Walton Shopping Center

Some of Eastgate's tenants. (May 2014, picture by author). Years ago I had a blog post that was titled "Random Eastgate Thoughts" (later retitled as just "Eastgate") that was a large, unfocused post that told of some of the buildings at Walton and Texas Avenue, but also some of the neighborhood around it going up to Thomas Pool (RIP). In the interest of metrics I decided to permanently remove the older post and focus on this post, which used to solely focus on 109 Walton, rather than the strip around it, which was built around the 1950s with some later additions in the 1970s.

I should preface this with a note that the addresses found are very, very spotty and addresses don't necessarily run sequentially at the same time. So some of where things should be can be inaccurate.

All the tenants here have a Walton Drive address (I lived on Walton Drive once with roommates during my college years, though it's been demolished...it won't be getting a post). Despite the age of the center, the oldest reference I can find for 107 Walton is The Guitar Shop¹ in 1990. (105 Walton, of course, is Military Depot). References are spotty prior to 2000, I can find a few businesses that may have operated here (a Catholic bookstore may have operated here in 2000, but if it did it was only for a few months, and there was a tuxedo rental shop just prior to that). But the most reliable stuff I have for this address only starts in the early 2000s when Valley Cyclery (with its capital-Bauhaus font) moved here from 3122 Texas Avenue South before closing permanently around late 2003. In 2004 it was replaced with vintage clothing store Left-Handed Monkey but that only operated for less than a year before becoming Blissful Wishes Bridal (closed 2008) before becoming Textbook Solutions for another decade, and between 2018 and 2022 Textbook Solutions closed and became a larger location of TooTer's Vape Shop, which relocated from 113 Walton.

Primo Pizza in better days, September 2013
Moving onto 109 has more information behind it. The first hit for this address is 1952 as "Battle's Plumbing and Sheet Metal Shop. In 1955 it was Venetian Blind Factory (not actually a production facility, but custom-made blinds and repairs of existing ones) until it moved in 1958 to 3506 S. Texas Avenue in Bryan ("We Are Next Door to Orr's). In June 1959 a Greyhound terminal was established there as a depot for a few years. In 1961 it was the Red Star Cafe, then a few years after that became University Flowers (they didn't immediately move out to their current home and I have yet to find if it's even the same business)...by 1971 it was the East Gate Lounge, then a nightclub called "The College Station, then a second location of The Peanut Gallery², then Murphey's (which closed in the early 1980s but reopened under new management) before giving way in the mid-1980s to Eastgate Live, which opened in 1986. By 1989 it was The Guitar Shop, then Partners Food Delivery by 1990. (I'm guessing that around this time the storefront was divided to the previously-unused 107). Partners operated for a number of years (food delivery outside of pizza was generally rare, and would be for another few decades). A dining guide from 1999 mentions it specialized in stuffed baked potatoes but also offered hamburgers, salads, and sandwiches. It moved in 2000 and was replaced by "Wing Zone" (still there in 2005) before giving way to Leaning Tower Pizza in 2008. I remember that Leaning Tower used a blend of cheeses for its cheese pizza but was particularly greasy (a bit of an acquired taste) and rather grimy for a College Station restaurant, but I didn't mind because that's why you have pizza...hot enough to kill any dubious bacteria. It had some garden furniture for an "eat-in" area and had "free delivery" that had a significant discount if you picked it up in store, which means it wasn't actually free at all. For whatever reason, Leaning Tower closed in May 2013. Local restaurateur Charles Stover, bought the store, along with recipes and equipment, promising to reopen with a new name and theme. Unfortunately, a wrong turn was taken from the start and the resulting restaurant, Primo Pizza & Rolls, opened with "gourmet" takeout pizza, stuff that included pesto on every slice (this opened in late summer 2013). Unfortunately, gourmet takeout pizza without an eat-in area wasn't something the market could handle (especially located in a neighborhood that was largely populated by college students and minorities) and in about six months it was gone (the way it was worded in February 2014 indicated that the closure was temporary but by May it was gutted). I did get Primo Pizza's webpage, archived in PNG form before it disappeared. (Also some photos from May 2014, Gutted PP, May 2014. This is where the counter and menu were. The kitchen was behind that wall. This configuration was intact for both LTP and PP&R. While an Eastgate pizza place was no more than a memory, it did have one more tenant afterwards that opened by fall, La Gabriella, a pastry and coffee shop.³ This was one of my favorite places in my neighborhood when I lived on Eastgate, cinnamon rolls for breakfast if I was running late for school, decent coffee and espresso, and even (though I don't know about it today), a selection of used video games (from her husband) for sale, where I bought Pikmin and I believe Metroid Prime. I haven't made much progress in either, though. They're still on the backlog!⁴

