Palace (I believe around 2007-ish, since the chain was founded in 2005). It was part of a chain out of the Austin area to do princess-themed party planning for young girls, but it ran headlong into the recession, and all eight other locations closed. The College Station location was the last to close, closing in December 2014. In 2020, it was retenanted as Le Macaron French Pastries, which was the wrong place at the wrong time, and it closed within a year. As of 2025 this is now Total Wireless.

2418 - On the corner sat the Baskin-Robbins. It faced both the main parking lot and Southwest Parkway and had doors to both. Opened in 1988 and featuring "thirty-one-derful flavors", this was my favorite ice cream parlor for years. I had fond memories of this place. Anyway, Baskin-Robbins became "KaleidoScoops" around 1999, then became "32 Degrees: The Ice Cream Club", then just "32 Degrees" until it closed entirely, which was maybe 2004-2006 (by this time Cold Stone had opened up). Later on this was replaced with Corner Cuts, as it was the corner and they did do haircuts...but later they changed names to Classic Cuts (in spring 2016) before closing a few years later. The space is now Aggieland Supplements, which I believe opened 2019.

2418B - Around the corner on the Southwest Parkway side, there's Gomez Shoe Repair (originally Cobblestone Quality Shoe Repair, they changed hands in 2001). I can't find a 2418A either, probably because where 2418A would be is just a wall. Despite what the leasing plan says, I'm pretty sure that whatever was before Advance America (possibly dating back to the first tenant) used the space there and walled it off.

2418C - In the early 2000s (2002-2006), this was Potato Shack and was likely Subway's first location (at some point they moved, but within the same block of stores) but this was Moosegus in 2010 (a skateboard/wakeboard/snowboard store wasn't going to do well since those activities didn't really exist) and were locked out in 2011 for lease non-payment. It is now the home of Liberty Tattoo, which it has been since at least summer 2018.


Moosegus did not return.

2418D2 - This was Jackson Hewitt; by 2008 the sign was rather faded so I'm not sure how long it had been there by that point. By February 2013 it was Farmers Insurance, but that closed within a few years and by 2018 it had reopened as Lara & Associates Insurance, but that pulled out between 2021 and 2022. 2418D - This Subway store the first Subway in the state of Texas, sort of. By sort of, I mean, it was originally on this side of the shopping center but at some point in the mid-2000s (after a logo change but before 2007), it switched from just a few spaces down. It's store #628 (the others have numbers in the thousands), and although it switched slots in the shopping center, the first Subway in Texas is in the shopping center on Southwest Parkway. In the 1990s and up to as late as the early 2000s this was Discount Paging Systems, or as the sign read "Beepers" (not to be confused with Beeper Boutique in Post Oak Mall) and operated from 1996 to 2001, and after that briefly operated as other wireless stores.

2418E - The earliest reference I can find for this one is Parkway Florist & Gift Shop around the mid-1980s, then Emilio's Pizza in the early 1990s, then a gap, then Buck's Pizza (from 1998 to around 2010)...and while I never ate at Buck's they had decent pizza rolls. (Not as good as DoubleDave's at their peak, but whatever) and that remained vacant until 2016's Twisted Noodle Cafe came in4. In 2025 this closed and was replaced with Kung Fu Noodles & Dumplings.

2418F - FabricCare Cleaners was here for years, anchoring suite F from 1984 to the mid-2000s. After it moved, it became Tobacco Junction, which utilized the drive-through window but closed after just a few years. The awning was removed and in December 2018 it was relaunched as Daiquiri Barn, which did very well in 2020 after the law changed on drive-through liquor sales.


Circa 2011 shot of the west end of the center (photo, mine) 2420 - Based on the fact that McDonald's ads in the October 1985 paper list the only two stores at the time (University Drive and Villa Maria, both of which were torn down and rebuilt about a decade ago), but a 1984 phone book did show this store being built and open, suggesting that it was opened around the same time of the Kroger shopping center after all). It had an extremely cramped and strange ramp orientation regarding the drive-through, so when the McDonald's was completely rebuilt around 2004-2005, the playground was removed to alleviate this situation. The playground was strange: it wasn't much more than a wooden structure resembling a spaceship. You climbed up, looked out...and that was all. My brother claimed it replaced a much cooler and better playground but I don't think that was true. When it was rebuilt, there wasn't a playground at all, just a couple of Nintendo GameCubes with things like Mario Kart. Within a year or so, the controllers (they had been fixed in with metal) were so dirty and worn out. The control sticks were broken off, likely abused rather than heavily abused.

