Northgate Shell

Taken by author in 2013.

For many years this was a Shell gas station (609 University Drive), dating back to the mid-1960s with renovations in the mid-1980s (a new canopy, and likely the start of the Zip'N name, as the Zip'N name does not appear in early 1980s phone books). The signage next to University was also the same for years, gaining few updates over the years, like when the Shell logo was updated in the early 2000s before being demolished in the 2010s when University Drive was reworked to be more pedestrian-friendly. An interesting feature of this store is that it has a decent selection of Indian food (Battalion link, archived version); when this began I don't know but it's been that way since at least 2012.
Its time as a Shell came to an end in late 2023 when it converted to Sunoco (similar to the downtown Bryan Zip'N). Gas is usually priced ten cents higher than elsewhere.
UPDATE 01-04-2024: Mild rewrite to account for new changes.

George Bush Drive McDonald's

Picture taken by author, May 2019

I couldn't bear to tear apart my original Marion Pugh article, so this is to replace it. Additionally, as of this writing, I'm in the middle of changing the colors and themes of the page, explaining it why it looks like it does. It's not final, and in need of some tweaks and QoL upgrades. I'm not even sure if it's the direction I want to go (such a change would also alter the US 290 page, and I like the blue and gray).

The "George Bush" McDonald's (111 George Bush Drive West) opened in 1997 with what I remember having a white roof alternating with maroon (mansard roof, similar to the common red or brown roof alternating with white or yellow), though I always felt it would've looked better with maroon and white. After all, it was next to Kyle Field, why was it using the away colors? It renovated sometime in 2003 or 2004 to the current form it is now. I think the reason McDonald's isn't in a hurry to upgrade the exteriors of this restaurant is that it will likely be demolished whenever they do the George Bush underpass project.

The parking lot to the south is owned by Callaway House. The properties were originally part of Marion Pugh Lumber Co. at 101 Jersey Street West (which dated to the 1940s, notably when the International & Great Northern railroad skewed southwest), which would eventually give way to J. Arnold Construction Co., as Marion Pugh (a former football player and class of '41) would pass away in 1976 at the age of 57. J. Arnold actually had a small railroad crossing just to the south of Jersey, which you can still see today (venture a bit south of the McDonald's and around that area).

Treehouse is the ONLY thing that hasn't changed much since this time (Courtesy Henry Mayo)
Marion Pugh Lumber Co. would eventually give way to J. Arnold Construction Co., as Marion Pugh (a former football player and class of '41) would pass away in 1976 at the age of 57. J. Arnold actually had a small railroad crossing just to the south of Jersey, which you can still see today (venture a bit south of the McDonald's and around that area). An Amtrak station had been built in that area, but the area at the corner of Marion Pugh (originally a dirt alleyway after the railroad was abandoned, and upgraded to a full road later) and George Bush (originally Jersey Street) was abandoned for several years before McDonald's filled in.

Apologies to whoever helped me with the Marion Pugh/J. Arnold Construction Co., as I lost the reference...

UPDATE 10-2-2023: As of around September 30 2023, the McDonald's is permanently closed, having relocated to 1011 Wellborn Road (the former Valero site--see here).

Lone Star Pavilion and the Former Red Lobster

This view really hasn't changed all that much in two decades. (Picture by author, 3/2019)
The URL of this page refers to the original name of this post, "Lone Star Pavilion and Friends". It was in reference to the Lupe Tortilla (formerly a Red Lobster), which was grandfathered into a new development. The second version of this page attempts to reorganize this page while discussing the first-generation stores here.

From 1969 to 1973, Oakridge Smokehouse was located at 807 Texas Avenue South in a building that resembled their (still open) Schulenburg location. Later, Mama's Pizza opened in the spot in July 1977. At that location, Mama's even gave out little paper mustaches to promote their restaurant (courtesy the Project HOLD collection. By 1980 there was some sort of split, with a new Mama's Pizza opening at 1037 Texas Avenue and the existing restaurant renamed to Pasta's Pizza Spaghetti & Lasagna. It appears that this vacant for several years save for a 1986-1987 stint as Las Palmas Restaurant. In 1991, it became home to formalwear shop Ladies & Lords, which would close in 1997.

Directly behind it was 805 Texas Avenue, which was Aggieland Schwinn in the 1980s and later Computer Access from the late 1980s to demolition. Originally this was associated with Nelson Mobile Homes Inc., which was redeveloped in the early 1980s to hold Red Lobster. Red Lobster at 813 Texas Avenue South, Red Lobster opened under the General Mills restaurant group. The seafood restaurant was one of the first sit-down chain restaurants (other than Luby's Cafeteria and Western Sizzlin') in the area, and even then, neither of those were full-service.

