Southwest Parkway East Shell

Evening shot by author, May 2021.
This was another post that I wanted to get to back in 2021-2022 but I decided to put off indefinitely because a good number of the posts I made in that time were gas station or convenience store posts and I didn't want yet another one. Including and between Christmas 2020 and Christmas 2021, there were 25 posts, 20% were on gas stations. Sure, some of them had restaurants inside, but it was just too much at one time. The gas station here, legally "Express Stop" at 450 Southwest Parkway East and built around 2000-2001 as a Texaco (converted to Shell in early 2003) has two sub-tenants. The one on the left (452 Southwest Parkway East) was, from 2004-2005, Cool Beans (legally "TC's Smoothies & More"), which left its sign up for a few years after it closed. From 2008 to 2011 it was Southwest Cleaners, and most recently, Salon Christiana which opened in 2012 but shut down due to COVID in March 2020 and never reopened. On the right side of the gas station was Casa Rodriguez Express from 2011 to 2014 and Master Donut since 2015). Before "Casa Rod" it was the fourth location of Mi Cocina (later Polly's Cocina). This was one of the "two additional locations in College Station" mentioned in this post.

One of the other reasons this never got posted was I had located on Flickr a picture of Cool Beans' facade. It was the side view and I even think it may have been in grayscale, but it got lost somewhere along the way, I think when new owner SmugMug purchased Flickr from Oath (Yahoo!) and cracked down on storage space. Here's the Street View for the site as of 2007. Less-blurry pictures are available but this one is the only one where you can make out the red-and-green Cool Beans facade.

Former Johnny Carino's

Not too many changes from the original restaurant.
Restaurants, restaurants, restaurants! As of this writing, more than half of the last dozen posts I created involve restaurants directly and on average, more than half of the posts in the entire blog. This is no exception. Today we'll do the former Johnny Carino's on Harvey Road, a long-missing part of the Harvey Road restaurant series.

Johnny Carino's opened its College Station location at 620 Harvey Road in 1999 (a bit of a weird placement, it's located down the street from even 701 Harvey). Part of the fast-growing chain under Fired Up Inc. and even gaining its sister concept Kona Ranch down the street, the restaurant was initially successful but the chain eventually crumbled (at some point it was rebranded to Carino's Italian--the name was reverted but I don't think the signage ever was).

After a long, slow decline of the chain (by the time the restaurant closed, only about 14 existed in Texas of around 40 nationally) with the restaurant chain changing names to Carino's Italian before reverting back (the Carino's Italian signage stayed), the restaurant closed in June 2022. As of this writing in April 2024, the chain is down to 30 locations nationally and just nine in Texas.

New York-based Anchor Bar, which claims to have been the birthplace for buffalo wings and started expanding in 2012, announced over year ago that they would move into the former Italian chain restaurant. Despite some exterior improvements (metal roof instead of terra cotta), it doesn't look like they'll open anytime soon (if ever? We'll let you know), with so many other restaurants long adopting wings as a main menu item (you know, like Wings 'N More), will it succeed? (All pictures taken by author, 2/21/2024).

This part of the restaurant was fully enclosed, but not anymore.

Carino's sign from the road. The lighting tubes inside glowed red and I think there was a green border as well.
UPDATE 09-01-2024: Anchor Bar opened late August 2024.

Amico Nave Ristorante

This one and the other photos were taken by author, February '24.
I had to pull the details of this one from my FM 1179 page, but this one came up for a post as the restaurant announced closing with the last day being February 24, 2024. So, with that in mind, we'll take another look at it.

Amico Nave Ristorante at 203 East Villa Maria Road was built in the late 1970s as a restaurant called "Pizza Planet" (many years before Toy Story, of course) and this lasted from 1979 to 1984. Because of spotty records, it later served (briefly) as Kelly-Moore Paint Company (according to taxpayer records) and a restaurant called Buffalo Joe's as late as 1994, but has been a beauty salon from 1996 to the very early 2010s (Shapers Hair Productions, though might've gone under a different name in the late 1990s). In spring 2013, it reopened as Amico Nave from the same owners (Wade and Mary Beckman) of Shipwreck Grill across the street. In its early years Amico Nave did very well: in summer 2013, when restaurants usually have slow business, the parking lot was packed out nightly. But I suppose all things have to come to an end. Enjoy the photos and check out the post for Shipwreck Grill.

Uh-oh, hours changed! Who could have seen this coming?

While the concrete base is old, this is one of the few new light fixtures for Amico Nave.

