Putt-Putt Golf & Games

Putt-Putt's building today

The College Station of my youth featured a variety of businesses and restaurants covered on this website (as of 2025 most if not all have been covered), and among them was Putt-Putt Golf. Opened July 31, 1988, the original set-up of the local Putt-Putt Golf (owned by franchisee Tom Turbiville) was little more than a collection of lighted putting greens and a clubhouse, with a notable lack of windmills and other features, as Putt-Putt was designed to be skill-based rather than luck.

In 1991, the golf course was sold to the corporation, which revamped it with bumper boats, a batting cage, and aesthetic upgrades to the park including several fiberglass animal statues (giraffes, elephants, etc.) for a vague "safari" theme. Other enhancements, like a larger clubhouse and a go-kart track were scuttled.
The logo a. It's an edited version from the now-defunct Putt-Putt of Rome, Georgia, which did not update their logo, enabling me edit it for the purposes of this article.
I want to say that the clubhouse wasn't air-conditioned though I'm not sure about that. In any case, while the bumper boats and mini-golf were unique, it was no Gattiland. If you wanted to have fun as a kid in those days or wanted a cool place to have a birthday, you went to Gattiland, case closed. (The public swimming pools were a close second.) No one at my school wanted to do a birthday at Putt-Putt. Probably because of that fact (and everyone knew it), Putt-Putt just got sadder and more run-down over the years. The bumper boats went first, closing in the early 2000s (not that it was very big, I think it could only fit four), then the Putt-Putt name ("Brazos Valley Golf & Games" was the new name, though even by 2006 it was still known as Putt-Putt according to the newspaper). By 2005, they had converted the bumper boats area to a skatepark, which seemed mildly popular. In 2006, it was closed permanently, with only some tattered mini-golf holes, an overgrown abandoned batting cage, and those fiberglass animals, now fading in the sun.

Eventually the batting cage and mini-golf remnants were demolished, and the bumper boats area filled in for good for its new tenant: Paradise Scuba, which relocated from Parkway Square. They doubled the size of the old arcade building, even adding in a swimming pool inside (why they didn't use the old Bumper Boats area, who knows). They did, however, leave the lighthouse from the bumper boats area, though the lower rungs were removed so you couldn't climb up.



Paradise Scuba opened in September 2008 closed in June 2012 for good, despite the renovations to the property. Two years later, it reopened as a second location of Aggieland Cycling, which presumably filled in the pool inside. Neither business used the old batting cages area, and in late 2016, Domino's began to build a new location there (replacing their location on Texas Avenue near Deacon and Sunset Gardens), which opened in April 2017. The Domino's (no "Pizza" anymore due to corporate rebranding) has the address of 1801 Valley View, and unlike its old location, features dine-in seating. Weirdly, the official "entrance" to the pizza restaurant is the far side of Aggieland Cycling's parking lot, the closer driveway (shared with Aggieland Cycling) is supposed to be an exit-only lane.

The lighthouse is the last recognizable piece of Putt-Putt (and even then, the 1991 re-do) and since the loss of Putt-Putt, there wasn't anything resembling mini-golf for a long time. Sure, Grand Station Entertainment had indoor glow-in-the-dark mini-golf with some Western theme going on, and of course (more recently) PopStroke but during the late 2000s and 2010s...nothing.

UPDATE 01-16-2025: Major rewrite done.

Target College Station

My picture is from 2012, and it represents Target's second renovation. It originally didn't look like this, and altered slightly since.

2100 Texas Avenue South

We have talked about Kmart (which is gone). We talked about Walmart (which is still there). And now we get to Target.



Well, the Target in College Station (T-800) opened in July 22, 1992 and has only been remodeled once, around 2005-2006 or whereabouts (I don't remember when). I do remember the old store, though I'm glad I had a few memory jogs since then (including a visit to a two-story yet unrenovated Target, a few pictures of a Target of that vintage, a visit to a Kmart, and this excellent blog post [contains language]).