It's difficult to get a front picture of the Red Lobster-turned-Lupe Tortilla. (Picture by author, 3/2019)

Around 1996-1997, the site was purchased to be redeveloped as a modern power center, with both Ladies & Lords and Computer Access getting evicted (Ladies & Lords never reopened). Computer Access relocated to 1418 Texas Avenue South. The Red Lobster site was kept and incorporated into the new development, with parking restriped. From north to south, the center contains several "big box stores". Barnes & Noble Booksellers opened first in 1997 at 711 Texas Avenue South. Remarkably, the facade hasn't seen much changes since 1997 with not much interior changes either...though the merchandise mix over the years has left much to be desired.

Office Depot next door (715 Texas Avenue S.) opened in 1998. 717 Texas Avenue #A opened as Card & Party Factory in 2001 (moving from Post Oak Village) and closed around 2016; this later became Five Below in 2018 with a new facade. Suite B was originally Golf Etc. (2001-2011) and later became Overlanders, a spin-off of The Bear Mountain of Waco. It became The Bear Mountain Outdoor Gear two years later, and after ownership changed in 2017 (still keeping the name, presumably licensed), it closed in 2018 as it was upgraded to an Ace Hardware at Park Place Plaza. Now it is home to The Cellar Wine & Spirits (since at least 2022). Next to it is "And Sew On" at 719, Aggie Nails & Spa at 721, Kung Fu Tea at 723, and Freezing Cow Rolling Ice Cream at 725. Best Buy at 801 Texas Avenue opened in 1999.

I should note that the in-line spaces might've been renumbered at one point: from 1998 to 2001 there was a Jamba Juice in the center (originally known as Zuka Juice, acquired and rebranded) but records show it having an address of "727 Texas Avenue # C5", though likely it is where Freezing Cow is today. Baskin-Robbins was there too briefly (at 723) and I believe it became KaleidoScoops around 2000 like the Parkway Square location (but closed soon after), becoming Hobbytown USA for several years. Best Buy (801 Texas) is at the end, and goes through mild remodels now and then, I remember it going from carpet to tile and back again (or was it the other way around?)

Best Buy has been here for a number of years (Picture by author, 3/19) In addition to the new Five Below, Red Lobster moved out in 2008 to 1200 University Drive East and was and after a few years of vacancy it was reopened under Lupe Tortilla in spring 2012, which largely kept the exterior.

UPDATE 02-16-2024: Rewrite that incorporates pre-1997 tenants. Renamed to "Lone Star Pavilion and the Former Red Lobster". Added [1960s] to post.

"At Home" on the Boriskie Ranch

College Station never had a "Garden Ridge" store, but better late than never, right?
It's rare these days when Project HOLD actually helps contribute to an article and answers questions asked, but Project HOLD came through and delivered an article on Boriskie Ranch, located off of the Highway 6 bypass. I had actually wanted to publish this in 2017 before some unfortunate situations in my life derailed my plans on revitalizing the site (chronologically, this was supposed to be published after the former Café Eccell page before the site effectively went on a year and a half hiatus). I wanted to try to contact the author, but in my research of it when first writing this article, found that Burton Hermann had passed away two days prior to when I had looked it up [archive].

The ranch dates back to the 1800s and once covered an enormous part of land stretching to Texas Avenue to the west and what would be Southwest Parkway to the south, and includes a vast part of east College Station, including Post Oak Mall, Allen Honda, Wolf Pen Creek Park, a bunch of apartment complexes, Dairy Queen, a section of Earl Rudder Freeway, and others. Obviously, these will not be covered today (if ever), though some are already covered in some form.

There's not a lot I can say about the part that's already written (if Project HOLD changes links again, just search "boriskie ranch"), other than a few facts that Post Oak Mall was built in 1982, not 1989. Following the expansion the driving range was "College Station Golf Center" at 2301 East Bypass. In 1989, I can find a listing for "Brazos Valley Golf Driving Range" but the address (and number) listed is for 2400 East Bypass, the current Grand Station (the building was a former Lowe's, but the Lowe's listed in the 1989 phone book has a non-existent East Bypass address, because at some point the addresses were renumbered). But then again, there didn't seem to be a building for the golf center in 1995, which indicates that it didn't have a phone number, so it's one of those cases in which I don't know.

Regardless, Academy Sports + Outdoors (2351 Earl Rudder Freeway) was built and opened in February 2002, as the article says (see this article). The golf center, with its long poles and overgrown netting to prevent balls from going out into the highway, closed in the mid-2000s and was torn down for a shopping center. This would be the home of Gander Mountain (2301 Earl Rudder Freeway) and Dickey's Barbecue Pit (2297 Earl Rudder Freeway). Gander Mountain would open June 2007, giving another option for the local economy and another large store on Highway 6.

The closed Dickey's.
Dickey's Barbecue Pit was the last commercial development at Boriskie Ranch. This is covered in more detail at this article.

Around 2011, We Rent Storage at 2672 Horse Haven Lane opened, replacing an oil field.

In 2017, several shakeups changed the face of the former Boriskie Ranch. In addition to the aforementioned Dickey's Barbecue Pit, Academy moved less than a mile away closer to the intersection of Raintree and Highway 6, Gander Mountain closed in August following the parent company's bankruptcy, and Hunter's Creek Stables (now with an address of 2741 Horseback Drive, as opposed to the original address of 2401 East Bypass) eventually closed and was torn down to allow further development of Horse Haven Estates.

