Looks Like Planet K's Blasting Off Again!...

Cacti and Christmas lights. (Photo by author, Sept. 2024)
Located at 3218 South Texas Avenue, the now-defunct Planet K (officially a smoke shop, though would've been a "head shop" back in the day) operated out of a converted house...or at least it appeared to be so. The house behind it at 3213 Doerge Street is on the same property and per Brazos CAD was built in 1953 so it seems that it might have been built for commercial use after all (it also explains why I didn't see mention of a residential address here).

The earliest reference I can find is Doerge Repair Center, which renamed to Midway Repair Center in 1957. After a brief time of vacancy, it became Tuttle's Carpet Discount Center in 1971 (later simply Tuttle's Carpet Center). Sometime around 1978 and 1979 it was replaced with Tin Barn Furniture, and sometime around 1989-1992 it was closed and replaced with Tin Barn Antiques & Collectibles, which operated until around 2004. Another antique store called Abigail's Attic operated in the house from 2004 to 2008, and Wiggles & Wags (a dog grooming boutique that had been in town since 1999) operated in the space in the mid 2010s for a few years (it had already moved in 2016, and shut down in 2020).

In 2018, Austin-based Planet K "opened" in Bryan with a major change in the building (including covering up the front entrance with a false front with a mural) but tied up official opening of the store for eight months including parking lot operations. Once Planet K actually opened in 2019 it was just five years later, August 10th, 2024, when they packed up and closed, blaming the economy and the medians.

The false wall is where Planet K's murals used to be. (Photo by author, Sept. 2024) Planet K's website is amateurish. Obviously, I can't throw stones in that department but I'm also not trying to run a business, nor am I promoting debunked myths about the military budget as mentioned on the page. The military's budget is around $700-800 billion annually, it would cost $267 billion annually to end world hunger, well above 3%. (While national debt and budget soars, the military does not have a $9T budget, nor did it ever).

In any case, Planet K has left Texas Avenue and I'm sure that there's probably either relief or disappointment depending on the views of the place.

Goodbye, Mr. Hamburger

Picture by author, 12/23 Mr. Hamburger is dead once more. The lone pad site at 3706 South Texas Avenue, once rumored to be developed as a Hooters, of the mid-to-late 2000s NorthPark Plaza strip center (I've attached an out of date PDF here, as seen on Carbon-izer), the restaurant at 3706 S. Texas Avenue opened as Bush's Chicken in August 2016 but closed by October 2017. The follow-up operation, Huntsville-based Mr. Hamburger, opened August 2018. Shortly after opening a pizza restaurant-within-a-restaurant ("Doh! Pizza Rolls"), Mr. Hamburger #2 closed on or around December 1, 2022 "temporarily" and was made permanent before the end of the month. Nearly a year later, Mr. Hamburger reopened in late September 2023 but closed in early December. (See Carbon-izer for the post this was based after).

Finally, I know it's been a fairly quiet year at Brazos Buildings & Businesses, and I know I still have a convenience store at Leonard to deal with soon per request...and the top five posts of the year in terms of views are all older posts.

Texan Restaurant was #1 followed by The Burger King Near Blinn, then Post Oak Mall Stores, 1982-1992 (really should get the 2002-2012 post up on of these days), Connecting Point Church / Former OfficeMax as #4 and at #5 Culpepper Plaza / Central Station (which needs an update). Speaking of updates, all sorts of other updates were done this year—one thing that happened is we now have a picture of the College Station H-E-B Pantry AS AN H-E-B PANTRY, and photos of any H-E-B Pantry as an H-E-B Pantry are hard to come by these days. There was the demise of the George Bush Drive and Marion Pugh McDonald's, the former JJ Mugg's/Rita's/Garcia's/Fuddruckers reopened as its sixth restaurant, iWon Korean BBQ & Hot Pot, and a number of other updates such as more accurate openings, banner changes (The feature of Fairfield Inn Bryan is no longer a Fairfield Inn), found images like the H E L L gas station and other stuff. Can't say that next year will be better but we can try.

The 700 University Drive East Club

One of the buildings here as it appeared in March 2020, showing the scars of both Blockbuster and Genghis Grill.
There's a few reasons why this site has been a bit slow to update as of late, partly it's a lack of photo availability, partly a lack of running out of places to cover, and partly it's a focus on new projects that take priority. The most recent entry, Saenz Tamales, was fairly spur-of-the-moment, and I had gotten my photos, then actually wrote up the entry. Otherwise, I have a bunch of mostly written-out descriptions that lack photos, and many of those just end up on my other website.