The sign is fairly unique as well--it was originally a full McDonald's sign, but received extensive damage in a December 2006 storm where tornadoes touched down. This is when apartments at Doux Chene Apartments were also severely damaged or destroyed. Due to new restrictive new sign ordinances, they had to remove the damaged golden arches entirely and replaced the "McDonald's Restaurant" sign with a new simple "M"...and it wasn't even a real sign, it was just fabric that stretched over the sign skeleton (though it has held up for a number of years). In 2018, the restaurant was renovated to be another casualty of McDonald's quest to get rid of mansard roof restaurants, even newer ones. (It doesn't look like the picture anymore).

Note the fake owls mounted on the roof to scare off birds that roost on the stoplights at certain times of the year.

This photo makes the area surrounding it seem leafy and green. Not entirely trickery, a large tree was once adjacent to the McDonald's, torn down for widening of Texas Avenue. The butchered sign is in the background.

2422 - This was originally home to the Kroger fuel center (built in 2005 and torn down after the Kroger closed). After remaining empty as a repaved concrete patch for a few years, the concrete was torn out for a new Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurant, the first new Popeyes restaurant in the area since the one at Graham Road closed nearly a decade ago. It opened late 2020 and proved to be quite successful.

2424 - While this was always planned out as a pad site, Dutch Bros Coffee opened here as a pad site in late 2021 as part of a rapid expansion in town and in the rest of the state.

So that's it...that's my story of one of the most nostalgic -to me- shopping centers in this area, as this stretch tended to be my stomping grounds growing up. I hope you enjoyed it. This post featured extensive updates in 2013, 2014, July of 2015 and July of 2016. In April 2019 some new additions were made. In August 2020, another wide-scale update of the page was done.

1. Gordon Wilhelm (I believe he was a manager at Firestone) established Brazos Valley Automotive in 2005. According to him, "We decided we were going to open the business. Shoot straight, be honest with people, our integrity was important to us, we had it over at Firestone".
2. Pack & Mail also had a Bryan location.
3. Chuck E. Cheese's 1984 bankruptcy was closely tied to the failure of Atari and the video game crash. It originated under Atari Inc., and was bought by Nolan Bushnell in 1978 (founder of both companies). In 1985, Chuck E. Cheese's was purchased by rival knockoff company ShowBiz Pizza Place, which later became CEC Entertainment.
UPDATE 02-04-2021: Made another update to account for a new Popeyes, as well as adding Advance America's opening, and Le Macaron. A few other changes were made.
UPDATE 04-22-2021: A rewrite of the post-TG&Y tenants was done, including the mention of MJDesigns, more info on Amber's, and more accurate dates on King Dollar and Harbor Freight Tools. Removed tag [2000s].
UPDATE 07-14-2025: The post has received a new update by going over the center again, with most entries being rewritten for clarity or new information including adding new footnotes. More former tenants have been added with a few new tags being added or added back.

Walmart College Station

Walmart as it is today, during a soggy day in May 2019

When this post was originally published in January 2011, it was already a few years old based after an even older post from my old blog, Two Way Roads, so shortly after the old version of this post went "under the knife" to be revitalized for a September 2019 rewrite, parts of it are almost 10 years old. As it was written so long ago, it takes on a distinctly different approach than more modern posts.

By the time I actually did get around to rewriting it, nearly every restaurant, retail, and other place in my youthful days in College Station has been covered, excluding parks, churches, and schools. I've been familiar with the Walmart at 1815 Brothers Boulevard, store #1150 since the mid-1990s. I remember when it expanded from its original 1988 footprint (when the storefront was colored brown--but not much more than that). I remember when blue-vested employees handed out smiley face stickers and there was a lot more American goods there than today. I remember when my family started going here more often because the Kmart across the street closed.


Albertsons and Walmart back in 1995. Notice the Walmart completing its first expansion.
Many of the photos seen below are from the 2009-2010 renovation, which seemed exciting at the time and allowed me to better document the 1995-era store as I remembered it. One of my old cell phone pictures below is a map of the emergency evacuation plan, which is a floorplan of the store. It's old because "Radio Grill" was written over McDonald's, and by that time, Radio Grill was long gone.

Floorplan of the store as it appeared pre-renovation
Using the above map as a guide I'll try to walk through the original store. On the immediate right when walking in was the One-Hour Photo booth, a full photo/camera department that could develop film as well as camera and film sales, including the ever-popular disposal camera, you bought one (usually a color like green), you used it up, you returned it to the store and got the photos back. Customer Service was after that. Customer Service had restrooms (admittedly pretty dirty, but remember the "hand" shaped water fountains? I overlaid my hand on them as I pushed them, but eventually they just switched to the regular "PUSH" buttons). I remember they had atlases there, and even at one time, a Daytona USA arcade machine!

