Winn-Dixie on 29th Street

Winn-Dixie with prominent "Marketplace" signage, unknown date. Courtesy Michael Gomez (used with permission) Twenty years ago today (February 21, 2005), Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. declared bankruptcy. When I started writing this post back in January, it appeared to be heading toward an ignominious end under parent company Aldi. Earlier this month, though, C&S Wholesale Grocers purchased 170 stores (including Harveys, as well as some associated liquor stores) with the associated trademarks from Aldi Süd. Still, with 170 stores spread across five states and C&S's incredibly bad track record at "rescuing" chains (one reason why the courts X'd their purchase of Albertsons/Kroger cast-offs), the future still looks quite dim.

In better days, however, Winn-Dixie had locations spread across much of the Southeastern United States (with about 1,000 stores in 1999) and that included two locations in the area, and was part of several other major regional and national chains for what was a very small market in the early 1990s, with the chain, along with AppleTree, Randalls, Albertsons, Kroger, and H-E-B Pantry participating. (One article I have when the College Station location closed mentioned it was probably the most grocery store square footage to capita market in the country).

Despite the closure of the relatively short-lived College Station store and spending much of the 1990s sandwiched halfway between AppleTree and Randall's (later Albertsons), it still operated until the chain departed Texas for good in 2002.

Opened in May 1985, the 45,000 square feet store offered the typical supermarket features of the time including a "New York-style delicatessen and bakery". The paper also mentioned a "prestige meat" department, that was what Winn-Dixie called its meat department in those days and I imagine the inside of the Bryan store looked much the same way. This anchored the new Carter Creek Shopping Center.

Unfortunately, by the late 1990s, Winn-Dixie's problems were apparent through the company. Already by 1996, with their competition locally (Kroger, Albertsons, AppleTree, and H-E-B Pantry) having two or more stores compared to Winn-Dixie's one, no stores in any of the major Texas cities except for Dallas-Fort Worth (and at least in 5th place behind Kroger, Tom Thumb, Albertsons, and Minyard) and Waco-Temple-Killeen, Winn-Dixie seemed to finally catch a break in 1999 as they hammered out a deal with Kroger where they would offload the entire Texas Division to Kroger for an undisclosed price (rumored to be $350M), pending FTC approval.

This would allow Kroger entrance to Oklahoma (where it had no stores and still doesn't), Waco-Temple-Killeen, a few smaller markets, and give Kroger four local stores by the end of the 2000, with their new Rock Prairie "Signature" store, their existing College Station store, and their existing Bryan store. Unfortunately for both parties, the FTC did not approve (even though it was trivial compared to the later Albertsons/Kroger merger later attempted (which still failed) with the deal now dead, Kroger walked away. Instead, in 2002, Winn-Dixie simply shut down the division. Brookshire picked up a small number of stores, Kroger picked up even less, but the majority of the stores simply closed.

That of course left Carter Creek Shopping Center without an anchor tenant. The store's address, 4001 E. 29th Street, was shared with the whole shopping center, so it's hard to find much information on other tenants and gain a clear picture of what was going on. Personally, I don't remember much of the center and I don't think it was ever well-populated, but from 2001 to 2012 a location of Tuesday Morning was located here, before it relocated to Post Oak Square. There were a few others (Career Apparel, Amish Furniture for Generations). By early 2004, Workforce Solutions had moved into the former Winn-Dixie (new address--3991 E. 29th Street) and other government offices moved in soon after.

There were/are other tenants in the shopping center as well. There are two buildings near the light at Carter Creek Parkway, one of which holds Pride Cleaners (Pride 1 Hr. Cleaners until the late 2000s/early 2010s). There was a Dollar General at suite 102 from 1993 to 2007, a DoubleDave's Pizzaworks from 1986 to 1997 (one of the early locations), and a restaurant, Wokamole Healthy Cuisine has somehow hung on for ten years at suite 106 (opened late 2014). The restaurant originally opened as a hybrid Chinese/Mexican restaurant (it replaced another Mexican restaurant called El Gallito de Jalisco, and the spot had been mostly restaurants going back years) though within a year the Mexican menu was dropped entirely.

Park Place Plaza

The most activity here in a long time. These and others are the author's photos from 2014.
2501 Texas Avenue South

Appearing shortly after Parkway Square and built in 1986 catty-corner to that shopping center, the center appeared to be the counterpart to the shopping center in many ways. While Parkway Square had its Kroger, Park Place Plaza had its Winn-Dixie Marketplace. While Parkway Square had McDonald's, Park Place had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Both had stores that faced Texas Avenue, and both had stores that faced Southwest Parkway.

The center is divided into four sections. Section A is the side that faces toward Southwest Parkway. Section B is the former grocery store anchor. C begins east of the former grocery store anchor and toward the back. D is the section of the stores in a separate building not attached to the grocery store anchor that face toward the parking lot (direction towards campus), but not all suite numbers are available.

Here's a map (from Holland Retail Advisors that shows the shopping center as it was in 2014.