700 University Drive East is a bit of a complicated property, as it contains a strip mall and two stand-alone buildings, hence, the name of this post (and a play on words for a show contractually airing on Freeform, much to the executive's chagrin).

The first building here we'll take a look at is Golden Corral (store #540), which hasn't changed tenants since it opened in 1991 and...I'm ashamed to admit this, but at one time in the distant past, it was not only a favored family spot but one of my top five favorite restaurants in town. I don't know when we stopped going, probably sometime around or before 2005. The only big change that I can remember from Golden Corral growing up is the elimination of smoking inside the restaurant, so we could sit anywhere, not just the non-smoking section. In 2018 the restaurant closed for an interior renovation to a newer, more open prototype, and the exterior got an update as well.

Golden Corral as it appeared in 2014, looking east.
Across from the Golden Corral is the second building here, and a more interesting one. In 1992, Blockbuster Video, as it was known at the time, rolled into town, choosing 700B University Drive as its first location in town, located next to Golden Corral, and would continue to grow across the United States. As the company's fortunes declined in the late 2000s due to a variety of factors (streaming, recession, unable to support the massive store base that previous owner Viacom had built up), the store was rebranded as "Blockbuster Outlet Store" (whatever that meant, really) and closed around January 2010. Within months, it was announced that a location of Genghis Grill would be taking up residence in the spot, and it opened in late fall 2010, though it didn't take up all of the space, the remaining portion of Blockbuster was taken up by Tutti Frutti, a chain frozen yogurt restaurant the next year.

Looking into the closed Genghis Grill, 3/20.
Around December 2012, Tutti Frutti closed (it may have lasted into January or February of the following year) but something new was coming...in Houston, Big Daddy Z's began to make the rounds of Houston's many food trucks, focusing on Cajun cuisine. This would be the start of what was to replace Tutti Frutti in the future.

Following the closure of Tutti Frutti, the next restaurant, Mickey's Sliders, opened in summer 2013. This restaurant focused on the "gourmet slider" trend, much like how Stover Bros. Cafe was doing around the same time in Bryan. Mickey's Sliders surprisingly did a decent business, but the owner retired in fall 2017 and closed the store.

During all this time, Big Daddy Z's would move to College Station and soon restructure the menu to focus on cheesesteaks, with a new name...Blake's Steaks. Blake's Steaks settled into a new permanent home in December 2017 in the former Mickey's Sliders space and for the next two years, cheesesteaks and other related sandwiches (including some sandwiches that were created by customers in a contest) were served. In February 2020, Blake's Steaks closed to focus on a new venture, Zeitman's Grocery, in downtown Bryan (due to COVID-19, Zeitman's ended up opening almost two years later). Around the same time, Genghis Grill, which had been struggling due to inconsistent service and quality, also permanently shuttered. So by the time things started to go wrong for restaurants about a month later, the building was vacant, and that's when the first set of pictures were taken.

The building has since been renovated, sub-dividing Genghis Grill into two new spaces (the three spaces are about equally-sized), suite B of which became The Toasted Yolk Cafe, which opened in September 2021. A month later, Suite C (the former Tutti Frutti/Mickey's Sliders/Blake's Steaks) opened as Naq's Halal Food. As of this writing, Suite A is still vacant.

Another thing I wanted to note is that originally, this post was supposed to go up in conjunction with something I wrote for Carbon-izer, in which I stated that I was disappointed with Genghis Grill compared to a restaurant I ate at in Austin about six years prior to Genghis' opening.

Wing Stop and Marco's Pizza (June 2020).
Next to Blockbuster, in 1996, a Little Caesars was built. It never really gained traction and closed after a few years. Wing Stop would take up residence in the space (since 2001), but that was only half of the building, with the other half becoming Marco's Pizza, open in early 2020. I can't tell or remember what was there before that, but I want to say there was a small barbershop.

The main strip center isn't very active. (June 2020)
The rest of the strip center, 700 University Drive East was built in 1984 and is a pretty sleepy center that really hasn't seen a lot of activity and I don't personally remember many interesting stores or services being here. I did assemble a partial list of some of the tenants that came and went, but few lasted for many years and were forgotten soon after. (If you want to try to take a look at them, view the source for the page). One of the bigger tenants here was University Book Store (University Book Store Inc.) in suite 100 before all locations closed in very early 2006. That space would become Fast Eddie's Billiards for almost the next decade, and is currently a similar business named Four Downs Sports Bar.