The next space over was the new restaurant, initially open as a McDonald's restaurant. This is where the store really opened up. If you looked from McDonald's you could see the checkouts and the way down to the garden area. The McDonald's looked like any McDonald's of the time, complete with a bench with Ronald sitting there. Ronald was a great photo-op (you could sit next to him) but sometime later they removed the bench and replaced him with a creepy (and not at all affable) statue of Ronald standing up. Monster Ronald disappeared when McDonald's closed sometime around 1999. It was replaced with Radio Grill, a vaguely-1950s themed snack bar with greasy hamburgers and hot dogs. While some may liberally toss the "greasy food" label around, Radio Grill was nothing more than that. And forgettable greasy food, since I don't remember much about it. This lasted until 2006, when it was torn out for Subway. Subway was a bit different, featuring a false brick facade, and instead the food in the back, the serving line was on the north side of the area rather than the back.

Directly behind the restaurant was where a lot of the A&M merchandise (shirts, etc.) were kept, with the area nearest the men's section, which had a huge row of jeans.

Along the back wall, there were large pictures that were awfully dated by the late 2000s, one had a family eating watermelon, two boys laughing, a drawing of a moon with some 1990s script lettering. The boys section was where I got most of my clothes (my mother bought them, anyway) growing up, and the jewelry was the place where I got a few of my watches. The dressing room was located in the middle of the women's clothing: a shoddy operation, with only five dressing rooms and only one mens room.

The electronics section was largely a "pen" in the middle of the store, kept that way so they could check out items (as they were high-price). Originally, games were on the left, videos on the right. The games had a scanner system so you could scan a bar code and watch a video of the game on overhead TVs. By 2004, it mostly not working, as was the terrible GBC model they had bolted in to the wall (the right button on the D-pad was completely screwed up by 2001). I remember this because one time I had stayed behind in the electronics section to play The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. The right button on the D-pad became the least of my concerns when my dad found me...

In 2005, they rearranged the department, so that from left to right (you entered from the right, so it was left to right in your perspective): computer peripherals, DVDs, music, video games, iPods, AV equipment. The electronics section really was a nasty place, as it was cramped and was run-down due to negligent parents using the electronics department as a day care. Early yet random memories include a floor-to-ceiling stack of N64s and either a stand-up Donkey Kong 64 or Pokémon Snap display. Or both. I think the original electronics section became the pharmacy later: our family's now-defunct Performa 550 came from this Wal-Mart, but I don't remember it being the modern electronics section.

The shoe department was another large department with slanted mirrors, and when my siblings and I were kids, we would try to "roll" down the floor as it appeared that the floor was slanted. (Nowadays I can't even imagine touching the floor of Walmart, but it was a different store back then, like not perpetually crowded.)

The hardware section I seem to remember had fans overhanging the section, at least in the beginning. There was also a paint chip (with the paper color strips) center which I remember being abandoned out in the rain (complete with all the old strips) after the renovation happened.

Fabrics was absolutely massive as a department, and had all the thread, rugs, creepy dolls that you can paint, and wax fruit you could ever need. It wasn't as big as Hobby Lobby, but had all the basics (including a particular flowery smell). The actual fabric cutting table was very long and had at least two people and a line. Nowadays the fabric cutting table is just an aisle endcap, and you'd be lucky to see one person there. Additionally, the spray paint section had a vandalized section that was used as "testing". I submitted the photo to Cheezburger when it was still relevant but I don't think they ever posted it officially on Fail Blog, which I still regularly visited when I took this round of photos.

No big memories on toys. I bought a Pokémon board game here and some Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars, but that was long ago (to put it in perspective, I used to get said little cars at Kmart). I don't really have a lot of toy memories: the KB Toys and Toys R Us were both far away from home, and I never went to either. Most prominent section was the bicycles, which ran down the corridor to the Garden Center.

The indoor garden center portion was strongly smelled of chemicals, but that was where we got the Amdro. The HBA department was another large department, it had images of medicine stuff above the pharmacy window, a large seating area, and a large section with shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, over-the-counter medicine (many of Equate, the house brand), hair coloring kits, and more. I believe this is where the 1988 entrance was, and ironically became the new site of the "main" entrance following the 2009-2010 renovation.

The pet section had rack shelving, and on the back wall, there were lots of embedded tanks in the wall with fish with colors on how they'd behave with others (green, yellow, and red). Red fish were aggressive (but there were few of them). Green fish would coexist with others peacefully. The "color" notation eventually disappeared.

The food section had a candy aisle, chips, two-liter sodas, and other dry staples. It was on the other side of the Electronics section, and the wall behind Electronics, which once had spillover from the "Paper Goods / Chemicals" department (like boxes of Kleenexes) later became home to coolers with beer (the license purchased from Albertsons after it closed).