111 Walton is another one I don't have much on. In 2000 it was the old location of Blissful Wishes, then in 2001 became Eastgate Barber Shop, with four stylists, two of which came from other shops. By 2005 it was known as Eastgate Hair Shop for Men, and is currently (since 2024) "Main Street Barbershop".



This concept art was from the mid-1990s that showed a new arrangement of the intersection but the tenants are accurate for the time. 113 Walton's first tenant in 1951 was "Beall Floor Covering Company" and then became, in 1954, Battle Plumbing Company (moved from 109). In 1957 it was Manning Smith (an office of Insurance Company of North America back when they did home insurance), then Redmond Real Estate, then not much until an outlet of Daylight Donuts in 1991,⁵ which became a franchise for Southern Maid Donuts by 1996 and after that classifieds start appearing for Partners.⁶ References to Partners end around late 2004 (last mention was a restaurant report card from January 2005, but Partners would've closed by then). Occupying both spaces makes sense if there wasn't a reference for Wing Zone until fall 2005. In any case, "113A" was Russell's Aggieland Boots in spring 2006. By spring 2012, it was the recently relocated Oasis Pipes & Tobacco. It used to be on University Drive before that whole strip was demolished for the Northpoint Crossing development. When checked out 113 in 2014, there was some baking equipment inside the space. By 2016 it was TooTer's Vape Shop, by 2022 they moved to 109 Walton; as of 2025 a Farmers Insurance office occupies the space.

References to 115 Walton could only be found in the 1950s as Redmond Real Estate, leading me to believe that 113 and 115 were the same physical tenant. By the late 1950s it was Dishman Real Estate, which continued into the 1960s, by 1970 it was known as Seaback Homes Incorporated. No other references appear after that date.

There doesn't seem to be any references for 117 Walton, but 119 Walton's oldest reference is Denco Photo & Camera in 1980 (guessing one of the newer buildings in the strip). By 1986 it was yet another address used for Partners Food Delivery according to classifieds, indicating they might've used all three of the spaces simultaneously, though I can't Partners using this address after 1997. As of 2012 this was a piercing studio called "To The Point" (and before that it was the old home of Textbook Solutions), though by 2017 it was absorbed by Aggieland Apartment Finders next door (at 123 Walton).

121 and 123 Walton appear to be the same, the first reference for 121 was Culpepper Realty in 1951, however, this is complicated by the fact that in 1960 this end of the shopping center did not exist (wasn't built yet) and no other building was on the site, indicating the "old" 121 was west of here. Other hits for this address are Three-C Construction Company Inc. (1975), Executive Secretarial Service (1979), under that company they became Executive Temporaries in 1980, then Executive Employment Consultants⁷sup>. After 1990, there's no more results until Advanced Cellular Aggieland (1998)...yet Executive Travel appeared again in 2001 with the same address! After that, references for 121 Walton end, with 123 being used for Executive Travel until 2004. It was Apartment Aggieland Finders by 2007. That has been the case since, though the block of stores from the barbershop to the apartment finding agency was upgraded from a cedar shake roof to a metal roof around 2024.

