Wendy's on Texas Avenue

Picture by author, March 2025. The construction barrel in front contributed to WHY I could snap this picture from a (sort of) moving car.
Much like the other day, in the post "H-E-B Bryan Times Two", I referred to the "City Directory" of Carbon-izer.com and my efforts to phase it out (current version here, archived edition here. In this case, we're going back down on Texas Avenue to Wendy's, which the page puts as being open in 1977 (per tax filing) but it actually opened in 1978.

3216 South Texas Avenue was the address of the restaurant and it operated for thirty years at that location¹, as the number of Wendy's restaurants in the Bryan-College Station area grew to two (with the opening of the Southwest Parkway East location in 1984), three with the addition of their WJB store in 1998 (that's for another post), and a fourth with the opening of the Holleman store in late 2004.

In 2005, Wendy's tied for third with Whataburger and Jack in the Box, with both of them being behind McDonald's and Sonic. Since the Whataburger practically across the street at the Tejas Center lines up fairly closely with the demise of this Wendy's (pulling them ahead to third place, meaning Wendy's was now tied to Jack in the Box for fourth by definition) and likely had a hand in their demise. Game over.

By summer 2009, the restaurant has been repainted red, yellow, and white as Loanstar Title Loans ("CASH LOANS ON CAR TITLES" in the front). Today in the local burger wars, Wendy's sits at just two restaurants locally behind Whataburger, Sonic, and McDonald's (the top three, in no particular order), with Jack in the Box and Burger King tied for fourth, a lousy sixth place showing. Do they deserve it? (Maybe—considering they haven't built a new one locally in over twenty years).

From the newspaper, June 28, 1978.²
It should be pointed out that although the mid-Bryan Texas Avenue fast foods all continue to thrive today to some extent. Maybe not "thrive" but the former Church's Chicken is still a restaurant, Jack in the Box is operating after a tear-down and rebuild, and work continues on Long John Silver's. All three of those sit at a stoplight with easy access. Now, sure, Mr. Hamburger is vacant (at a stoplight) and KFC still operates (but not at a stoplight); yet I can't help but thinking that the lack of access was a problem (even pre-medians). Wendy's had an access point to Doerge Street behind it but I guess that wasn't enough. I'm not sure about KFC, and especially with those medians it seems like it may be a tough sell. Heck, jumping over to the old Mr. Hamburger spot may be in their future.

Finally, I should mention that on a personal note, I don't remember ever going to this location; in fact I don't even really remember a Wendy's being there. I remember Church's and McDonald's and the KFC (pretty sure remember it when it had a bucket on the sign) but not Wendy's. Maybe I wasn't the only one...

<sup>1. I'm not sure if had a salad bar at this location since I barely seem to remember it. You can see a great page for Wendy's (ignore the former restaurant portion, it will be gone after 3/31/2025 again) here at Carbon-izer.
2. Reading the full page requires a subscription. I only clipped the relevant part.</sup>

Shell at Holleman and Harvey Mitchell

From June 2013 by author. This post was actually planned to go up in late 2014, but it got pushed back for reasons.
My little corner of the world got two big upgrades in 2004: the completion of Jones-Butler Road in November of that year (connecting the "Marion Pugh Road" segment between North Dowling and Harvey Mitchell Parkway to I&GN Road at Rock Prairie Road West) brought a new avenue to access Rock Prairie Road, and a new modern gas station built at a small field at the intersection of Holleman and Harvey Mitchell, which at the time was a sleepy little terminus of a segment that was almost never driven on...why go straight across the steep railroad crossing and make an unprotected left, when we could head down Wellborn and take a long ramp directly to FM 2818?

This "new modern gas station" was a Shell and featured a Wendy's, with one of the first Rattlers'-branded gas stations in town. Rattlers' Country Store as it was named originally, was a local operation that featured clean, well-run stores with their own distinctive branding. There was a car wash (which I don't think I ever used), a Subway (2048 Holleman West, opened 2005), and Holleman Cleaners (2046 Holleman West), a small dry cleaning operation. Neither of these connected to each other like Wendy's and Rattlers' did (Rattlers' has the address of 2050 Holleman, with Wendy's being 2052, but known to use 2050 sometimes).