However, some life did come back when At Home Group Inc. announced that they would build a store in College Station. The new name of what used to be Garden Ridge, the Texas-based chain has had stores in Houston (often enormous, though they've scaled down in recent years), San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and parts beyond for years (even Syracuse, New York got a store before us). They tore down a covered outdoor annex of Gander Mountain to build an expansion (I think this had boats, I'm not sure).


UPDATE 09-15-2021: Slight cutting to officially spin off the Academy and Masfajitas (Dickey's) articles. Added [College Station] to the post.

Former Circuit City

Picture from April 2019 by author.

The distinctive shape of this building (1003 Harvey) is recognizable as a former Circuit City, which opened in College Station store in August 1995, and much like its other locations in Texas were often deliberately located near (but never in) shopping malls. I maybe went into Circuit City once or twice in this location, but I do remember it as a dimly-lit place with computers on display (typical of Circuit City, and that was their gimmick, for the darker lighting to better show off computers and televisions), and nothing like Best Buy, which was brighter and better organized.

In January 2007, Circuit City moved to a new location at University Drive and Highway 6 (about where Half-Price Books is today) and closed down their location, only for the new location to close down a few years later. ("Bryan-College Station sees boom in businesses" from The Eagle). In early August 2012, Guitar Center opened a store at the location but it retains most of its original architecture.

UPDATE 04-24-2024: A few extremely small updates, like "opened in August 1995" rather than "built 1995".

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 but the College Station (Wellborn) store opened in October 2005 by franchisee Close Quarters Feed and Pet Supply. It was always designated toward animals, but in recent years (very recent, apparently, as of this writing) 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 (as a garden center at least as of this writing).

14675 Wellborn Road

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)

It appears this building was built sometime in the 1960s and was, according to the earliest records I've currently accessed, was "Andre's Bicycle Shop". Later on, it became "Bill's Style Shop" at 215 University but eventually Bill retired 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. 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. It is now Northgate Juice Joint, which will use part of the outdoor space for an urban garden. Surprisingly, after opening sometime in late 2014, Northgate Juice Joint still operates nearly five years later as of this writing, with "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.

Updated June 2020 for University Drive series
UPDATE 07-10-2021: Northgate Juice Joint has since moved to Bryan, with Commanders Cove taking over the space entirely. No other changes to the article have been made.

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.

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.

Café Eccell's Former Domain

Taken by me, on the last day Café Eccell was legally operating on the city's lease, January 14th, 2014

A few years ago, I showed you the former Luby's, which as of this writing isn't updated yet (when it is, I'll do a quick update on this page to remove that disclaimer), which is where Eccell is located today.

For a number of years, though, Café Eccell was located at the corner of Church Avenue and Wellborn, 101 Church Avenue. The building of Café Eccell, as plain and kind of ugly as it was, used to house the city's first city hall and jail back in the 1940s (built 1947). The city hall moved out in 1970 when a new building was built, and I'm not sure of what it was used for later (the police station was also in Northgate during those days, though not that building). The city held onto the lease and in 1989, it reopened as a restaurant, Café Eccell, which featured a classier, "adult" atmosphere and food that the rest of Northgate lacked, and still tends to lack today.

The first incarnation of Café Eccell closed permanently in March 2014 a few months after its lease ran out (why the city never locked them out is unknown). The restaurant opened in 1989, and after changing of hands to the Dallis family completely around 1991, the restaurant continued for many years. The food was also plagued by inconsistency in its latter days as well as the drama involving the Dallis brothers (a.k.a. Eccell Group), the developers, and the community as a whole.

A few months later the building was wrecked for The Domain at Northgate apartment building, which is only four stories, occupies the whole block, and includes retail opportunities, though only one is currently open (4.0 Cuts Barber Salon, opened spring 2016). The building itself was ready in time for the fall 2015 move-in season, and for a time had a leasing office in the former Cycles Etc. on University Drive. A second tenant, Dat Dog, opened in September 2018. It was an odd choice, considering the chain had no other locations outside of New Orleans, not even in Baton Rouge. The restaurant closed in October 2019, citing parking issues.

Of course, the Domain was not the first development to try to redevelop CE, it was to house "Gameday Centers College Station" circa 2004, a large multi-story tower (about 7-8 stories). Gameday Centers was largely doomed to begin with: the company was building luxury condos for big-money donors to stay in on game weekends, but the asking price of $500,000 a condo was too much* (it would be a better value to buy a house in the Traditions subdivision, which is what many have done), negotiations with the city broke down, and rather than a first phase done by August 2007 and completion by December 2008*, it was canned. The center would've had 10,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space and had even signed a 10-year lease with Café Eccell as part of the agreement*.

*Unfortunately, since this page was originally published, one of the links I had for this page has gone dead and I have been unable to relocate it, as the Batt link is dead and Archive.org does not have it. Likewise the links for the other links seem to be lost.