Today a Walgreens, this was the home of one of my family's favorite places to eat in the 1990s, Confucius Chinese Cuisine (2322 Texas Avenue South). In older versions of this page, I provided two links comparing the 1995 aerial to the 2011 aerial. You can see the same thing with Historic Aerials or a copy of Google Earth (just search for the address).
Where Walgreens occupies today replaces two smaller buildings that it redeveloped in the early 2000s (this was before Walgreens pulled an even larger scheme at Villa Maria Road).
The first was a Chinese restaurant. Opening as Jade Garden in 1984 at 2322 Texas Avenue South, but in early 1987 it closed and was replaced with Confucius Chinese Cuisine.1
My first Chinese food was from Piknik Pantry but it was Confucius Chinese Cuisine that I later loved.
While I sadly do not have a picture for Confucius Chinese Cuisine (and I did look, though buried on Project HOLD you can see the sign, however, I can't find it either), it was housed in a building at the corner of Brentwood and Texas Avenue. I still remember how cool it looked on the inside and out. It had a curved Chinese-style roof, the sign had one word in orange, one in green, and one in red. And those were lit up at night. Inside, to the right you had the restrooms, a mural was toward the front, with what appeared to be a crowd of tiny Buddhas playing, and the décor was mostly red and gold, with the aquarium bubbling in the background (complete with an eel that never became a dish).
It was my family's go-to place for Sunday after-church dinners. The buffet was a single line with some really good egg rolls but I don't know if it was good or if I just thought so because I was young and didn't know what good food tasted like (it was markedly better than the old Chinese buffets in town following its closure, which admittedly isn't saying much). However, there is evidence it really was special, as someone had requested the Hot and Sour Soup the restaurant offered and the owner, Howard Chang, couldn't give a recipe as it was in the way how it was prepared, not following a recipe (or mixing up whatever Sysco, et. al. provided). Regrettably, it closed in 2000.
Next door was Tops: The Office Products Store (1981-1987), and later replaced with College Station Pawn Shop, with its diamond logo. The pawn shop was, for years, wedged between two Chinese restaurants, Confucius Chinese Buffet and the far less elaborate-looking Imperial Chinese Restaurant at Brazos Square. Not too long after Confucius Chinese Cuisine's closure, it and College Station Pawn Shop were torn down for a Walgreens (using Confucius Chinese Cuisine's address). College Station Pawn Shop later moved to a space at Manuel and Texas Avenue for a while but it was later torn down for a bank, and by 2007 it was in Brazos Square, directly next to where it was.
1. Deed changes suggest it was initially leased to Confucius Chinese Cuisine and later buying the building outright before selling it to Walgreens.
UPDATE 11-05-2020: Clarified previous name and date. Previously updated February 2019 to account for more accurate closing date, revisions in writing, and cutting out Brazos Square info.
UPDATE 10-05-2025: Did some rewriting and added information on Tops. This current version doesn't mention the Brentwood signal, I think it was added within a year of Confucius Chinese Cuisine's closure.
