Pizza Hut in Bryan

Pizza Hut looked different back in 1966, for sure. (from the Eagle)
We've covered Pizza Hut before (both the classic University Drive East location and the short-lived Northgate proper location (see the older two posts) so here's a third location (and between the various carry-out locations, there's still room to grow). I submitted it on Used to Be a Pizza Hut (expecting it to be in the queue for months, but no, it's on there already). The Navasota store was featured over ten years ago on the site, and it's now a funeral home, too...possibly the first "Funeral Hut" covered.

The Bryan Pizza Hut operated from November 1966 (first Pizza Hut in the area) to sometime in 2002 (closed without replacement) and briefly served as Lone Star Pawn for a few years afterward before becoming Treviño-Smith Funeral Home in 2007.

What I can't figure out is what it looked like originally. 1966 is a bit young for the iconic red roof and Pizza Hut claims that it wasn't implemented until 1969, but the Wikipedia article indicates the first restaurant done was in 1963. Maybe it was indeed the first of its type in Texas.

Downtown Bryan's Chicken Express

The Chicken Express here didn't look much different from the Burger King it replaced. This picture is from August 2019 by the author.
While I do tend to cover many fast food restaurants on this blog, not all of them have a good story behind them. Chicken Express here is the third building on this particular piece of land. The first reference to 405 East 29th Street was in 1951 as the McDonald Funeral Home, which moved in 1958 to a new building at 1513 S. College Avenue (while the address is now 1515, this is still a funeral home) and in 1963 was redeveloped as a location of Town & Country Food Stores and within a few years became a UtoteM¹; however, by the mid-1970s it became a Greyhound bus terminal. Despite the fact that it was dirty and run-down especially by the late 1990s and early 2000s, and I've been told the building started out as a UtoteM (and that may have had Amoco gas, from what I've heard) and became a bus station by 1980. I don't think it was remodeled much at all between tenants, and it had a drop ceiling, florescent lighting, really worn tiles, possibly dated from 1960s to 1970s, some rather drab and cheap-looking chairs, and the like. There were a few vending machines, including some candy dispensers and (if I remember right) even a coffee vending machine. While it was a miserable place that seemed to be falling apart, it had charm (though I'm sure I'm the only one that thinks that) as a wonderfully grungy place that was a gritty time capsule of the 1980s.

Around 2008 this was knocked down (along with a house at at the corner of 29th and South Houston Avenue) and redeveloped into 401 S. Texas Avenue, a new Burger King which,  despite the new Texas Avenue address, the site was rebuilt to not allow access to Texas Avenue. It was the fourth new Burger King in the area under franchisee Shiloh Foods, after opening the first Burger King in 22 years at East 29th Street to replace the Culpepper Plaza location which closed, a new College Station location, as well as a location at Highway 21 East with more to come (when Highway 21's location opened it was to be "one of several" new restaurants built in the area), with the last one built here.² In December 2010, it closed after operating for about 18 months, and Shiloh Foods folded soon after, selling the remaining stores. Part of the problem was the chronic issues with the company itself, of course, the "Creepy King" advertising with Crispin Porter + Bogusky wasn't turning the sales it used to and sales were back dropping again after a brief resurgence in the mid-2000s and selling out to 3G Capital.

In spring 2012 the vacant Burger King was reopened as Chicken Express, which made little changes to the restaurant beyond some new paint (if I recall it looked like a Burger King on the inside as well).

1. The chain collapsed but a remnant of that chain would continue to operate in West Texas and grow for many years until it was eventually bought by Stripes, and ultimately, 7-Eleven.
2. The one in Chappell Hill was also built during this time, but that's not exactly local.

UPDATE 10-05-2025:: Maintenance-related update. Added [Texas Avenue] and replaced [downtown] with [Downtown Bryan]. A more extensive update is planned in the future.
UPDATE 03-12-2026: Post rewrite done, though it incorporates much of the previous post. Renamed post to "Downtown Bryan's Chicken Express" from "Chicken Express, Downtown Bryan".