Another Eastgate shot from 2014, this one showing the ones to the east.

1. The Guitar Shop also used 109 Walton as the address.
2. All this rapid turnover means I'm almost certainly missing something.
3. Originally named "My Daily Bread Bakery" until 2017. 4. A sizable portion of Carbon-izer.com is dedicated to video games with the games section being renamed as "Exor's Dungeon", named after an enemy from Super Mario RPG. If you would like to visit that site, click here. Also as far as video games and my other projects go, there's also Yoot Tower Guides.
5. I'm suspecting I'm missing small offices over the years.
6. Given how both appear simultaneously, I'm guessing Partners occupied multiple non-adjacent spaces, but I don't know.
7. Additionally, "Executive Travel" was operated out of the same location.
UPDATE 01-27-2026: Extensive update that transformed the Primo Pizza page into a full Eastgate page, integrating from the other older Eastgate post. Many of the original content of the Primo Pizza page has been left intact. New tags were added.

Handy Burger / The Onion Ring / The Deluxe / Chimy's Cerveceria

Chimy's sign looks kind of cool at night, but no picture of that, sorry (December 2015)

This restaurant, best known to me as the Deluxe Diner, always had a bit of a special place in my heart, even if I never went there. It was the first thing I saw besides the late Dulie Bell Building if we were going down the ramp from Wellborn, plus it was always featured in a little "menu booklet" that the George Bush Library had in their early days. It started as a hamburger restaurant called the Handy Burger (first reference in papers was 1962), which was the first place in town to have a microwave for food use. Around 1979 (give or take a year), this became a restaurant called "The Onion Ring" (which picked up a well-known nickname probably more common than the REAL name of the restaurant).

By 1983 it was "The Deluxe Burger Bar" (renamed The Deluxe Diner sometime later), and at some point to be determined, the restaurant's exterior was remodeled (Handy Burger looked substantially different than what Deluxe looked like).

Deluxe Diner menu from better days (c. 1998), note that this is not the full menu

The shuttered Deluxe Diner, Google Street View (c. 2007)
The Deluxe Diner closed in 2006 (that I know for sure) but by that time was in a state of huge decline (food was terrible, management was even worse). Despite having some period diner pieces inside (though the exterior had been modified since the Handy Burger days), the building started to rot and mold until 2012 when most of the restaurant was demolished save for a few walls and was rebuilt into Chimy's Cerveceria, which opened in January 2013. I've never eaten there, based on reports of overpriced food and what I've seen myself (long, cafeteria-like tables). That was disappointing, as I'd been wanting some decent Tex-Mex in Northgate, not a bar. Rest assured, though, with the opening of Torchy's Tacos when I lived at Eastgate, I no longer thought of Chimy's as a wasted opportunity.

So there you go. The tale of one of College Station's oldest restaurant sites in one post. Sorry for the absence as of late...I'll be wrapping up several more of the posts here with one more for the memories.

UPDATE 12-31-2020: Added Handy Burger's opening date as well as other restuarants.

Pooh's Park, Tinsley's, and Others Replaced by a Shopping Center

View of the center today

Once again, we come back to one of our blog, this time to roll a few smaller posts into a bigger one. As the picture above shows, the area at Holleman and Texas Avenue is now a large (kind of low end) shopping center. In addition to covering all the changes that went on there (which I have yet to do), I can combine a few older posts into this one. So, first, we have Pooh's Park at 1907 Texas Avenue South.

There's far more to Pooh's Park (no, not related to the "Winnie" one) I can get into today, because it's a popular topic on local nostalgia threads: if you want to learn more, you can head over to Facebook to talk or browse through old photos (and they include newspaper articles!)