Obviously, there have been some changes to the center since I took some of the pictures here back in 2020, with Toasted Yolk and Naq's Halal open and drawing crowds. One last look is going to be the "new" Golden Corral from the opposite side, also taken in March 2020. (All the photos in this post were taken by the author).

Note the Blake's Steaks food truck. (3/20)
Even if "new" posts to this site will be light in the future, I invite you to my other ventures including Carbon-izer, which updates monthly.

UPDATE 07-14-2023: Naq's Halal Foods closed around the end of December 2022 or very early January 2023. In May 2023, Siam Iyara opened in the spot. (Also removed YouTube shilling, as I'm afraid that's on hiatus...)
UPDATE 07-21-2023: TexAgs has reported Marco's Pizza is now closed.

Goodbye to 711 University, So Long to the BB&T...

Since I didn't get a picture of the bank before it became a big hole in the ground, we'll have to do with this, a picture from Google.

Today this is yet another student housing residential tower, known as Aspire College Station with 16 stories (including parking levels) and 800 beds but when I originally added this article in 2016 (here's the old page before I reworked it) it was the recently-demolished BB&T bank (hence the pun title). The chronology of the main bank building goes as such:

1962: College Station State Bank relocates to this building from a previous location.
1963: The name is changed to University National Bank.
1990: After a long run as University National Bank, it is acquired by Don Adam to become First American Bank (officially acquired that year)
2005: Citigroup acquires the bank chain, rebranded to Citibank
2014: BB&T purchases 41 Citibank branches including this one and rebrands them.
2016: BB&T relocates to The Rise at Northgate; building torn down, thus beginning and ending its life with relocation.

There was a second adjacent space (707 University Drive) which was a two-story office building with a small footprint. My records show this was used for non-bank space as early as 1974 (with the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co.) and my 1989 phone book mentions "The Personal Computer Store" (with the ad mentioning it was "since 1984"). This became MicroAge by 1993, and starting in 1999 moved out to their current home (now known as Avinext) on East University Drive. I don't think anything has occupied the space since.

Because of the relative underuse of the space, 711 University was also where food trucks congregated (or near the now-defunct Notes-N-Quotes next door). Since I graduated back in 2014, I can't list all the more recent food trucks and trailers there, though here are a few I remember:

Wafology - Seen spring 2014, this was a waffle food truck which had chicken and waffles and a few others. The waffles weren't great, they were more of the standard "using pancake batter in a waffle iron" that I've seen everywhere except for home cooking. I think it returned for fall 2014. It is now known as MESS Waffles, but it doesn't even involve a food truck anymore, they opened a permanent location at Century Square.

Vittles - This was seen summer 2014. It was a trailer operated by Gumby's serving sno-cones, pizza rolls, and chicken legs (the latter two obviously prepared off-site).

Chef Tai's Mobile Bistro - Moved inside campus due to a contract.

Southern Comfort Road Trip - The old Village Foods food truck which in fall 2013, was the new home of Hebert's Cajun Food dishes. Their already-borderline prices had gone up, but it still felt like it was putting the universe one step closer to being back in balance. Sadly it didn't last.

Mr. Chinese Burger - I wanted to like it, but the burgers I had tended to be cold..and they were shut down by the health department at least once.They sold pulled pork on chewy steamed buns.

When the tower was built a few years later, BB&T moved back in and by 2019 it had Fajita Pete's, Which Wich, and All Phone Toys, the last one occupying a small suite facing Church Avenue. Unfortunately, both Fajita Pete's and Which Wich have closed, with Fajita Pete's closing in 2021 and Which Wich closing in late 2023. (Also during this time, BB&T rebranded to Truist, following a merger with SunTrust out of Atlanta). On April 20, 2024, Waco viral hit Roni's Mac Bar opened in Suite 200 (the former Which Wich...and Roni's reused much of their fixtures). It is the first branch location and the first not to be connected to a food hall, which the original is.

UPDATE 04-21-24: Full rewrite was done.
UPDATE 04-24-2024: Should've also mentioned Korean chicken chain bb.q Chicken opened in fall 2023 to replace Fajita Pete's.