Click for full size.
The largest tenant was a Winn-Dixie Marketplace supermarket at 45,500 square foot, comparable to the nearby Kroger. WDM was the company's attempt to build bigger, more modern stores for the 1980s, but unfortunately, the company had expanded too far and built too few Marketplace (or larger) stores, contributing to the chain's Texas pull-out in 2002 and bankruptcy in 2005, and the chain continues to retreat. The College Station store closed well before that. As Victoria-based Lack's Furniture opened in February 1997, Winn-Dixie closed in 1996 (the Bryan store continued to operate until 2002). It closed in late 2010 along with the rest of the locations (interestingly, an unrelated furniture chain closer to the border called Lacks Valley Stores ended up buying the domain name, and later, some of the old locations). The sign hung around (literally) for a little while longer but in 2014 the space was finally filled with two new tenants. The left side, keeping the address, became College Depot (which moved from Parkway Square), but after the spring 2017 season, College Depot went out of business. Legacy Ace Hardware & Gifts opened in August 2018, which replaced The Bear Mountain closer to Barnes & Noble. The store (operated by the same owners of Bear Mountain) includes a Bear Mountain outdoors store inside the hardware store. Here's a picture of the co-branded former anchor from May 2014 when College Depot moved in.

Next to Planet Fitness is Lupa's Coffee. This was a Quizno's that lasted far longer than it should have (2012 closing after a long deterioration). It reopened briefly as "Big Johnson Deli", which some local press for the suggestive name, but it closed within a year or two afterwards. I believe Quizno's Subs (as it was known originally before the apostrophe was dropped) replaced a Schlotzsky's Deli (as it was also known as back then).

Linh's Nails is next to it at C101, this used to be Premiere Dance Academy in the early 2010s, then A+ Foot Massage at C102 (listed as available in 2014), then Weight Watchers (also listed as available), then Laila's Beauty Studio (replacing Young Life), then Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach (not "Aggie PC" as the chart says, this was here prior to 2014, and takes up C105 and C106). Going toward the back, there's Lit Cafe Hookah Lounge & Smoke Shop (C107), Studio Noir (C108). Studio Noir used to be the home of Gun Corps, a consignment store that specialized in guns. It closed after year end 2016 but there was a catch: their inventory was still locked up, and those guns were all collateral for loans and the bank seized everything during the bankruptcy. Many customers ended up getting their firearms back through the system but some customers ended up getting stiffed. Previously it was a short-lived restaurant called Aloha BBQ Hut. C109 is/was Gabrielle Baby & Maternity (old listings, can't verify). C110 is Vapegeek, C111 is Fusion Peru restaurant, and C112 is Sour Apple Repair. There's 555 Grill at D104 (formerly the home of Cali Chic Salon as of 2014, USA Nails before that), then at D105, the current home of Kumon Math & Reading Center (formerly the home of 4.0 & Go), then Ohana Korean Grill. This used to be a Spice Bowl, an Indian restaurant that predated Taz. I had heard it wasn't very good (this is supported by Yelp).

Prospector's Grill & Saloon (more nightclub than restaurant) opened in the spring of 2014 with a custom wooden facade (this used to be another restaurant called Kebab & Curry). After about a year, it closed when the owners stopped paying rent and skipped town, and it stood vacant for another two years before it was reopened as Rockies Night Club, their third location (originally in the mall, later in the former Weingarten in Bryan). In August 2018, a 16-hour standoff damaged the nightclub when law enforcement was forced to drive a vehicle into the restaurant, and although the nightclub reopened, it ended up closing for good in May 2019. A Hertz auto rental facility anchors the far south end (opened 2014).

I'm going to largely neglect the north side stores on Southwest Parkway, but since at least the late 1980s there was a Little Caesars here, which held fond memories for me through all of its renovations and continued to be the "go-to" pizza spot for my family until the Rock Prairie Road location opened around 2013. Originally, Little Caesars had blonde, 80s looking, wood paneling on the walls, this was removed in a 2000s renovation and replaced with black and white tiles. Eventually, a further renovation changed that, including removing a doorway to the kitchen with a traditional entrance to make the restaurant feel more open. There was also a gumball machine, and for many years had a promotion where if you got a black (grape) gumball, you'd get a free small pizza. I know I won at least once. It was great fun, but probably a bit of a money-loser and it was eventually discontinued (another discontinued item--I last saw the Baby Pan!Pan! around 2005, and even then, the packaging was dated). Prices went up and down for the Hot N Ready, sometimes $5, sometimes $6. Next door to that was a martial arts studio that closed in the early 2000s, became a sketchy video/DVD store for a few years, and then became a martial arts studio again (Academy of Modern Martial Arts). What's even more interesting is I've had people tell me that this was another video store before the first martial arts studio, called Paramount Theatre. An expansion to include music resulted in the larger space the martial arts studio has now. (Questions if the author ever practiced tae kwon do here in the mid-2000s will go without comment).

Lupa's Coffee can be seen, this filled the old Big Johnson Deli/Quizno's. I read that this used to be a Schlotzsky's Deli back in the 1990s before they moved to near Wal-Mart.
Prospector's Grill & Saloon with its new custom facade.
A Planet Fitness and College Depot now fill the former Lacks/Winn-Dixie.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken in the parking lot moved in the mid-1980s as well from Dominik Drive and renovated in the mid-2000s (exterior and interior).

UPDATE 08-10-2024: I know I haven't touched this in a while (last update June 2019) but a few notes. In October 2020, Lupa's Coffee was closed and converted to a new location of Gogh Gogh Coffee Company but it closed its location in February 2024.

Additionally, Winn-Dixie closed in fall 1995 (not 1996), along with a small handful of stores in the Texas Division.
UPDATE 01-20-2025: A newspaper article indicates that Winn-Dixie opened 1985, not 1986 as stated in the article.