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The new AppleTree chain's issues with debt, the unions, outdated stores, and the lack of financial stability (Safeway held most of the real estate) caused the new company to suddenly face death, just five years after the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].

UPDATE 06-09-2025: Pro-Cuts opened in January 1990 per newspaper.

Comm. Building Permits College Station in the Late 1980s

This is removed from the Index and only serves as a resource to what links here.

We rarely get stuff this neat: this is a list of commercial buildings for the late 1980s (taken from a city-produced master plan guide from circa 1990).

Southgate Chevron

I snapped this picture from the bus, taken sometime around 2013. The Reveille's sign can't be seen from this angle.
This building, home to Texas FilmWorks since late 2023, was for decades a gas station, originally opened in the 1960s as the Southside Gulf Service (300 Jersey, later 300 George Bush Drive), and converted to a convenience store (Reveille's) sometime around the late 1980s (that's what Brazos CAD suggests) with the Chevron name being bestowed in the early 1990s due to a merger. In 2011, I got the below picture that shows the Gulf station and the surrounding area (due to the city reorganizing the Project HOLD server from which I got it from, I can't find the original link and who that is) circa 1985.


Click for larger size/higher resolution.

It's great seeing the George Bush (er, Jersey) stoplight as it was...the "old style" of College Station stoplights (before they were all replaced or upgraded), complete with the old railroad crossing (a cantilever railroad crossing...but where's the crossing gate?), and all those trees, too: this must have been before the area around Olsen Field was developed, and a time when you could probably still see the I-GN right of way on both sides.

Somewhere on Project HOLD there's a picture of the gas station at night, though I can't link directly to it because PH keeps breaking the links. Later on, it updated once to the newer 2005 design (didn't roll out fully until the late 2000s), and has always been Reveille's (convenience store) at least since the mid-1990s (if not further back). In early 2017, it was de-branded as "K.D. Timmons Co. Inc." (a local fuel supplier and the only one of its kind, though it kept the Chevron colors), and by July 2018 permanently closed, remaining abandoned for the next five years or so.

UPDATE 02-25-2019: Rewrite incorporating 2018 update, new title
UPDATE 01-04-2024: More extensive rewrite and adding current tenant.

Campus Theater

Campus Theater in better days. I got this version from a different website. There used to be a better version of this photo (higher resolution, better color) that I linked to on Flickr; unfortunately the whole account seems to be wiped. At least a marginally better version can be seen on CinemaTreasures by the original uploader.
The Campus Theater opened in Northgate in May 1940, on the corner of Boyett and University at what is currently 217 University Drive. It was the first movie theater in College Station, and ended up lasting a very long time. Done in an art deco style and with a single screen (it had a balcony and cry room, too!) and showing Son of the Navy as its premier film, by the 1960s it was purchased by the Schulman theater group and operated with their downtown theaters, the Palace and the Queen.

By 1980, it had gotten a reputation as the "X-rated theater" but from what I've gathered wasn't the same sort of thing that was shown in Houston's nastier theaters at the time. When exactly this happened, I'm not sure. In 1973 they had Burt Reynolds' White Lightning (rated PG) but by 1976 it was the one showing the X-rated The Story of O. In January 1980 they had Life of Brian, a bit sacrilegious with some PG-13 humor (if such a rating existed at the time), in February 1982 they had Caligula, but an R-rated cut that was 102 minutes as opposed to the 156 minute unedited release.

In July 1984 it closed and would remain closed for nearly the next decade. The same article talks about the building being "the most charming structure in Northgate, rising above the smaller buildings with neon lights and art deco style architecture". While it doesn't command the presence it used to...not with the apartment buildings rising behind it, anyway...around 1995 it finally reopened as Shadow Canyon, which soon after gave it a dreadful makeover by covering over much of the building in wood to give it a country-western theme, and that's been the type of tenant of it's been ever since. Shadow Canyon did well initially, but it faltered (apparently they had started charging a cover and used gimmicks like wet t-shirt contests to gain attendance). From this article, it officially closed in December 2004 though it played host to the Northgate Music Festival in early 2005.

Unfortunately, none of the successor tenants improved the appearance and arguably made it worse. Next up was Midnight Rodeo, which still has locations in San Antonio and Amarillo (an Austin location has closed since 2013). But the College Station location did not last nearly as long as Shadow Canyon, as it opened in early 2006 and closed by summer 2007 (it was supposed to be a five year lease, and a number of other dance halls owned by the same company closed around the time, such as one at the Katy Mills mall in the Houston area).


Source: the now-defunct Panaramio (user rahultiitd), showing how Campus Theater was "renovated".
Daisy Dukes opened in early 2009, by the same owners of Cafe Eccell.¹ In spring 2013, Daisy Dukes took advantage of the upper level the original building had and opened rooftop seating right above the marquee, with seating and televisions. By November, it was renamed to Duke's, and by summer 2014 changed hands to The Tap's owners.¹ By fall 2014 it had reopened as Boulevard 217² before closing around December 2015. Shiner Park closed in 2025, but unfortunately, no revival for the theater came, and it was to become "Harry's Northgate", which was named after (licensed? homage? knockoff?) the late Hurricane Harry's which closed in December 2024.

1. The original version of this post was far less sympathetic to the Eccell Group, and while similar sentiments have slowly been taken out, it remained up for a long time.
2. For a short time, the marquee from Duke's had been removed and it was called "No Name Saloon" on local media officially. Boulevard 217 got a really bad reputation really quickly if I recall.

UPDATE 01-13-2026: Post rewritten. In addition to adding [Costa Dallis] and [College Station] to the post it adds [regrettable renovations] which I've applied to other posts.