The building is visibly older. Currently, plans are in the works to renovate the building to look more like a ship and move Shipwreck Grill into the space.

UPDATE 09-04-2024: Exterior and interior updates to Amico Nave have been completed, with the new Shipwreck Grill opening sometime a few days ago as of this post. ([defunct] removed)

The Sandstone Center

Initially this was out in the sticks, now it's just north of the Costco. (Ad from 1989 phone book) This site rarely covers churches, and when it happens it's usually an extenuating circumstance, like it wasn't always a church. This is one such instance. Sandstone Psychiatry (at 4201 Highway 6 South, though the ad says differently) opened in the mid-to-late 1980s with inpatient and outpatient care. It was a hospital/long-term care in some form and even featured a swimming pool. In the early 1990s, The Sandstone Center changed hands to become the Desert Hills Center (see update below), but at some point in the 1990s closed. In the late 1990s, the space in front of the former clinic was purchased by Christ United Methodist Church and a new facility was built (likely around 1999, the old address according to a 1998 phone book revealed that the church body existed but had no permanent space, listed as 4719 Shoal Creek Drive). By 2004, a second building was built as the main building while the old Sandstone building was used as auxiliary classroom space. In 2008, a third building was built between them, while integrating the parking lots better and adding another entrance off of Highway 6. The three buildings were connected with covered walkways. This would remain the configuration for the next decade. By the late 2010s, new roads were developed around the church. The main south entrance was removed for the construction of a segment of Pebble Creek Parkway, which was (presumably) to extend to the main road off of Highway 40. A few spaces in the back were removed for access to the Lakeway Drive extension. A driveway built on the north side of the property was developed as Carroll Fancher Way. Within a year of the expansion, the orphaned segment of Pebble Creek Parkway was renamed as Corporate Parkway, and Lakeway Drive's extension (including the segment of Lakeway that had opened in 2010) as Midtown Drive.

The old drive-up of Sandstone/the church following the 2020s renovation.
Around 2021-2022, the "Sandstone" building was completely renovated, removing the pool and expanding the building to integrate with the 2008 building, as well as removing the concrete beneath the concrete drive-up. All during this time, it was renamed as Christ Church (disconnect from the Methodist church over theology). The circa '99 building does not connect to the main combined building and still retains its covered walkways.

Desert Hills facility, 1995

Two buildings as of 2004.

Three buildings as of 2011.

Two buildings as of 2022.

UPDATE 01-26-2025: A bit more on Desert Hills. It was a youth facility explicitly for troubled students (not those words). According to another article, "almost all of the students have abuse and/or neglect in their histories, officials said, and their behavior problems range from at-risk delinquent youths to moderately emotionally disturbed". Desert Hills was definitely still operational in 1996 (one caption was amended to account for this) as per this newspaper ad.

A 1998 article (when it was discussed of closing in September) mentions that placement was dictated by government entities (CPS and Juvenile Services). It worked closely with CSISD though it did receive an official charter to open as its own charter school before closing permanently. All this came down to money and politics. (Still, [school] has been added here).

CUMC bought the property in front of it in 1999 and built a small church with the address of 4203, the purchase of the former Desert Hills facility was in 2000, and that's when it adopted its current address.

Truck Stop Cafe

The drawing of the crazed cook (it's all in the eyes) seems to be stock art, notice the copyright symbol. Around four years ago I embarked on an ambitious plan to do a series on Texas Avenue with a bunch of all-new content. I put the kibosh on that fairly early (nothing to do with COVID, just some poor choices of what I actually had. As far as COVID went, it was a productive year otherwise, over 40 entries were added, and while many were on Texas Avenue these were coincidental (it is very popular, you could spend at least an hour reading all 70+ posts—do it!).

Anyway, Truck Stop Cafe! This long-forgotten restaurant operated officially from 1970 (phone book scan from c. 1970) to 1973 as a 24/7 restaurant and what appears to be the first tenant in the spot of 2609 North Texas Avenue, and according to records, the building hasn't seen use as a restaurant (or commercial establishment, for that matter) since. However, a one-off crime report indicates Truck Stop Cafe was still open in 1976, and a phone book shows the restaurant was active since at least 1963.

Since then, although the building hasn't been used as a restaurant in years and has been modified since, the current tenant is Royal Priesthood Christian Fellowship, which it has been since at least the early 2010s.