Well, unlike that link shared in Dumpy Strip Malls, which showed the interior of an early 1990s Target, this store looked different. There was still aluminum hand railings near the check-outs, a rather unimpressive in-store eatery, a store that smelled like popcorn (what's wrong with that?), but the signage was colorful, with large signage directing you to different parts of the store, with arrows and red/blue/green/yellow signage on the departments and signage to them (a "department signage example" here, though it's an old one). In fact, the whole store had these red/green/blue/yellow neon strips around the store. You can see a glimpse of that at Southridge Mall, Des Moines, Iowa, which opened the same day as the College Station one and delightfully hadn't renovated yet, so you can see that from inside the storefront (Sadly, it has since been remodeled). You might also find better pictures if you do some Flickr digging, but that's on your own time.

The store wasn't all that different from the one that's there now: the store was a different color on the outside (whiter) and the departments were arranged differently, with a different merchandise mix. I know the electronics were toward the front of the store, near where the pharmacy is (I remember that the Dreamcast games were closest to the front wall) and that the foods section (very different back then, mostly just chips, candy, and soda) was near the checkout stands. Regrettably, I can't remember much more than that (unlike the Wal-Mart, which only changed its departments more recently--plus I went to Wal-Mart a LOT more than Target). I remember the dressing rooms hadn't changed all that much (a bit nicer), the food area renovated, and the water fountains were finally cool (that's what bothered me about the old store: the water at the fountains was always warm). I remember the systems at the Customer Service desk advertising baby registry or Club Wedd...those didn't change too much (except for flat screens).

The toy section was in the far right back section of the store.

The post-remodel store, which finished by 2006 boasted a huge food section (this was before the P-Fresh model, so it lacks things like pre-packaged fruits and meats, and certainly things that SuperTarget would have) which added dozens of foods adorned with brand names and the Archer Foods name (Target's house brand). It even added milk, which Target lacked before (Wal-Mart always had it)

I don't know what it replaced, though I think it was some hardline goods that Target no longer carries (like gardening supplies or automotive--or they just shrunk the categories in everything else), and that's one of the reasons I don't like Target as a discount store, the small selection of hardlines, and the fact that the quality of some items aren't much better than Walmart's (take my advice, don't buy analog clocks at Target). Later on, Target did some more updates, like updating signage.

One final memory: when I was younger, there was some little glass display that appeared around Christmastime, with some sort of thing that spun around to the bottom. It had lots of fake "snow" and I think it was some sort of mini-Christmas village. Anyone remember it, know what I'm talking about? No?

Since this post was added in 2012, one more change has occurred, which updated the décor again to dark grey walls. The layout remained more or less the same, however.

UPDATE 01-14-2025: After the last update in 2019, it has DEFINITELY changed with the new logo, facade, and pickup locations (in 2022). Other than removing one line, adding an archived link, and updating the tags (a new [texas avenue] one has been added), nothing else has been done to the page. On the subject of that Southridge store, it started as the exact same floorplan as the store, only flipped—though it does show that my memories about where everything was a little off.

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.

Briarcrest AppleTree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ramada Aggieland Inn

This paint job was never used for an operational hotel.
Opening in summer 1974 as the Aggieland Inn (named after a long-defunct hotel on campus, which had long been functionally replaced by the MSC and gone for many years), this hotel was initially successful with its restaurant ("Whistle Stop") but in the mid-1980s renamed to Aggieland Hotel. After (or around the time) Ramada pulled its name from a bankrupt hotel down the road, the it was renamed Ramada Aggieland Hotel, then Ramada Inn (which it was for years), then simply "Ramada" (due to rebranding). In 2010, the owners of the Ramada name, Wyndham Worldwide, built a new Ramada near the corner of University Drive East and Earl Rudder Freeway, and the name of this hotel changed to Aggieland Inn.

Football program, 1988-1989

Even before losing the name, the Ramada had been going on a downhill trend for years, there's a story about how the restaurant (by this time, having long dropped the Whistle Stop name and advertising outside of hotel guests) accidentally(?) gave food poisoning to the Longhorn football team circa '99, and other minor stories of what happened there. Moving the Ramada to the highway was surely planned a few years before, and in late 2007, an ambitious plan was announced to turn the Ramada into upscale student housing. The late AbouTown Press covered this in December 2007, which you can see the scans of below (click for higher resolution).




