Chicks into Stripes

Picture from October 2019.
As we wrap up 2019 for this site, I'd like to share one more story with you. Like Greensworld, this post was supposed to be part of a "Highway 6" series. I was convinced when 7-Eleven bought Stripes from Sunoco, that the Stripes at Briarcrest and Highway 6 would be deemed an outlier and closed. That hasn't happened yet, and as such, it takes the crown of the largest 7-Eleven store in the United States (if it was actually branded as such).

The roots of this super-Stripes (600 North Earl Rudder Freeway) goes back to its roots as a mega-convenience store called Chicks. While its early years are fairly well documented on Yelp, the 12,000 square foot store was supposed to be a Buc-ee's knockoff, to the point where a lawsuit was filed. While Internet armchair lawyers argued that the logo was not a problem, a reveal inside was different, as Chicks had a line of gourmet foods similar in packaging to Buc-ee's, even a version of the sugary "Beaver Nuggets" (basically imagine Cheetos except with caramel coating instead of cheese dust). The lawsuit did force Chicks to change its logo (same shape but just the "CHICKS" name with red, white, and blue) before in 2014, when the store was sold to Stripes. Stripes briefly closed and reopened the store, and liquidated much of the old Chicks store merchandise for its own, and would replace the frozen yogurt counter of Chicks with a Laredo Taco Company (however, Chicks' hamburgers continued to be sold).

One more fun fact: a second (much smaller) Chicks was intended to go in at Highway 40 and Wellborn Road, this ended up being built as a Stripes instead.

Going forward into 2020, I intend to add much less to the site, as much of this year's content (over 40 new posts!) was breaking up existing posts and existing writing. An easy way to check on new updates is to join me on Facebook where updates, new and old, or just a post that I think deserves another look, will be posted.

Ardan Catalog Showroom / Rolling Thunder / Gattiland / Thunder Elite / Planet Fitness

The former Ardan/Gattiland/Thunder Elite (and current Planet Fitness) at 1673 Briarcrest as it stood in June 2015. (Picture by author.)
This place in Bryan-College Station is best remembered (at least to me) as Gattiland, but the history of the building goes farther beyond that, and we'll start there instead.

There were plenty of discount stores and similar operation in the 1960s and 1970s, most of which were bankrupt by the mid-1980s (if not earlier) and part of the problem was that they were scattered across the country with no real distribution system in place. Naturally, Bryan would be the home to a few of these doomed ventures including Cook's and Ardan Catalog Showroom. Despite being the fourth-largest in the country in 1979, there isn't much information on it. Even Google brings up this very page as the first result. Based out of Des Moines, there were about ten stores in Texas though none in big markets. No stores in Houston, just Bryan, Beaumont, and Galveston. The whole chain went under in 1986, and by that time Service Merchandise had taken over Wilson's and was firmly in a bunch of markets.

One of the ads Ardan ran locally, from November 1983. This, coincidentally, is a great example near the apex of when the video game industry crashed and retailers were forced to sell cartridges at low prices.

While Ardan was designed to have additional smaller stores, mostly on the Kent Street side of the center, the closure allowed the main space to be subdivided, and this is when longtime tenants like Brazos CAD (which was there until the late 2010s) to move in, and Ardan's old space was whittled down to around 18k square feet. Rolling Thunder, a skating rink (roller, not ice) moved in by August 1989, with the name of the shopping center changed to Travis Landing around this time (you can see a picture of the plaza here from c. 1989, though the tenant listing is newer). In 1994, however, Rolling Thunder was sold. Rather than new ownership reopening the rink (it closed in May 1994), everything was dismantled and moved to Wolf Pen Bowl & Skate where it would remain for at least another decade.

Ardan Catalog Showroom ad from 1985 after many of its stores closed; these were the ones to close in 1986. Note the newer logo.