IHOP on Northgate

The IHOP at College Avenue and University Drive kept up with recent logos in its nearly fifty years of operation but has come to an end.
The IHOP at College Main and University (104 College Avenue) has now closed, closing at the end of December 2023, as reported by KBTX who most likely looked at the old University Square post (as it appeared as of this writing, same as the past few years).

First opened in 1974, the IHOP (International House of Pancakes back in the day) has mostly operated 24 hours a day for many decades, and I'm not sure why exactly it closed...KBTX parrots the 2019 stuff I previously posted but can't do any reporting on their own. Regardless, I personally only went there once around 1999 and all I can say is even if IHOP wasn't the greatest restaurant around (it wasn't), it's a shame to lose yet another 24 hour restaurant. You know...Kettle closed a few years ago, Taco Cabana closed as did follow-up tenant Las Palapas...it's a shame that we can't have nice things anymore or get a sit-down meal at 3 am in the morning. (Hey, I worked night shift.)

The two other stores were opened in more recent years.

Workers were on site dismantling the restaurant.
All pictures were taken by the author, January 2024.

UPDATE 01-25-2025: TexAgs reports that the space is becoming a Chinese restaurant that specializes in Chinese-style fried chicken, Mai Shan Yun. The website for the restaurant is here featuring a menu and some clearly fake reviews.
UPDATE 04-17-2025: According to TexAgs, Mai Shan Yun is now open.

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.

UPDATE 03-26-2025: Two more things.
- A business that appeared to be a gas station (formerly?) was here from 1974 to 2005, C&L Tire Service Center, was in the spot and address that Bush's Chicken / Mr. Hamburger later replaced. Further digging shows that it was still a Texaco in 1976 (as the service center) and was first built in the late 1950s. I don't know how long C&L did gas.
- Hooters did indeed intend to locate here with tax filings and TABC filings alike, yet never broke ground anyway.

Former FedEx Office

I guess FedEx was finally FedUp with Northgate rents. (Picture by author, April 2020)
One of the reasons why this blog is slow to update is a dearth of resources--older newspapers are generally good for these things, but most of the stuff from The Eagle between the mid-2000s (before they started cracking down on their older stories) and the mid-to-late 1970s (paywalled via Newspapers.com) is a black hole. Somebody also asked me to look into an older gas station on the outskirts of town, too...and while I wanted to assure them that I haven't forgotten it will still be delayed for a while. (Looking back on the website a lot of it had to do with what season of life I was in, and this currently isn't one of those seasons).

There have been, of course, updates to this site but nothing major, just accounting for closures, openings, errata, and other details. There's some new stuff, like a real photo of the H-E-B Pantry and Shell-ish experience at 425 Texas Avenue South, but nothing big.

Anyway, because of a lack of resources, I don't have a lot of information on this building. It appears it was originally "Rocco's" in 1987, a nightclub (explaining, partially, the large unused concrete pad in front of the building) and Kinko's Copies (Kinko's) starting in 1991, which, partly due to the business model and partly to the needs of Texas A&M University, was open 24 hours a day (this wasn't even the case before 2020, and operated during only during normal working days). In 2004, it was converted to FedEx Kinko's following the acquisition of the company by FedEx, and sometime after 2008, became simply FedEx Office, which it still is today...at least, until the recent news that it will be moving to Tarrow and University Drive East. I'm not exactly sure when the changeover was, it seemed to happen gradually. Over at Columbia Closings, a site similar in scope to this one, theirs converted in mid-2010.

Around early 2022, FedEx packed and moved to 711 University Drive East.

UPDATE 08-10-2024:: For some reason when I made this post, I neglected to mention that the address was 509 University Drive. As of this writing it is still vacant.
UPDATE 08-25-2024: A bit more on the backstory which may explain the concrete a bit better. As of 1978 it was University Tire & Service Center and they moved out in the summer of 1980 (to 3818 S. College). by January 1982 it was Alfredo's Tacos Al Carbon. At some point they started advertising more menu items (including Papa's Pizza, a restaurant-within-a-restaurant), culminating at a point in 1985 where they were advertising as "Alfredo's / Papa's Pizza" and serving up hamburgers, fried chicken, and pizza. This disappeared around 1985 in favor of "Rita Street" by November 1986 ("Cajun Cookin' at its Best"), and by January 1987 it was Rocco's nightclub and restaurant (either Rita Street was short-lived or it was retooled). There was one reference to "Gringos" in 1988 (no, not the chain restaurant in Tower Point...and indications are Gringos was one of the shortest-lived restaurants in College Station operating for less than a month, though CALZ may have broken that record), and finally Kinko's in 1989 when it moved from 201 College Main. The early days of Kinko's was a 24-hour shop though I believe by its conversion to FedEx Kinko's that was long gone.