As Aggieland Inn, as it was in the 1970s and 1980s, the hotel got miserable reviews. The hotel shut down in September 2011 (KBTX's link was down, this was before I learned to archive links) just prior to football season. In 2013, it got a repaint and was rumored to reopen for the fall, but it never did. Here's a Google Maps 45° view of the hotel before the repaint.

The restaurant/lobby/banquet hall building is about the size of the hotel itself.
In addition to the new photo at the top of the page, in April 2015, I made a visit to snap some more pictures. However, there were lots of No Trespassing signs in the area, and I wasn't going to get arrested for some semi-defunct blog I was just updating, so here's one more shot of the hotel (I didn't get too close to the lobby part, unfortunately).

It almost looks decent...

The redevelopment around 2015-2016 essentially split the property into two parts. The hotel itself got a big renovation inside and out, with the pool out front demolished for a new lobby, and the peaked roof removed for a new hotel, TRYP by Wyndham. The hotel (with a new address of 1508 Texas Avenue S.) eventually opened in November 2017.

The lobby and restaurant space of the old Aggieland Inn was gutted and became a strip mall.

Picture from August 2019.
Suite 100 was Urban Bricks Pizza Co., which opened May 2017, closed in early 2019, reopened later that year, and closed for good in February 2020. Wayback Burgers opened September 2016 but closed December 2018. The others are Fancy Nails & Spa (Ste. 300), Ye Star Chinese Buffet (Ste. 400), and SignatureCare Emergency Center. The privately owned emergency room opened first in 2016. Ye Star and Fancy Nails I believe opened in 2017.

UPDATE 03-12-2022: As of March 2022, the hotel is now known as "Aggieland Boutique Hotel" (who knows if TRYP quietly closed for a time). Also, Suite 200, the former Wayback Burgers, reopened in early 2021 as "Smokerz Paradize".
UPDATE 02-17-2023: I typically don't do minor strip mall updates, but Dave's Hot Chicken opened in December 2022 in the former Urban Bricks space.

Around Tejas Center

May 19, 2012 Note: This will remain until I get the new post about Manor East Mall up.

New storefront colors

To the left of Jo-Ann, the former JCPenney


There's a cinder-blocked entrance here. Don't worry, it's much easier to see in real life.


Back of old Wal-Mart


This is the current The Theater Company. Not much activity here now.


Former JCPenney interior entrance.


Looking back toward Montgomery Ward. You can see the old E-W corridor roofs, which have been renovated into in-line space. On my only trip to Manor East in 2000, this area was closed off, and there was a bench right about in front of me.

Settling with our new name and focus, I'll be steadily adjusting some of the older posts (and getting rid of the index page) to fit the new feel of the site. I might change the background picture too, to something more Texan. Anyway, I drove around Tejas Center on April 7, and took these pictures.

Parkway Square

The Kroger's facade was once dated but at least looked okay as compared to this disaster.
This was one of the first posts on the blog, and has of course gone through numerous updates and rewrites (a rather extensive one in 2013 with updates in 2014). The post originally started out with a post back on the HAIF many years ago when I was young and relatively naïve. Parkway Square holds a good bit of nostalgia for me (of course) and by this point, most of the buildings around it have been covered, something not even conceived when the post was originally made: Red Line Burgers across the street, Fort Shiloh, Manor House Inn, and Shipley Do-Nuts.


Construction on Parkway Square seems to have taken a long time, it opened in 1982 (from what I've heard from DrFood, and confirmed by KBTX, but I also wonder if this is one of those "self-confirming things" where KBTX just "researched" it here) but construction was announced in 1979. Part of the problem must have the drainage, as the parking lot is built out of numerous concrete "squares" sitting on top of a drainage area. In 2016, the center was updated, giving the Kroger a repaint to make it look miles nicer after an unfortunate stucco disaster, as well as giving a new roadside sign, replacing its dated early 1980s signage with something that is bland but at least modern. This lasted a matter of months.


