America's Country Store

Picture taken March 2019
I love lineages of companies, and you may have noticed the Purina checkerboard logo on the outside of this store, just like many of the Purina-branded pet food inside. The thing is, those are two different companies, and they have been for decades. The "America's Country Store" is a franchise of Purina Mills, which operate animal feed mills in rural areas, but it spun off from the original Ralston Purina in the mid-1980s. Purina Mills has been owned by Land O'Lakes Inc. since 2001, while the original Ralston Purina (having divested all of its "human food" operations over the years) was purchased by Nestlé around the same time and merged with their Friskies PetCare Company division (becoming known as "Nestlé Purina PetCare" since). One place in town with Ralston Purina heritage is, surprisingly, Jack in the Box, which Ralston Purina owned in the 1970s and 1980s, and we recently had a post regarding the one in College Station.

America's Country Store started in 1997 under Purina Mills but the College Station (Wellborn) store at 14675 FM 2154 opened in October 2005 by franchisee Close Quarters Feed and Pet Supply. It was always designated toward animals, but in the late 2010s (circa 2018, I'd say) converted its garden center into a pet boarding service. This is just out of view in the picture, but can be seen in Street View.

UPDATE 03-30-2025: Mild updates.

Jack in the Box, Texas Avenue, College Station

This store has since been gutted down to just a few columns and walls and totally rebuilt (with a small expansion).
Jack in the Box store number 683 (1504 Texas Avenue South) opened in 1976. The picture isn't high resolution because I was going to publish it as part of the Texas Avenue City Directory on the next update on Carbon-izer. It's all part of a big site overhaul. The picture is from me, but I don't have the date recorded down of when I took it (likely a few years ago). This is the only Jack in the Box in College Station proper as the one on Rock Prairie closed down a couple of years ago.

UPDATE 11-07-2020: Updated opening date based on new evidence and added a bit on the rebuild.
UPDATE 08-06-2021: Changed date to 1976 and also added [1970s] (instead of [1980s]) to the tag.

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. UPDATE 07-30-2025: Rewrite complete, previous updates archived.

1501 Texas Avenue

It appears that the doors out front were sealed later.
Built in 1980 as a bank office building, today this building houses offices for Texas A&M University. A 1998 directory lists it having the Texas A&M Foundation and offices for "United Bank College Station". I'm also told this had a branch of Aggieland Credit Union before that branch moved to Southwest Parkway around that time. Picture was taken in February 2019 as I had no previous picture for it before.