Former Tokyo Steak House

1984 phone book

We're back with a post from the archives which had been mothballed at least for the last few years. From what my current resources have, this building was built in 1966 and the 1969 directory lists "Bank of A & M" (certainly unassociated with the university, as many businesses used the "A&M" name until the early 1990s). From 1977 to 1980, it was "The Last National Bank", which from what I can tell was a chain of bank-themed restaurants back in the 1970s and 1980s.

From 1980 to 1984, it was Tokyo Steak House, which moved from Townshire. Fast forwarding to 1998 (resources are sparse), this was Coldwell Banker (as it is today) but the head realtor was Richard Smith. Cherry Ruffino was associated with Coldwell Banker at an office off of Tarrow, at some point these merged and the Coldwell Banker at 411 Texas Avenue became Cherry Ruffino's.

Last Chevron on the Right

NO, this is not my photo. YES, it has a watermark. Read below.
Over the course of this site, I've written over 250 entries on various businesses and buildings, probably mentioning dozens more defunct operations, and well over ten years later I still find things that surprise me.

When I started this site, I did not have access to a lot of resources and that led to some embarrassing errors, like conflating "Wolfe Nursery" and Wolf Pen Creek into "Wolf Pen Nursery", but eventually learned enough about it to write an entire history about it (as seen on Houston Historic Retail).

However, every once in a while, there's some building that I should know of, but somehow eludes my memory. Such was the case of the original 2307 Texas Avenue...but an even bigger black hole is the gas station above. Like Veronica's (but located even further down, at the intersection of Robert Road and Highway 6), this was torn down for the freeway widening but I'm afraid I don't remember it at all save for a fuzzy memory of seeing the words "BAR-B-QUE" or something similar on the sign...which for years I thought was the Heirloom Gardens site. In some aspects, it makes sense—there was a railroad nearby and it was on the correct side of the road from my usual backseat vantage point.

In the initial version of this post, I incorrectly pegged it as "Clyde's Country" (see the first update below, which has more information on what was eventually correctly identified as a Chevron "Handi-Plus".

The picture above is from Vintage Aerial, which is a bit hard to navigate (and mostly focuses on rural areas) but great at finding older gas stations out in the sticks, plus it helped confirm that there was indeed a swimming pool just off of 290 in Houston. And if you wanted to learn more about Navasota proper (outside of the scope of this site) there's more where that comes from.

UPDATE 01-29-2023: I have been informed via Trevor Yeager on Facebook that this was not Clyde's Country and that Clyde's Country was a "bit closer to College Station on 6" (it was "a small green and white building that sold used truck camper tops"). However, he also mentioned that Navasota Welding Supply was in the building of the gas station above, which was at, according to my resources, 27620 Highway 6 South. After further research, it appears it was a Chevron Handi-Plus (#18) since the mid-1980s at 27320 Highway 6 South and mentioned in this post. It would suggest it was not Exxon and had converted to Chevron like other Gulf stations.
UPDATE 05-20-2023: With the identity of the station confirmed, the post has been re-worked and renamed "Last Chevron on the Right".
UPDATE 10-4-2023: This 1983 shot indicates it was in fact built in the 1980s (changed [1970s] to [1980s]).

K-Bob's Steakhouse

This is an ad from K-Bob's Steakhouse back from 1989. Yes, this restaurant building DID start as a chain. Paolo's Italian Kitchen, which has been here since September 2014 and August 2022, is officially dead*, and thus I figure it would be a good time to cover the story of 809 University Drive East. 809 University Drive East consists of one restaurant in the front (with a silver roof) and office suites behind it (copper roof), and while I can't get a good picture of Paolo's (it is, of course, sunken into the ground) you can catch a picture of Paolo's from our Abuelo's entry here.

The last time I ate at this restaurant was back sometime around the early/mid-2000s when it was T-Bone Jones. It was a good steakhouse while it lasted and it was a pick of my parents for date night. It closed in 2005 for a few reasons, the first reason was that when University Drive East was rebuilt in the late 1990s (six lanes out to the freeway), the construction required a retaining wall to be built, and as a result the restaurant was almost a full floor below the road level with limited visibility and access. The second reason was that with the early 2000s came a new slew of restaurants in the same corridor, with Cheddar's Casual Cafe, Rockfish Grill, Texas Roadhouse, and later the new location of Wings 'N More taking up residence, all with much better visibility and access. Lastly, and probably not an immediate factor of its decline (but compounded problems), but as the restaurant lost popularity, the dining room looked big and empty. There's a reason why restaurants, especially chain ones, try to separate out dining areas...