Aerial of shopping center being built, from Project HOLD
Growing up in the 1990s in College Station was a time when there was a wide variety of supermarkets, where there was an H-E-B Pantry, two Albertsons stores, a Kroger, an AppleTree, and prior to around 1997, a Winn-Dixie and a Randalls. Of course, none of that mattered if you only went to two. For me, those were the H-E-B Pantry at Holleman and Texas Avenue (now a DSW) and the Kroger.

H-E-B Pantry of course was nice and homey, but it was Kroger that was the cooler, better one (even if it was older), and that was the anchor that was always there at Parkway Square, so I'd like to share a few words about it. It was a classic "Greenhouse" Kroger with "bauhaus" lettering if I recall correctly (there are lots of Flickr pictures related to that and what they mean), there was a red stripe running the perimeter of the store, the deli/bakery area (it was a small, combined department, and still is) had some seating near the entrance to the video department (more on that later), and the entrances and exits were very small and simple. One door in, one door out, operating by spring-loaded carpets. This was at the far right end of the store (that is, if you were looking at it from Texas Avenue). They had large arrows on them.

But enough on Kroger for now, we'll discuss that red stripe and all in a second. To maintain compatibility with the Texas Avenue directory I made, I'll have to start from the Firestone at the corner, which I'm not sure is actually part of the shopping center.

2400 - 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--until a management change). It appears it is the original tenant, as it was listed in the 1984 phone book.

2402D - The combined 2402 space (all tenants) is taken by "China King Buffet". This used to be Old Country Buffet, which I never liked, even before I stopped liking (and started hating) Golden Corral. I think it closed circa 2004, along with others in the state. It later became China King Buffet by the mid-2000s, which I remember eating at once. It was bland, and seemed overly large for the space, but I don't remember getting sick from it, which is probably why it has still stayed in business without any name changes (it did "renovate" once though). It remains open as of July 2016, though the recent renovation took away its distinctive "peak" shaped storefront from the OCB days. I might have a picture somewhere, I should add that in a future update. I actually think this was originally a Chinese restaurant originally...there was originally one "B B's Chinese Restaurant" in the early 1980s, though sharing the address of Firestone (which did exist at the time and was new) instead of its modern address, 2402-D.

2404 - RAC Rent-a-Center has been here for the last several years. 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, which moved out around 2003 when the new center with Hobby Lobby and Ross Dress for Less was built.

2406A - Resale & More is here and has been here since at least around 2009. I don't remember what was here before it.

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).

2406D - USA Nails I believe has been here for a long time, possibly changing its name from another nail salon.

2408 - The original 2408 (please ignore the typo on the official PDF) was a TG&Y Family Center.

It was a larger version of the TG&Y five-and-tens (basically, a discount store, which almost every five-and-ten did). It's worth noting that the parent company of TG&Y sold out in October 1985 (same time as this ad), so I'm guessing TG&Y didn't last much longer here.


After the closure of TG&Y, it (eventually) became Gold's Gym and Amber's, an arts & crafts store based out of Dallas. The Amber's opened in 1988 when it moved from Post Oak Square, and after Amber's closed (it closed a few years after most of the other stores in the chain, lasting well into 1996), it became MJDesigns before they too went bankrupt, at which point it became Stein Mart. After Gold's moved in the early 2000s, it became King Dollar (opened 2003) and Harbor Freight Tools (opened 2004). For years, Harbor Freight took 2408A, King Dollar next door took 2408D, and Stein Mart took 2408B.

Stein Mart unfortunately went bankrupt in 2020 and closed all of its stores.

2410 - Initially a location of "Chuck-E-Cheese Pizza Time Theatre" (as the chain was called), which was gone by 1989, with the area not getting another Chuck E. Cheese until the year 2005. That means, of course, that growing up, I never got to have any birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese because it didn't exist in my town, but that also means I was spared any childhood trauma from the animatronics.