I never got to experience Pooh's Park myself, but from what I've seen and read, it was like Chuck E. Cheese, Putt-Putt, and a skating rink (roller, not ice) all wrapped into one. It opened in 1972 and was where the shopping center where Hobby Lobby, Big Lots, and Ross are now. A 1984 phone book has a different ad that does mention things like a water slide (408 feet) and a different address (at some point, they changed to 105 Holleman Drive East, though based on what you can see from Google Earth, and backed up by a picture of Texas Avenue from a local history book I don't have a copy of with me) is that Pooh's Park was accessed primarily through Texas Avenue, not Holleman.

One thing about Pooh's Park was that it had higher standards to keep rowdier customers away, demanding that "kids dress properly and keep and their hair trimmed" but during the height of its popularity that didn't matter much. Pooh's Park closed in November 1986 citing taxes and insurance reasons as well as a dwindling customer base. Things were left on the property (including a theft of a "blue furry robot" ultimately just the sign remained up by the early 2000s.

Google Earth 1995, with modern streets overlaid

Some older maps (circa 2001-ish, long after Pooh's Park bit the dust) put a "Pooh's Lane" roughly where the Bahama Buck's is now, but unless that first part of Holleman Drive East was actually called that (after all, there's a few things that do support that, including the odd alignment of Holleman Drive and Holleman Drive East suggests that the East part was first, and then Holleman Drive extended that way later by way of a particularly awkward curve, or the fact that the subdivision nearby (behind the strip center and the other businesses on the east side) is named Pooh's Park Subdivision.

This ad was in October 1985 (The Eagle) when Pooh's Park was still in business. I guess they had furniture sales on the side. Next to Pooh's Park was Tinsley's Chicken 'n Rolls.

Chicken done well, chicken well done!
Opening in late 1979, Tinsley's was located on 1905 Texas Avenue South as the chain's only College Station location (there were locations from Waco to Houston, and two in Bryan--one of which has an article on the blog). In 1985, the Tinsley family sold out to Church's Fried Chicken. Church's closed sometime around 1989 (likely due to the Church's/Popeyes merger at the time). In the 1995 it reopened as Santa Fe Pizza (aka Santa Fe Market Cafe). In 1997, it was Kokopelli's (Southwestern food, I have a menu but never scanned it) and Clay Oven from 1998 to 2000 (Indian food).

It should be noted the plane was a real thing, though, as David Tinsley used an actual 1930s plane to promote his restaurants, not unlike how Flying Tomato used hot air balloons.

Despite a brief re-appearance in Huntsville with much fanfare (in a former KFC and now Hartz Chicken Buffet), Tinsley's is current a dead chain once more.

Anyway, by the early 2000s, the space was almost entirely vacant (I believe Clay Oven had been demolished) with little else on the property except the old Pooh's Park sign, which had remained up. While the new shopping center (opened in 2002) had rather downscale tenants, most of them were new. There was Hobby Lobby, which moved from Post Oak Square, locating at 1903 Texas Avenue South. Others included a branch of Loupot's (1907 Texas Ave. S.), Shoe Carnival (1909 Texas Ave. S.), Ross Dress for Less (1911 Texas Ave. S.), and Goody's Family Clothing (1913 Texas Avenue South). Petco and a few smaller stores shared the 1901 address, and in 2006, CiCi's Pizza moved in from Culpepper Plaza, taking the 1905 Texas Avenue address. Goody's would close in early 2009 as the chain went under, but it was replaced with a few new stores, Big Lots (returning back to the market, as by that time, their old location at the former Kmart had been closed for several years) and a Twin Liquors (which, despite slightly nicer décor, seemed like a smaller, inferior competitor to Spec's). Loupot's also closed in spring 2012 and reopened as a Salata in less than two years.

Another shopping strip was built around the same time as the rest (but named The Shops at Wolf Pen Plaza) with Starbucks Coffee, a Sprint store (which initially had the older logo, then eventually was rebranded to T-Mobile following the merger), and Champion Firearms (moved from the Kroger shopping center). The Starbucks can be seen in its early days here from Starbucks Everywhere. It shows the ratty little building next door, the trees along Texas Avenue that got wrecked when it was widened, Goody's, and the patio of Starbucks before it was expanded. A comfortable reminder of days gone by, really.