While 809 University Drive consists of a number of smaller office suites, the building in the front (and the only one with a silver-colored roof as opposed to copper) has been restaurants (suite 100A, though not always used). The most recent one is Paolo's Italian Kitchen, as previously mentioned. Previous tenants of the restaurant portion) included Rooster's Country Dinner House (2012-2013, failed in less than six months), Sodolak's Beefmasters (2010-2012, see our previous post that does briefly mention their attempt here), T-Bone Jones (1994-2005), Armando's Border Grill (1992-1993), Santa Fe Steakhouse (1990-1992), and K-Bob's Steakhouse (1986-1990).

You'll notice there is a gap after T-Bone Jones, it did sit empty for a few years.

I'm not going to list the tenants in the office complex, it's boring and that's probably not what you're here for. Still, it's worth mentioning for the number of other tenants that have used the 809 University Drive East address over the years.

* This made a lot more sense when I wrote this back in early September.

Barry Pool Company

Advertisement from 1999 phone book
As the weather gets chilly, I think of trips I've taken in the past for Christmas and Thanksgiving, which usually involved going down south from Texas Avenue (starting at Wal-Mart) and jumping down toward Highway 6, then off to 105. A good part of Carbon-izer is built around those memories. I've covered Veronica's here and there's one more defunct gas station that I'm still trying to collect information on, alluded to in that post over a year ago but I have yet to get around to it.

But first, Barry Pool Company. The address, 3114 Texas Avenue South, has been operational since 1986. They sold out around 2008 to what is now known as Brazos Valley Pool & Spas, but one of what made Barry's memorable was its sign, featuring a backlit slightly stylized drawing of a woman in a bikini (you can barely see it here but you can't really see it all that well). Nothing obscene but it was still interesting and memorable enough, especially back in the time when I was rarely going down this stretch of road with my family. After all, what was beyond Wal-Mart? Not much. No grocery stores (not until Kroger opening in 2000), very few gas stations, and beyond Rock Prairie Road, no hotels or restaurants. As you can see on Carbon-izer that's not the case anymore and hasn't been for a while.

UPDATE 04-08-2025: Barry Pool Co. was previously located in Bryan in 1983 at 3806 South Texas Avenue (Midtown Center) before relocating to (then) south College Station around 1986.
UPDATE 06-10-2025: Brazos Valley Pools & Spas has pulled up the stakes to 4160 State Highway 6 South, a few months ago EcoPools & Spas has replaced it.

Chicken Oil Company

Chicken Oil Company is a ramshackle-looking business, this is the back view from the parking lot. The front view from College Avenue is harder to get. (Picture from author, 8/22).

Once again, we're on College Avenue, which unlike FM 1179 doesn't have a corresponding page where everything is covered so neatly, covering Chicken Oil Company, which is closed, at least temporarily, following a fire in April 2022. I could've done what Columbia Closings does, put together some pictures of the business, give a few words if he remembers it or not (and if the former, with fondness or not), but I wanted to try to give an overview of the property as I usually do.

The same sign, affixed with blue painters tape, was in multiple other places outside the restaurant. (Picture from author, 8/22).

While I've eaten Chicken Oil Company a few times, what can I say, good hamburgers and fries, the restaurant space started out in an existing gas station in the late 1970s and evolved to what it is today, dropping gas along the way and creating a cobbled-together building similar to Dixie Chicken, which had the same ownership.

The restaurant is decorated with old advertising signs, though these have not been well-maintained and have rusted away. (Picture from author, 8/22).

While the gas station dates back to an indeterminate time, a separate "party room" was part of another restaurant, the Triangle Drive-In. This link currently has a picture of the Triangle as it appeared in 1948 (if the link dies, search Project HOLD or its successors for "Triangle Drive-In; photos (Aug. 1948)" without quotes. Friend of the site "Bryan-College Station, Texas: Now and Then" explains some of the history here (archived link--Facebook not required).

