Northgate Juice Joint

It appears the bar operating inside Northgate Juice Joint has its own phone number. (Picture taken April 2020)
The oldest record I can find for this building is 1973's "Pit Stop Enterprises", a car parts shop "for the sports car & small sedan enthusiast".¹ By 1975 it was Bill's Barber and Style Shop, which it would continue to be for many years (save for a brief time around 1976 as "Bill & Don's Barber and Style Shop"). In the early 2000s, Bill's Style Shop closed and the space was absorbed into Zapatos Cantina and after Zapatos closed in 2012, the space that Zapatos had absorbed became Wobbly Monkey, a bar, in 2013. The original Zapatos section (DoubleDave's) was not part of the deal, but Wobbly Monkey never lasted more than two semesters before the owner sold out. In fall 2014 Northgate Juice Joint opened, which used part of the outdoor space for an urban garden before sub-lkeasing to "Commanders Cove", an outdoor bar-within-a-store, opening in 2019.

No alcohol served back in the day. [Picture from Project HOLD]

Northgate Juice Joint's current facade is its third since it's been here, the second facade was much more elaborate than the modest one shown in the picture.

By 2021, Northgate Juice Joint moved to 214B Elm Avenue (later known as Juice Juice) but that closed in 2023. Meanwhile, Commanders Cove continues to operate, with the 215 University facade now reading "Shot Bar".

1. Previous versions of this page mention "Andre's Bicycle Shop" but new research puts that as being at 305 University Drive...although it might've been here after all. UPDATE 07-30-2025: Rewrite complete, previous updates archived.

College Station Bank at 1501 Texas Avenue

Picture by author, February 2019. It appears that these windows were originally doors to the front.
As part of routine maintenance on this blog despite not adding anything recently, I wanted to give 1501 Texas Avenue a better version of what it currently had, so all this is essentially a 2026 post despite its 2019 posting date. In January 1980 this opened as College Station Bank. The origins of this were that First State Bank out of Hearne (not to be confused with First State Bank out of Caldwell, see "Western National Bank of Bryan" had interest in doing business in College Station. An article from December 1979 indicates that they wanted to "change from a state to a national charter and move [to College Station]". This would be called College Station Bank (not to be confused with College Station State Bank, the former name of University National Bank) but that the January 1980 opening would be "temporary quarters" for the bank. (It was a brand-new building.)

In summer 1982, College Station Bank became Unitedbank-College Station, described as a "close association of banks" with branches in Victoria, Orange, and two in Houston. Like I've previously touched on in the Western National Bank article, Unitedbank-College Station merged with Citizens Bank of Bryan (as United Citizens Bank) before being acquired in 1991 by Don Adam's First American Bank, which had been founded in 1989 when Adam purchased and reopened Bryan-based First Bank & Trust...but from what I can tell, this only was the accounts. The building's contents were auctioned off.

In early 1993, Texas A&M Foundation Trust announced it would move to the site from its old location at 1716 Briarcrest Drive Suite 300. It was still home to Texas A&M Foundation in 2002 (they moved to the new Hagler Center on campus, at 401 George Bush Drive around this time). Afterwards, it became a full TAMU building with an official TAMU paid lot (Lot 120). As of 2026 this has the Information Technology department and the Office of Internal Audit.

UPDATE 07-09-2026: Full and complete rewrite done. In the original 2019 version of this post, it suggests that Aggieland Credit Union was here (that was at 301 Dominik). As part of the new version of the post, it has also received a new name ("College Station Bank at 1501 Texas Avenue"), previously titled as "1501 Texas Avenue". [banks] has been added.

Southgate Village Apartments

Here's an Eagle ad from December 1971, subsidized even back then.
Originally part of the Luther Street and Wellborn Road article to undergo major changes as of this writing (accounting for the huge new apartment building replacing the entire block), the Southgate Village Apartments were built in 1970 and is a HUD subsidized apartment (even going into foreclosure in early 2012).

Street View image, 134 Luther Street

Shiraz Shish Kabob

Picture taken January 2017, I had been holding onto this for over two years!
When I added this post in February 2019 (which itself got transplanted to a new post following a reorganization of the website at that time), I didn't have the resources I do now. This restaurant started out as a rather typical (for the time) Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant as what those restaurants looked like at the time. (It also had the address of 100 Dominik Drive before changing to 110 Dominik Drive a few years later, which it still is today. In late 1986 it closed and moved to Park Place Plaza where it still business as KFC (after a few remodels) and is currently engaged in an ongoing war with the Popeyes catty-corner to it.

In 1987, Quick as a Flash, a photo studio, moved here from Post Oak Mall. Ritz Camera eventually bought it to become "Ritz Portrait Studio" or "Ritz One Hour Photo" (not to be confused with the main Ritz Camera store, which later moved in across the street) and it eventually closed in the mid-2000s. For a very brief time in 2007, this was "The Pump". One of the old comments erroneously referred to it as "The Filling Station" but described it as such:

It specialized in fried everything. They were quite good if you could exist on fried everything. Chicken, chicken fried steak, fried livers and gizzards. They also baked beautifully decorated Christmas cookies. Interesting place.

By fall of 2008, the restaurant was being renovated into its current tenant, Shiraz Shish Kabob, which opened in December of that year. While the heavy lifting was done by The Pump in restoring the building back to restaurant use (I'm guessing that when it became a portrait studio, connections required for food service were simply covered up rather than removed entirely), Shiraz added a fountain to the main dining area for ambience (though it made the restaurant a bit humid). I'm guessing that when it became a portrait studio, connections required for food service were simply covered up rather than removed entirely.

UPDATE 02-27-2023: Complete rewrite done.