After that it became one of the more intriguing concepts in the history of Kroger supermarkets that I've never seen anywhere else...an attached video store called Family Center Video, though admittedly the set-up was pretty useless. Because of the differences in elevation between Kroger and the video store, about three feet, there were stairs and a ramp (it may or may not have been ADA compliant, at least by today's standards), but the ramp was usually gated off, meant for those with disabilities and not for those with big shopping carts. I don't think I saw ANYONE actually transfer between the Kroger store and the video store, especially considering that it wasn't near any checkouts or entryways inside the Kroger. It probably would've been cheaper to demolish it and drop it to Kroger's level, which would let it be used for food and drug space, and perhaps ultimately save the store (see below).

FCV disappeared pretty quickly after the arrival of Hastings (probably closing 1999), and the space sat empty until Half Price Books moved in around the early 2000s (2003/2004), and that was after the Kroger moved in. If you walked in HP Books near (ironically) the video section, you could notice a slight depression when you walked near the wall. 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. The video store closed in the late 1990s (1998, 1999), perhaps because of the fact that you couldn't buy groceries at the video side, or vice versa, but the restrooms were kept into the Half Price Books era, and may still be there. The Half Price Books replaced it circa 2003/2004, and was there up until 2011. 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, and 2410 remained vacant until January 2020 when Uptown Cheapskate moved in.

This is looking straight through to the old entrance from the Kroger. Prior to the video store's closure, there was a small area with seating.

2412 - The biggest tenant of the plaza, Kroger, was just a bit over 46k square feet, which is far smaller than the H-E-B, though it was larger than the Pantry. In July 2016, it was announced that the Kroger would be closing forever in August. Seeing how it's the largest and one of the longest-lasting tenants in the center, let's talk about it a bit.

The history of how this Kroger came to be is a bit murky, as it was a former "Greenhouse" store (image links for those who have no idea what that means) but was also known as "Kroger Family Center" through most of its life and had a store number (997) usually assigned to those were full-fledged Kroger Family Center stores, like the one in Bryan was .

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.

One more thing I remember was that the milk area contained a lower ceiling and was tucked in a little corner of the store, forced down that way by the beer aisle (which, by the way, was once rumored to have sold more kegs than any other supermarket in the nation). Little plastic mock-ups of milk (and an orange juice) displayed prices. I've never seen anything like it since.

The floorplan resembled, except for the aforementioned entrance to the video store, the "Superstore" design in terms of floorplan (and some other people on this page back that up).


The Kroger was unofficially known as the "Kroger Family Center" even into the 2000s, even though they never had the Family Center merchandise mix, it was planned to be so, even gaining the store number that the Family Center stores had instead of the common early 1980s Greenhouse stores. I don't believe it was ever a Family Center, as it was built as a definite Greenhouse.

This is where the original exits were. You had to go straight and then left out through tiny doors.
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 kid could fit in there. Well, around 2001 or so, it renovated (very cheaply) to a then-contemporary décor package 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.

Were these tiles even touched? Gross!

Most of my visits to Kroger post-renovation have been for convenience. I remember being mildly impressed post-renovation in early 2002, 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. When KBTX announced the closure in 2016, I was a bit surprised that it would come this soon but also had a twinge of sadness, as this was, after all, my childhood's Kroger (in August 2016 it 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".


2414 - To the left of the Kroger growing up was Roly Poly Rolled Sandwiches, which was in the Parkway Square of my youth (even if it opened in 1999, as I later found out, and not 1997). It lasted into the early 2000s with the sign and interior décor remaining up until the mid-2000s). I always thought it was a one-off, but it was actually a full franchise concept. Roly Poly sat vacant for a while, then it became "Next Level Sports" circa 2008-2009 (mostly tennis), and after that BVMMA (Brazos Valley Mixed Martial Arts). I believe it's vacant again, after BVMMA moved to the mall a few years back.