From what it looks like, when the Triangle Drive-In expanded in 1957 to the Charcoal Room, the awnings to that building disappeared and another structure was built to the south. The 1940s building remained during all this time (though I'm not sure what it was later used as). By 1971, the original Triangle building was gone, as was the 1957 building. (Later, the space where the 1957 building was became the home of Tom's BBQ, and is now J. Cody's). I'm not sure what the "Charcoal Room" restaurant was used for in the interim.

Ironically, the "Charcoal Room" was not the one that burned down. I had to bump up the brightness a bit on this one. (Picture from author, 8/22).

As you might have noticed from the photo above, Chicken Oil has been closed since an afternoon fire on April 3rd, 2022. The insides of the building were photographed a few days after the fire (originally hosted on YouTube). You can see that the kitchen areas were trashed but the dining room, while suffering extensive smoke damage, looks salvageable. Despite that, five months later, the restaurant has remained shuttered with almost no work done, yet the owners have vowed to reopen.

UPDATE 02-23-2024: Still no work has been done and looks very much the same as it did in September 2022. Fixed the YouTube link to local hosting due to its removal.
UPDATE 05-10-2024: Renovation has finally begun. The plan is to demolish parts of the Old College-facing side (to conform to Bryan's ROW) as well as the destroyed kitchen. The College Avenue facade and most of the building will remain.
UPDATE 04-08-2025: The "new" Chicken Oil looks substantially different from the old version. As you can see in this X post (archived version here) the kitchen and the dining room have effectively switched places. The restaurant is aiming for a June reopening. [death by fire] has been removed from the post since it is reopening.

Former Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy

This restaurant is out of service, but hopefully not for long.
Ah, it's great to be back! I've been updating Carbon-izer's city directory for the city chock full of things that will probably never see a full post, and I've been updating the Facebook page weekly with retreads and occasional new updates of posts but it's been a while since we had an all-new page here.

As outlined last November, only businesses that have turnover are covered, making it a bit more like Columbia Closings in that regard.

"Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy" opened its College Station location at 840 University Drive East in May 2006, and sometime in the early 2010s (2013-2016) became just "Abuelo's Mexican Restaurant". It shut down in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, with two others closed around this time, a location in Plano (3701 Dallas Parkway, open since 2001) and one that had been open since 2003 at Barton Creek Square (as an outlot, not in the actual mall itself). Do check out that link, it's one of the things I've been working on recently...and because I live in the Austin area now (it's true...) you'll probably see more along those lines.

Anyway, I can't say much about Abuelo's. I never did go there and the restaurant chain itself is alive and well, just not in the Austin or College Station areas anymore. I'm not sure about the Austin or Plano locations, but on University Drive East, the space is already signed for a new Italian restaurant, Casa Mangiare. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures! All of them were taken in May 2022 by the author.  

A bird flexes its wings on a sign for the curbside service. I'm not sure if these were put up shortly before its closure or pre-existed.

Despite signage up for the next restaurant, older "For Lease" and rent lockout signs still exist on the doors.

Inside, Abuelo's has been gutted, but a mural on the back still exists for now.
UPDATE 05-13-2023: Casa Mangiare opened in May 2023, almost a year after these pictures were taken. Also, for those curious, the Barton Creek Square reopened as Polvos, and the Plano location is now Sixty Vines. (Removed [defunct] from post).

Former Student Korner

The twilight somewhat reflects the mystery and fly-by-night nature of the tenants here. (Photo from September 2020).
Once again, this is somewhat built out of an older post that I began writing in October 2020. The building dates back to 1972, with the original main tenant being Spin-N-Market, with one location at 1802 Welch (as Welsh was called back then) and the other at 502 Harvey Road.

It was rebranded as Korner Pantry (this was store #21), a Houston-based convenience store in the early 1980s, but that convenience store disappeared by the mid-1980s (as per Houston newspapers) and instead became a generic convenience store known as Student Korner. (It may have even closed briefly, given the lack of a listing in a 1984 phone book).

It was open as of 2003 but at some point around 2005 quietly folded, even though the Student Korner sign by the road remained. In the early 2010s, it was "Determined Faith Christian Center", which gutted the space and added some curtains and carpet, but only remained a few years. In the year 2016 (closed by very early 2017), it was Cachet Liquor Store. You can see that despite lacking any formal signage, an "Open" and "ATM" signs are there, as well as what looks like reflections of fixtures inside.