UPDATE 07-08-2022: QoL updates including the life of the center, better closing date of Pooh's, new tags
UPDATE 06-12-2025: Various updates and mild rewrite.
UPDATE 11-02-2025: Big Lots closed around late 2024 (probably should've mentioned that in the last update) but as of this writing Sprouts Farmers Market is coming. This is the third time in over a decade they've tried (back in 2012 they were going to move into the dead Linens 'n Things on University Drive East, and later planned a move into the dead World Market down the street, though this wasn't as well publicized).

Loupot's Northgate

Loupot's in 1995. (PH)

Prior to when College Main was closed off (June 19th 2012, a day that will live in infamy), it was the only block which was resembled a dense city in College Station. And sitting on the corner of this block was Loupot's (335 University Drive), which closed the same year (in March). One of the oldest establishments on Northgate and once the "official" bookstore on campus, Loupot's had been around for years, though from what I've read, it wasn't always in the building, and when it was, it wasn't in both levels.

From what I've found, it wasn't bought by Loupot until 1979, and in the past, Loupot's was named "Loupot's Trading Post" and "Loupot's Books & Britches". The upper level was added in the 1980s not too long after the building was bought, as that had been the previous home of an X-rated bookstore (The Adult Library, though I read an ad that mentioned it being the home of "Sun Theater", same business, different name). Some ads I had found (but sadly don't have a copy right now) mentioned that they had shows for a quarter (and escorted ladies were free), which was around in the 1970s and 1980s. This had an address of 333 University. The adult theater was upstairs at 333 University, with Loupot's downstairs. At some point, they eventually closed and Loupot's ultimately would expand upstairs.

Anyway, Loupot's managed to expand to a few different locations, namely a location in Southgate (now home to TexAgs) and in a location at Holleman and Texas Avenue (now Salata). These closed shortly after the Northgate location. A fourth location was planned (according to a sign) to the grassy area just north of Blinn College on Villa Maria (where Blinn later added more parking). Loupot's continued to maintain its large store on Northgate, which later upgraded to electronic signage and made Internet history with its "reverse-boarded up windows" in 2005 (around the time of Hurricane Rita). However, in 2010, the family sold to Nebraska Book Company (Neebo), which already owned the Traditions bookstores (formerly Rother's), and then they started closing stores. The Loupot's-branded stores went away in March 2012, but eventually, their other stores, branded as Traditions (Southgate, University Square, and one closer to Blinn at Briarcrest and Villa Maria) closed as well.

One of their last messages on the message board was "HOLY CRAP!!! TEXTBOOK RENTAL SALE!!!", which always felt a bit tasteless due to the mild swearing but that distracted from the fact that if they're selling rental textbooks, they're probably going under.

The former Loupot's in 2013.


After Loupot's closed, by late 2014, it was to become a place called Z Bar & Bistro, which made me hope it was something better than The Corner across the street (sticky chairs and tables, smells like old beer constantly, poor service), though it eventually fell through.

As of early 2016, there appears to be some work going on at Loupot's. It will probably be a bar, but it's better than an empty building, right?

UPDATE 03-07-2021: After six years after its annnouncement, Z Bar & Bistro opened around October of 2020. It serves sushi and has a rooftop seating area. Also, the post had [2010s] removed from it.
UPDATE 09-20-2021: Renamed post from "The Loupot's Building", added [restaurants] and [College Station] to post. Also made a few smaller fixes.
UPDATE 06-21-2023: Sometime around 2022, Z Bar closed (with its time spent at 335 University a fraction of the time it spent under construction), with "Toku 12" in its place.
UPDATE 04-24-2024: Clarification to above. After December 2022, Z Bar briefly closed and reopened as Toku12.