2414A - Texas State Optical has been here for as long as I can remember, probably even as far back as 1996. I would have to pull out my directory scan to confirm that though. It too has closed up by 2018, though.

2414B - Based on what I could find, it looks like TSO has absorbed this space, but originally this 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. For the College Station H-E-B, it's Spec's (even though it's a stoplight down), for the Tejas Center H-E-B it's Libations, for the Tower Point H-E-B, it's Whiskey Charlie's #3, and both College Station Albertsons had Western Beverages nearby, as does the Bryan Kroger. The Rock Prairie Kroger likewise has a nearby Spec's (formerly JJ's). The closure of Whiskey Charlie's in about 2012-2013 should've been a red flag that the Kroger wasn't going to make it.

2416A - Like China King, this space (a restaurant) takes up the 2416 space as well. Honey-B Ham & Deli (not to be confused with "Honeybaked Ham", a chain) was here for a long time. In late June 2009 it closed and was replaced with Taz (though not immediately), 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 that used to be a Christian bookstore in the late 1990s and early 2000s, though results are turning up for a Pack & Mail. Maybe it was Smoothie King that the bookstore was in. Advance America mentions that this opened in 2003. Sounds right.

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 reopened as Le Macaron French Pastries.

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 (though I swear it was a year or so later), the "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 - Then there's Gomez Shoe Repair (originally Cobblestone Quality Shoe Repair, I vaguely remember when they changed the name, but I forgot when). 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 - This has been more or less vacant for a while, between late 2009 (when they signed the lease) and 2011 (when they were locked out), this was Moosegus. I believe this used to be the original Subway (see Subway's entry further down). In the previous version of this, I claimed they never opened. I was wrong, they did! It was a skateboard/wakeboard/snowboard store. The immediate problem with that it was for a market that didn't exist. At the time it opened (late 2009/early 2010), the skateboard park there on Rock Prairie didn't exist, BearX off Deacon didn't exist, and snowboarding? Well...you know the answer.

It is now the home of Liberty Tattoo, which it has been since at least summer 2018.

2418D2 - This was Farmers Insurance, which I think was the old Jackson Hewitt. The latter was intact in 2008, and had opened several years prior to that, but by 2008 the sign was rather faded. It later reopened as Lara & Associates Insurance.

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. I learned that when applying for a job at a local Subway (as Centex Subway did a group interview...and my old early 1980s phone books later confirmed) and although I ultimately didn't get the job, it was still a really neat piece of information. I seem to remember a store called "Beepers" (or at least the facade being called such) being around here until around 2000.

2418E - This was the former Buck's Pizza, closed circa 2010. They left the menu board intact, which you can see below. Never ate at Buck's all that much, but they had okay pizza rolls when I did have it. (For what it's worth, Buck's was here in 1998). As of 2016, it reopened as "Twisted Noodle Cafe" (guess they got rid of the pizza equipment), which I have yet to eat at.

2418F - For many years, this was FabricCare Cleaners. It had a drive-through window, but it moved in the mid-2000s, and became Tobacco Junction, which utilized the drive-through but closed after less than a few years. The awning was removed it stayed vacant for several years. It is now Daiquiri Barn, which has done even better since it opened (in 2018-2019?) due to state law changes on drive-through liquor sales.




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 2005-2006, the playground was removed to alleviate this situation. The playground was the worst: 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. 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 stick, for instance, looked like it had been chewed off.

The sign is fairly unique as well--it was originally a full McDonald's sign, but it was destroyed by a windstorm circa 2009-2010. It either had gotten grandfathered in from new sign ordinances and couldn't rebuild, or maybe McDonald's was just cheap--but they removed 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.

So 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.

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].

University Square Shopping Center / Legacy Point

A still-standing reminder of what the center was. All but one was gone as of this when this photo was taken in 2012 with my old cell phone camera. The Junction pulled out in summer of 2012 and was replaced by "Piranha Fitness Studio". At the time, there was a smaller sign signed as Legacy Point closer to IHOP.