In late 2020, I wanted to take a daytime photo with some interior shots but was thwarted somewhat by a new tenant there, BetaMed, focused on mobility-focused medical equipment. The store was stocked but not much had gone in the way of décor, with the flooring being bare concrete showing the scars of Student Korner's tiles and the glue from DFCC's carpet. However, as of January 2022, BetaMed already seems to have passed on from this world given how the name (it was never on the building itself, just the window) and the building seems empty.

Next to it, in the same building, Coco Loco has been operating since August 2004. I was told that the Coco Loco was some sort of hole-in-the-wall Greek restaurant prior to Coco Loco, but I can't find anything on it. However, it was "Bombay Restaurant" in the year 1994.

UPDATE 12-01-2022: As of late 2022, Brew Supply Haus has moved here from College Station Business Center.

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.

Saenz Tamales

Extant Saenz Tamales sign.
It's the Christmas season here at Brazos Buildings & Businesses, and while it hasn't been a big tradition from my family, it's tamale time. What better way to mark the occasion with a walk-up shop known for tamales? Located at 1410 William Joel Bryan Parkway, the building today is a broken-down abandoned building.

The aforementioned sign is just off to the right out of view.
The building appears to have been built in the 1950s as Dairy Treat (also known as "Pat's Dairy Treat" in the late 1950s and "Bill's Dairy Treat" in the early 1970s). It wasn't the only Dairy Treat, there was "Buccaneer Dairy Treat" at 1400 S. College Avenue, but by the early 1970s, this was the only "Dairy Treat" in town, also known as "Bill's Dairy Treat". It was "Hargett's Family Smokehouse" in the early 1980s, and it's not known if anything else occupied the spot.

Saenz Tamales moved here in 1984 from 1418 Sandy Point Road (practically behind the later restaurant and also still has signage there), which still has a commercial building with a sign for Saenz Tamales along with a sign for Nesbitt's Orange soda and closed sometime in the early 2000s (when exactly, not sure). I remember a long time ago I went with my dad to get tamales here (back in the late 1990s), and they even had bumper stickers, a yellow one with red text reading "I ♥ Saenz Tamales", which was stuck on an outdoor trash can for years before sunlight and wear eventually ruined it. In its last days, this appears to have gone under the name of "Saenz Tamales & Bar-B-Q".

While the Saenz family still owns the land and building, it has been abandoned since its closure and is considered to be a "Dangerous Building" by the City of Bryan.

That whiteboard might not have been touched in well over a decade. Also note the "Wehrman's" sign, that's for another day.

"Unsafe Building" notices.

Located to the right side of the building, this appears to have been the interior dining room area.

Outside seating area. You can sort of see the original Saenz building from here.

Editor's Note: Check out "Defunct Madden Concepts", an older post recently refurbished as a full post. Just in case you missed it. Also the pictures in this post are by me, taken November 2021.

UPDATE 12-28-2021: Well, it turns out that I couldn't see the old Saenz Tamales building, because the building was actually demolished several years ago! Street View was very out of date.
UPDATE 01-13-2023: Sometime in 2022, the 1984 location of Saenz Tamales was also demolished. Nothing remains of it except the driveway outlets.

Downtown Bryan Shell

The restaurant section is the one on the left (picture by author, 9/21)
In what is possibly the newest (and last) Zip'N built (2010, replacing an older Zip'N Shell at 200 North Texas Avenue), this downtown gas station at 208 North Texas Avenue takes up three quarters of the block and is the main gas station/convenience store anchoring the downtown area (some older options take up the slack to the north and west).

At the northeast corner of the block (the original 208 N. Texas Avenue) was Shining Star Detail, which relocated. The rest of the lot (the part that Shell occupies) was a parking lot, presumably for the office building occupying the remainder of the block. Catty-corner to the Shell (at 24th Street) is a Shell Rapid Lube, likely associated with the gas station for years (it predates the new store, probably decades old).

Another look at a slightly different angle.
The tenant to the right of Zip'N appears to have always been empty, but to the left was originally a Krispy Krunchy Chicken very briefly in the mid-2010s, then the sign got modified when it became Bellon's Kung Pao Express (which operated for less than a year; it's supposed to look closer to this). Esmeralda's Taqueria has been here since late 2016.

Across the street is a Dairy Queen, which I photographed the exterior of but due to new site "rules", outlined in the Harmony Science Academy post, it can't make the cut, but perhaps you might see it on the City Directory pages of Carbon-izer soon. Zip'N qualifies because of the restaurant on site (and given that it has the same address, I assume it's connected to the store) has changed a few times.

UPDATE 04-16-2023: As of late April 2023, this gas station has converted to a Sunoco. The nearby lube station is now a Castrol.

