Citgo Southwest Parkway

Picture from June 2025 by author On May 31st, I removed five pages from Carbon-izer.com: Southwest Parkway, Harvey Road, Texas Avenue - Bryan, Other Bryan Roads, and Wellborn Road (FM 2154). Since I covered Archie's Taco Bell recently, I thought it was only fair to cover some of the other roads that were removed, and today we're doing one of the things on Southwest Parkway that has curiously never been covered (other than in passing); the Citgo at 101 Southwest Parkway (not to be confused with the other Citgo on Southwest Parkway).

Directly at the northeast corner of Southwest Parkway and Wellborn, this was originally a Citgo/7-Eleven when it opened in June 1986 (7-Eleven stores, at least in this part of the country, were paired with Citgo gas). In 1993, 7-Eleven left the area but the stores (now under E-Z Mart) kept the Slurpee machines (later rebadged as ICEE), so this was the cold slush drink headquarters growing up. Unfortunately, the machines later broke down and the owners did not replace them, ending it as a place to get frozen Dr Peppers. In 2004, the store converted to Zip'N, and I remember when the store's name was a ground display surrounded by bushes (this was done away with in a station renovation). Later on, the gas station parking lot was integrated with Southwest Crossing around it.

The intersection has evolved--the once-quiet southeast corner has turned into not only parking lot access for a large apartment complex, but a number of other establishments (Starbucks, Chipotle, Whataburger, Wild Pita, and Andy's Frozen Custard), but the Citgo continues to age. While it's still technically signed as a Zip'N, there's a sign above it saying "Ricky Food Mart" or something along those lines, and it's a bit depressing to see a gas station once a family favorite for gasoline fall into disrepair, but that's life, I guess.

UPDATE 10-26-2025: This will be redeveloped as a new Layne's location in the near future. The new [endangered] label will be added to this post as a result.

La Quinta next to Denny's

The current La Quinta as of August 2019 by author. Will it continue to be a La Quinta when the new one on the freeway opens?

Both of these buildings have the address of 607 Texas Avenue, thus they'll be covered at the same time. The restaurant at the corner of Texas and Live Oak was built in 1980 (Brazos CAD says 1978 for some reason) with La Quinta Inn built behind it in 1979 (originally "La Quinta Motor Inn", later "La Quinta Inn", before branded as simply "La Quinta") right behind it. The original restaurant was Julie's Place (#139), operated by Associated Hosts Inc. of California, which ran several hotel-affiliated restaurants. Boasting a large menu including hamburgers and onion soup, Julie's Place became notorious after a January 1987 murder (there was a story on MyBCS, though I'm sure I had heard it elsewhere about how the manager actually swallowed the key to the safe and the stabbings were to retrieve the key, but I'm not sure on that since that's just a comment on the forum and the official court summary makes no mention of the key-swallowing incident). That said, an article from the Houston Chronicle did mention the body was cut from the sternum to the pelvis, which lends credence to the statement.

In May 1988 Associated Hosts closed the restaurant and reopened it as Bombay Bicycle Club a month later, but in 1995 it closed permanently and became a Denny's in 1996.

August 2019 picture of Denny's by author. Until about a year or so prior, it had green trim.
Additionally, the La Quinta has some additional buildings (which appear to have been shuttered) behind what used to be Rice Garden and the La Quinta Inn was previously home to a "super slide" of some sort, but I can't find much information on that. (Parts of this post originally appeared here).

UPDATE 09-13-2024: Update with new opening dates and links.
UPDATE 01-03-2025: The two buildings on the other side of the street, 112-114 Live Oak, have been selected to be torn down and redeveloped. Surprisingly, these weren't permanently shuttered after 2020, Street View from 2023 still shows activity.
UPDATE 02-25-2025: After co-existing with two other new La Quinta Inn sites on the freeway, reports are that now severed from the auxiliary buildings, the hotel has been rebranded as Rodeway Inn. [Rodeway Inn] has been added as a new label with the now-Motel 6 in Bryan (as well as adding [College Station] to the post as well).
UPDATE 10-26-2025: The main motel building suffered a major fire in October 2025. While it didn't burn to the ground, the damage to the roof suggests that the motel will be put out of commission indefinitely.