On May 1st, 1996, Gattiland opened (see the Mr. Gatti's on Northgate post. While at one point Mr. Gatti's operated a location not too far away from the Briarcrest location, this gave Bryan a new Mr. Gatti's location (I'm not sure how it was signed, if it was "Mr. Gatti's Gattiland" or whatever, but it was definitely colloquially known as Gattiland), and was the place to have fun/birthday parties/etc. (as Pooh's Park was dead and gone by this time, leaving little but the sign...and Putt-Putt was a bit of a joke even in its prime) for anyone growing up in College Station between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Oh yes, it was definitely something: there was a large buffet and a regular eating area, the party rooms, a large room that showed Cartoon Network on a projection TV (remember, this was Cartoon Network of the late 1990s, which is still spoken of very highly), and the "Midway", which had the prize booth right as you went in. To the back was the bumper cars and a huge McDonald's Playplace-type playground, only larger (with one of those things you could grab and push off and it would slide down the metal rail: I don't know what it's called). There was also air hockey and tons of games, both redemption type games and arcade games (including several linked Daytona USA arcades). Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the inside but I can remember most of it on the inside and could probably describe parts of it to you if asked nicely (it was the purple bumper car that was put in storage in the later years, for example).

Well, it got really run down pretty quickly, accelerated by an incident where some "unruly teenagers" released early from school damaged machines and culminated in someone going through one of the huge 10-foot windows in front of the restaurant (read the article, second page too). Some of the damaged machines never worked quite right after that and by the time it moved, the playground was dismantled as well; it was quite sad because just a few years earlier it was a premier place to be. In 2003 it moved to College Station and renamed to Gattitown (which will continue here). The building sat vacant and eventually became "Thunder Elite", a kids gymnastics/cheerleading place for a while, too, though it eventually packed up and left as well (new location).

Google Street View
In mid-2014, the former Gattiland/Thunder Elite space became Planet Fitness. It also gave part of the facade a purple paint job which didn't match the rest of the plaza.

So that's it for Gattiland, Ardan Catalog Showroom, and the like. Pictures are welcome, you know...

UPDATE 01-13-2023: Fixed dead links, got rid of the antiquated light blue text and other rewrites.
UPDATE 01-19-2025: Significant rewrite including the article where Gattiland lost its soul, better integration with other articles, and a lot more on when Ardan and Rolling Thunder came and went.

Brazos Blue Ribbon Bakery in Bryan

This is a beautiful full-color ad of the Brazos Blue Ribbon Bakery at Villa Maria and Briarcrest (1136 East Villa Maria Road to be exact) from a late 1980s Texas Aggies football program. Although Brazos Blue Ribbon Bakery dates back to 1988, it wasn't the first business in the 1984-built building, a recently unearthed Eagle article mentions it was originally the home of Green Light Auto Parts (and also mentions that the business was originally supposed to focus on industrial production, with long-range plans to be moved to Bryan Business Park).

In 1998, BBRB moved to Dominik Drive in College Station where it would become the genesis for Blue Baker, and this location became a Must Be Heaven in 2000, which survives today. I was never impressed with MBH (Must Be Purgatory, perhaps) but I admire its willingness to stick out in a difficult location. Even though Must Be Heaven still occupies the space, that smaller sign is gone, it's now just a rusty metal frame.

UPDATE 08-12-2021: Appended new date and link for BBRB. Also in spring 2021 they split with Brenham's Must Be Heaven and renamed the restaurants as Sweet Relish Café.

Lester's at 2504 Kent

Built as Lester's in 1973 and lasting at least until 1985, this building has sporadically served as office tenants. When I took this picture in 2013, it had been vacant for the last several years (Google searching indicated a "Lonestar Systems Inc."), but within a year or two had been reoccupied by Greenwood Hall Education Solutions, an office for a California-based education technology company. However, the company abruptly folded in December 2017 closing its Bryan office.

There's also a painted train Locomotives on Parade still on the premises. It's visible from Google Street View but it doesn't appear to be anything photographed and based on the wheels looks like a repainted version of the Foo Foo Choo Choo, and as of 2013, the tiles outside still read "THE SMART SHOP", referring to "Lester's Smart Shop" in old articles and ads.

An anonymous comment says that Houston-based Craig's took over the store shortly after Lester's demise and operated it into the 1990s. While I haven't researched these dates, I did find that in October 1986, Craig's opened off of Westheimer in a store formerly occupied by the Smart Shop, but this was actually unrelated to Lester's. By fall 1993, Craig's had pulled out of Bryan, having shed 10 of its 23 stores between 1988 and 1993. According to a 1989 phone book, Craig's did have a store here, meaning it was one of the 10 closed.


2504 Kent

Updated February 26 2019

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].