H-E-B Pantry / Harmony Science Academy

Most of the architectural details from H-E-B Pantry are gone, except the peak in the roof and those windows to the right of the entrance.
Despite a heavy retail-based focus on this website, I still haven't covered all the former grocery stores in town yet (even the post-1980 ones), and of course, the Bryan section on this website is still pretty small, with a good fifth of the Bryan content coming from since January 2020, but, like most of the Bryan content that's already there, it's on Texas Avenue.

I don't believe I went inside the H-E-B Pantry there at 2031 South Texas Avenue, but it was in an area with other grocery stores. It competed with Kroger and (for a few years) the Albertsons at the remodeled Townshire Shopping Center next door. It also had excellent access, it in addition to entrances off of Texas Avenue, long driveways connected it to both Twin Boulevard and Bywood Street. The store opened around September 1991 and closed in December 2004 shortly before the new H-E-B at the redeveloped Manor East Mall (Tejas Center) opened.

Following the move, the former H-E-B Pantry was left abandoned for a few years before Harmony Science Academy took it over in fall 2007 (though Google Maps Street View still shows the empty store with no signage as of November 2007). Later on, Harmony made more renovations to the property, including modifying the exterior and adding an expansion. It has also repainted since. In the Townshire article linked above, the exterior of the store is tan with dark red trim, the facade today is bright red, white, and blue.

This sign near Twin Boulevard is from H-E-B Pantry, which had the rounded rectangular signs.
Harmony Science Academy is no stranger to converting grocery stores, over at Carbon-izer.com you can see an overview of Valley Mills Road in Waco, where Harmony took over both an old Albertsons and an old H-E-B.

All pictures here were taken by the author in September 2021.

Editor's Note: As part of some minor changes, the only new posts will be either buildings that are demolished or otherwise closed, had tenant changeover, had some significant change themselves, or are part of a larger story. So for instance, Spice World Market would not qualify ordinarily under this policy had it not been for the bit on Old Arrington Road. Likewise, even "being historic" would not qualify; therefore, something like Pruitt's Fabrics would not be covered.

Spice World Market

There's a big Starbucks sign inside for what is essentially a Starbucks-branded Keurig machine inside. (Photo by author, 9/2021).
One more entry before I take a break for a little while (see Editor's Note at the bottom), Spice World Market opened in July 2021 at 1381 Old Arrington Road. It's an Indian grocery store at 9,000 square feet, which is much larger than any Indian food-focused store in town. Previously, the places that specialized in Indian food mostly just had some items crammed in the back of a convenience store, but this one is in a nice, new space with even a bakery that churns out fresh naan (which I have yet to see, it runs out by 5pm).

Spice World is located on 1381 Old Arrington Road, located behind the main Caprock Crossing development, and has been in planning for a long time. I first saw the signs for Spice World Market ("Coming Soon") in March 2019, en route to the Ground Shuttle terminal further down when picking up my cousin at the terminal for a wedding (the trip to the terminal was not as exciting as childhood trips all the way to downtown Bryan's old Greyhound station, but it was easier to get to). Funnily enough, the section of Old Arrington Road did not exist for a brief time in the 2000s. When Highway 40 opened, (Old) Arrington Road intersected with Highway 40 just before Highway 6 (complete with a left turn lane from Highway 40), with the newer section of Arrington Road accessible further down solely to provide access to Greens Prairie Road West. By 2008, the section closer to the highway was officially Old Arrington Road, while the intersection further west curled down to connect to the main road. A few years later, the pavement was removed on Old Arrington near the highway and closed off.

By fall 2014, the space was being redeveloped as Caprock Crossing, with Walgreens being built, and a Zaxby's later built on the right of way itself. Old Arrington was on its way to be forgotten and built over completely, like North Graham Road. However, unlike North Graham Road, in 2017 or 2018, the cul-de-sac at the end of Old Arrington (the truncation point), was removed, and a new concrete driveway connected it to the Caprock Crossing entryway, which provided access to Zaxby's, Walgreens, and others. It was on this rebuilt portion that Spice World opened.

Editor's Note: So the blog will be going a bit quiet again. Probably not "no posts until 2022" but likely not for another month or two until I can build some posts and content. Unlike in August 2020, when I ran aground, this is going to at least end on a high note. If you exclusively read this blog via Facebook (not recommended!) this notice may be out of date anyway, as I have more than enough Facebook stuff stored up to sail through this gap.