This used to be one of the more popular posts on this blog and to this day, the picture of the closed Albertsons (since demolished) is used as the Facebook header. When I first made this post back in 2011 the whole thing looked WILDLY different and with Hurricane Harry's closure in December 2024 and impending demolition I have to reformat everything again and give it a different look.

This post doesn't cover the restaurants on the perimeter of the property as those I've already covered. From northeast heading clockwise, there's the now-defunct Rooster's Bike & Coffee Shop, Schlotzsky's, IHOP, Chipotle Mexican Grill (sorry, no post yet--but it used to be a Mobil), Taco Bell, and McDonald's. (All of which I added after this post was made in 2011.)

Going on a tour of the old configuration (featuring my old cell phone camera, which is why the photos here look a bit weird), for years (since approximately 1991, if I recall correctly), there was a little Cajun food place called Hebert's Cajun Food. It wasn't that cheap, but it was fast, delicious, and worth it: much like a food truck. It closed on June 15th, 2012 with more pictures (not mine) here, and later moved to a variety of locations, including Village Foods for about a year, a short-lived physical location in Caldwell, and as of this writing, operating in Coldspring, Texas.

There was also a coffee shop, "Java Jitters" just directly across it, which was a small shack operated by the same owners of Hebert's (the same guy ran both shacks, but obviously never simultaneously). Never went to it, it was only open in the mornings. The addresses of Hebert's and Java Jitters were 727 University Drive and 729 University Drive, respectively. You can see my pictures below.


Java Jitters, gutted.

From what I've found, 729 University was "Film & Photos No. 2248" in 1980 (a drive-through photo kiosk, the types the terrorists drive into at the end of Back to the Future) and Nachos to Go in 1993, but the wooden shack of Java Jitters was definitely not a photo booth.

I also took the picture (a few, actually!) of the A+ Tutoring/Fat Burger building, which had both closed after the spring 2012 semester (but before the demolition). It wasn't an unfamiliar location that semester, either, I had gone to both buildings in the semester prior: trying to pass Organic Chemistry through A+ (if you are a student or considering to be one, please do not do this, just study and know the material), or hanging out in Fat Burger (not related to the chain called Fatburger, that's different--seems it's confused Yelpers), which had a fixings bar (which is, of course, best at the beginning of the day). It lived up to its name--offering the 1/3 pound "Fat Burger" and the full-pound Bevo Burger. The fixings bar I don't have a picture of, only the gutted remains of it after the store closed. Seems like they also may have had a different logo at one time.

Neither tenant was original, Fat Burger's "goodbye" sign implied it was there since 1984, and from my existing notes, "Mo-Peds to Go", then "Tommy's" was at Fat Burger's site (suite A) and for suite B (A+), there was Budget Tapes & Records, which was a popular music chain at the time, then Music Express until around the mid-1980s.

I didn't take the front of A+, nor Fat Burger at night, unfortunately (Fat Burger had a half-burned out light--looking sadder than its better-kept Bryan counterpart, and A+ didn't light up at all). There was a picnic bench in front of both buildings. I know I remember (maybe circa 2003) that A+ actually had the "AT+" logo on the front, but it still must have ran afoul of TAMU logo usage. A 1995 directory refers to the spot as "A&M Tutoring" (the university cracked down on unlicensed use of "A&M" or "Aggie" in business names, but it's not clear if they had already changed their sign by that time).


On the side of the building, the original logo could still be seen. They offered CHEM 227 and CHEM 228, just not at the time they painted this.


Never thought to get Fat Burger delivered.



The front of the building, taken in daytime by a cell phone camera.

This location is gone, too, with both locations consolidating near what is now REI.

Right to the east of that was the main shopping center, which is now "The Stack Field" (just open space). The Albertsons was the largest tenant at the center, closed at the end of 1997, following the purchase of the Randalls store on University Drive East. The story of Albertsons life, death, and near-revival would make this post even longer so I had to outsource it to a sub-page.