There were a few minor changes that went on with the gas station. The Wendy's remodeled in the early 2010s but never saw its exterior sign change—but in the mid-2010s, the gas station signage received a revamp, adding electronic signage and a new Wendy's logo (an old "movable numbers" board closer to the ground was changed to just read "SCANTRONS"). The car wash went away sometime around 2009 and was replaced by a building, soon occupied (after several months) by one "Liquor Mart" (2054 Holleman Drive West).

The Rattlers' changed logos at some point (dropping the "Country Store" branding) and briefly adding a "Froggies Yogurt" inside (replacing a small kiosk with foil-wrapped tacos). Froggies went away shortly after the Rattlers' chain was sold to Sunoco (which owned Stripes) in 2016. This meant that the gas station and the new Stripes on the other side of Holleman were now under common ownership.

In Febraury 2018, the Shell became a Sunoco. This was likely due to a contract regarding Sunoco stations being kept when Sunoco officially sold its gas stations to 7-Eleven a month or so prior, which meant that the Rattlers' was officially owned by 7-Eleven. Two years later, Holleman Cleaners (which had closed down in fall 2019) turned into "Elevated CBD + Smoke". Rattlers' never converted to Stripes or 7-Eleven, and by 2020, Rattlers' closed down around midnight while the Stripes across the street maintained a 24-hour operation, giving it an edge in business. The Wendy's closed in the fall of 2020 (see the first update below) and the main Rattlers went out with it, taking down the entire gas station with it. Only Subway and Elevated remained. As of this writing, the station seems to have come back to life. The Shell name and canopy has been restored (though the canopy just has the symbol instead of the writing, a change that came about starting in the mid-to-late 2010s), the facade was repainted maroon and white, with the convenience store being called "Campus Corner", and the Wendy's also being repainted and altered to be a Burger Mojo. We'll see how it goes this time... 

UPDATE 10-14-20: Wendy's, which has been in the store since around January 2005 (give or take a month), permanently closed in or around September 30, 2020. The reason for this closure is still yet unknown. Also rewrote some minor parts in the article.

UPDATE 12-02-20: A check on December 1st revealed that sometime in November, Rattlers (and the entire gas station component with it) has closed. Elevated CBD + Smoke and Subway continue to operate, while Burger Mojo is planned to go into the former Wendy's.
UPDATE 01-21-21: The station has since reverted to Shell with a new convenience store and restaurant. The main description has been rewritten with the title altered to remove "Sunoco".
UPDATE 02-04-21: Campus Corner has opened in the last few days. The décor is identical to Rattlers'.
UPDATE 03-04-2021: Burger Mojo officially opened 3/3/21 as a 24 hour location. The same day, the Stripes across the street was rebranded as a 7-Eleven.
UPDATE 09-19-2021: Some changes to mention how Rattlers was sold to Sunoco, as well as integrating the 7-Eleven page posted earlier this year.
UPDATE 10-31-2024: Subway closed briefly for a renovation in August 2024. By this time, the entrances have been reconfigured. Only one driveway goes to Holleman now (right in/right out) while a new right-turn only comes in from 2818.

Southwest Parkway Wendy's

Picture from August 2019
Despite my ambitions, the new "Return to Texas Avenue" series isn't going too well, partly since I already made many of the more interesting posts years ago, leaving a collection of odds and ends including photos from over five years ago. This is in contrast to the start of the Harvey Road series, in which all the photos were taken at the same time and in close succession, giving about half a dozen new posts clustered together with a bit of a story behind them.

The Wendy's on 202 Southwest Parkway East was built in 1984 after the previous Wendy's in town was opened (3216 Texas Avenue South in Bryan, which was built in 1978 but closed for the last 15 years or so) and I don't think this location ever had a salad bar, though I could be wrong. I don't remember one ever being there, and I don't think I ever (if rarely) ate here after a newer location opened much closer by to where I lived.

Additionally, the sign has the newer logo (which is not on the restaurant itself) partially due to the fact that a storm wrecked the old sign with the signage being replaced with the newer one.

Future attention on the blog will be paid to posts currently off the Index, which will return in updated forms.