The Vision Center, located to the left from the entrance once had a way that you could run all the way through the Vision Center, out the door, and in through the Wal-Mart main entrance. Near the Vision Center were old refrigerated shelves that had faded red, yellow, and blue striping. They sold milk. There was also a reasonable selection of books and magazines. For years, they sold most of the "Wizard of Oz" series. The garden center was also there, being a humid place where plants were sold.

And up until the early 2000s, there was an occasional tent sale in the parking lot.

Sometime around the mid-2000s, they replaced the carpet in the clothing department with faux hardwood, which quickly got quite nasty-looking from scratching carts, and by the late 2000s the whole store was run-down and filthy.

But around September 2009, the local Wal-Mart decided to finally start remodeling into a Supercenter, ending rumors and putting to rest their plan to open at a proposed shopping center off Rock Prairie Road. And for the next six months or so, I was really excited. I took pictures. I attended the grand opening. I got cake at the grand opening, two types.

But the Supercenter wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. It was really huge in terms of square footage, 254,000 square feet (likely counting the garden center). This put it on par with the late 1980s "hypermarkets". The store's layout also resembled Target in many aspects. Unfortunately, they wasted a lot of space, in the backrooms, in the main store, it was a real disappointment. They actually admitted to lowering shelf height and widening aisles as part of new chainwide merchandising. The lights changed, making the store much more sterile than before. I didn't like it.

Every department shrunk. The electronics section was admittedly more open with even a display Wii, which I'm sure won't last long. Electronics was the only one that didn't downscale dramatically. Everything, Cosmetics, Jewelry, Health & Beauty, Pharmacy, Mens, Pets, Womens, Fabric, Shoes, Vision Center, everything pretty much was sliced down. Not a lot of new checkouts opened up, and they didn't even open a portrait studio in the front arcade area. A larger Subway opened up, however, but the large restaurant was one of the filthiest Subway dining areas I'd seen.

The food section wasn't that impressive: it had HVAC ceilings but plain concrete floors. They didn't bother to do anything to it. And rotesserie chickens, one of my favorite features of the Hewitt Wal-Mart Supercenter, weren't really phased in until months later. I think I got my hopes up, because I was comparing to a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Hewitt that opened in 2003 or 2004. They took out a section of parking lot for a retention pond as well, but did not even add a gas station (Murphy USA) until several yeas later.

Also, the name irritated me: they just called it "Walmart", even though it had a Supercenter inside, due to a recent corporate change that removed the Supercenter signage from the outside of stores. Much to my chagrin, Wal-Mart Supercenter stores in Houston were later repainted tan and redubbed as "Walmart".

Not much sooner had it reopened that it was the opening to an incident that left a Fort Worth police officer critically injured, and shoplifting started to dramatically increase, culminating in a shooting, wherein a military-trained LP officer was forced to shoot a shoplifter, which had both a gun (which he managed to get out of him during a struggle) and a knife. During that time, the Walmart just got as filthy as it did before the remodel, with shoplifting so high that employees harassed customers at the door for a receipt.

Here are the photos taken during the remodeling process. These first ones were taken early on in the process, around October 2009 or so.


The first order of business was to rip into the old Albertsons.


The new pharmacy, then floating in a sea of cheap t-shirts


The new pharmacy, again


A barrier was put up on the side of the store where the addition would come in. As of February 1, 2010, the actual walls had not come down yet, but this is looking up to the ceiling. I never did find out when the walls actually came down.

Old vision center. This was a fairly open area originally, with this part of the lobby in front of the checkout stand. A bench was around here.
Checkout stands have been moved back.

Makeshift vision center. It eventually moved to an alcove spot in front of the store.



This is around Easter break, after the original entrance had closed



A rainy day in February, I believe. This has the original walls of the store, and also proves that the Yelp photo is incorrect.



New signage. Identities obscured.



I'm not sure when this picture was taken. It was early 2010, that's all I know.



Another angle.

Look out! A giant spider! This was what the "Outdoor Living" entrance area looked like when it was new and fully enclosed in early 2010 (as the rest of the pictures were).


Before I got an iPhone, this was my cellphone wallpaper.


This used to be Subway, taken sometime in April or late March.


...

Velcro board so departments could move around.
In 2016, the store remodeled, mostly changing out décor and signage, moving some departments around, painting the grocery department white (instead of yellow) and tearing out the floor tiles, which had been replaced in 2010 with new tiles, but even the 2010 tiles now had to go for a uniform concrete floor, but with it, I can't find where the 1988 store ends and the 1995 store begins.

UPDATE 05-13-2024: A second remodel was done in 2024. This changed the exterior appearance of the store (mostly repainting) but notably moved the pharmacy and HBA department closer to where it was originally.