As early as 2003 (presumably when the Albertsons revival deal was completely dead), the city was looking to improve on the center (which had lost Albertsons by that point) as part of a largely far-fetched Northgate redevelopment that would see University Square (eventually) get developed into something else: a "Cultural/Science Center" anchor, citing the Exploratorium as a model (and THIS I did hear about back in '03), a think tank/business incubator, or a mixed-use project that would incorporate a variety of restaurants and a modern movie theater. This all would all change, of course, when it was revealed that the center would be dramatically altered for a new mixed-use development, but ultimately all that resulted was a new development behind it, and some demolished buildings, most of which haven't been replaced since they were torn down. For years a sad-looking "Legacy Point" sign stood near the IHOP that used to be the sign of Albertsons long ago before being replaced by a Schlotzsky's sign years later. (Some "legacy".) However, after nearly after another decade, construction is moving forward with the eviction of the remaining tenants and eventual demolition...and Legacy Point seems to be a go after all.

From the 1973 Aggieland yearbook.

The abandoned store was demolished in the early 2010s, with also demolished soon after was 303 College. The first store here was Mitchells, a "department store" (actually mostly clothing) previously owned by Leonard Brothers of Fort Worth, which had been acquired in 1967 by Tandy Corporation and opened in 1972. By 1974, Tandy had disposed of the chain along with Leonard's (which was sold to Dillard's), but Mitchells continued to operate at University Square until around 1976. In 1977, Webster's Catalog Showroom opened in the spot. While this ad lists it as 306 College, both Mitchells (per ads) and Webster's (per a 1980 phone book) had it as 303 College Avenue. Tandy returned in the mid-1980s with McDuff Superstores, a store similar to their own Radio Shack chain but carrying a full line of electronics and appliances. Following the closure of McDuff in the mid-1990s it became a location of defunct bookstore chain "The Book Market" ever so briefly becoming Rother's, a college bookstore (later renamed as Traditions before its 2012 closure.

Hancock Fabrics was here from 1972 to 2007 (the store closed in a bankruptcy—the rest of the chain liquidated less than a decade later) before BCS Bicycles moved in. BCS Bicycles wouldn't stay for long before being banished to a former restaurant spot on the edge of the center.

Despite being still extant (the former Albertsons and the other stores down to the old BCS Bicycles spot was demolished in 2012), the last stores on the block are a little harder to track because of various expansions of Hurricane Harry's (313 College), which dates back to around 1992. The other side of the shopping center has a slightly taller roof. This used to be the Cineplex (later Plitt) III, a three-screen movie theater. It lasted through the various names of the supermarket, but closed in 1995 and was divided between an expansion of Hurricane Harry's, and well before the theater closed, it also shared the address with what was once simply "The Jewelry & Coin Exchange" (now "David's Jewelry & Coin Exchange" since late 2013; by the late 2010s they moved to a new location on University Drive East). The last tenant on the end (315 College, taking half of the theater) was TJ's Laser Tag, which was around from 1996 to 1999. I know my brother went a few times but I never got a chance before it closed.

That spot later became The Junction (a pool hall that didn't serve alcohol). The Junction eventually closed around 2012 and became Piranha Fitness Studio (I'm not sure when they moved out). There was also additional A+ classrooms at 311A College Avenue, but they're gone (later offices for Eccell Group and later still a makerspace called Starforge Foundry). At one time, 313C (unknown what's there now, but the building is still there) was a restaurant called "Fred's For Lunch" which sold submarine sandwiches and Blue Bell ice cream. Hurricane Harry's closed permanently in December 2024. It was brought up somewhere on TexAgs that they were operating on reduced rent and the current owners lacked the will, business acumen, or funds to try to make a go of itself elsewhere (which suggests that Harry's was underperforming). I believe as of January 2025 the shopping center is now completely empty. There is a chance I missed a tenant or two when writing about this, which I may mention at a later date.

UPDATE 01-12-2025: With the demise of Hurricane Harry's, this article got a complete rewrite and substantial update (again). Some of the tags for this post got changed too.
UPDATE 03-01-2025: The rest of the shopping center has been demolished. [demolished] added to post. This update has also fixed an unclosed tag and missing picture.