China Wok Express

This may be the start of a series of posts near Villa Maria Road and Texas Avenue, but I can't make any promises. (Picture by author, March 2020)

No fooling...today's post is on April 1st, and it's a brand new one. This building, 612 Villa Maria Road, was built in 1979 and first served as a Tinsley's Chicken 'n Rolls (and originally 512 Villa Maria Road West), a restaurant previously covered on this site. It served as Church's Chicken from 1985 to 1989 after Tinsley's sold out, and Cobblestone Quality Shoe Repair between 1992 and 1995. It returned to food service (and fried chicken) when it served as a Golden Fried Chicken (later Golden Chick) between 1996 and 2000. Sometime in the 2000s (possibly as early as 2002, which Brazos CAD seems to indicate), it became China Wok Express. I thought it was around 2005...notice the the building has a blue roof instead of the current gold-colored roof (which ironically, came after Golden Chick closed). The circle where the China Wok Express logo is used to be where Golden Chick's mascot used to roost...I'm guessing that when it returned to restaurant use from whatever it was previously, Golden Chick did some significant renovations.

View from the southwest. Not sure if I've ever seen that neon on top light up.
As you may know, the government warnings for COVID-19 have put the economy into a tailspin, with restaurants only offering carry-out or delivery, but China Wok Express is not among them, closing entirely and promising to return April 8th. However, the menu board, as you can see below, is so faded that one can barely see the letters, and one of the columns has a big hole knocked through it. I'm not in the neighborhood very often, so I'll have to see if China Wok Express will reopen or if this is their swan song.

Allegedly due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, China Wok Express is now closed, with promises it will reopen April 8th, but it's doubtful as the menu board (and general maintenance) are clearly in a state of visible decline.

The menu board is so faded it's almost completely illegible.
By the way, the article linked above (mentioning the former blue roof) is the old Villa Maria/Texas Avenue article that has been updated with revised information and new photos.

UPDATE 03-24-2021: More precise dates for Golden Chick. China Wok Express DID reopen.
UPDATE 04-08-2022: Update with additional tenants, which should patch the holes.
UPDATE 09-08-2023: In summer 2023 the restaurant closed and by September was being torn down, to be replaced with 7 Brew. [defunct] added to post.
UPDATE 02-20-2024: 7 Brew opened 1/2024.

Shell at Holleman and Harvey Mitchell

From June 2013 by author. This post was actually planned to go up in late 2014, but it got pushed back for reasons.
My little corner of the world got two big upgrades in 2004: the completion of Jones-Butler Road in November of that year (connecting the "Marion Pugh Road" segment between North Dowling and Harvey Mitchell Parkway to I&GN Road at Rock Prairie Road West) brought a new avenue to access Rock Prairie Road, and a new modern gas station built at a small field at the intersection of Holleman and Harvey Mitchell, which at the time was a sleepy little terminus of a segment that was almost never driven on...why go straight across the steep railroad crossing and make an unprotected left, when we could head down Wellborn and take a long ramp directly to FM 2818?

This "new modern gas station" was a Shell and featured a Wendy's, with one of the first Rattlers'-branded gas stations in town. Rattlers' Country Store as it was named originally, was a local operation that featured clean, well-run stores with their own distinctive branding. There was a car wash (which I don't think I ever used), a Subway (2048 Holleman West, opened 2005), and Holleman Cleaners (2046 Holleman West), a small dry cleaning operation. Neither of these connected to each other like Wendy's and Rattlers' did (Rattlers' has the address of 2050 Holleman, with Wendy's being 2052, but known to use 2050 sometimes).

There were a few minor changes that went on with the gas station. The Wendy's remodeled in the early 2010s but never saw its exterior sign change—but in the mid-2010s, the gas station signage received a revamp, adding electronic signage and a new Wendy's logo (an old "movable numbers" board closer to the ground was changed to just read "SCANTRONS"). The car wash went away sometime around 2009 and was replaced by a building, soon occupied (after several months) by one "Liquor Mart" (2054 Holleman Drive West).

The Rattlers' changed logos at some point (dropping the "Country Store" branding) and briefly adding a "Froggies Yogurt" inside (replacing a small kiosk with foil-wrapped tacos). Froggies went away shortly after the Rattlers' chain was sold to Sunoco (which owned Stripes) in 2016. This meant that the gas station and the new Stripes on the other side of Holleman were now under common ownership.

In Febraury 2018, the Shell became a Sunoco. This was likely due to a contract regarding Sunoco stations being kept when Sunoco officially sold its gas stations to 7-Eleven a month or so prior, which meant that the Rattlers' was officially owned by 7-Eleven. Two years later, Holleman Cleaners (which had closed down in fall 2019) turned into "Elevated CBD + Smoke". Rattlers' never converted to Stripes or 7-Eleven, and by 2020, Rattlers' closed down around midnight while the Stripes across the street maintained a 24-hour operation, giving it an edge in business. The Wendy's closed in the fall of 2020 (see the first update below) and the main Rattlers went out with it, taking down the entire gas station with it. Only Subway and Elevated remained. As of this writing, the station seems to have come back to life. The Shell name and canopy has been restored (though the canopy just has the symbol instead of the writing, a change that came about starting in the mid-to-late 2010s), the facade was repainted maroon and white, with the convenience store being called "Campus Corner", and the Wendy's also being repainted and altered to be a Burger Mojo. We'll see how it goes this time... 

UPDATE 10-14-20: Wendy's, which has been in the store since around January 2005 (give or take a month), permanently closed in or around September 30, 2020. The reason for this closure is still yet unknown. Also rewrote some minor parts in the article.

UPDATE 12-02-20: A check on December 1st revealed that sometime in November, Rattlers (and the entire gas station component with it) has closed. Elevated CBD + Smoke and Subway continue to operate, while Burger Mojo is planned to go into the former Wendy's.
UPDATE 01-21-21: The station has since reverted to Shell with a new convenience store and restaurant. The main description has been rewritten with the title altered to remove "Sunoco".
UPDATE 02-04-21: Campus Corner has opened in the last few days. The décor is identical to Rattlers'.
UPDATE 03-04-2021: Burger Mojo officially opened 3/3/21 as a 24 hour location. The same day, the Stripes across the street was rebranded as a 7-Eleven.
UPDATE 09-19-2021: Some changes to mention how Rattlers was sold to Sunoco, as well as integrating the 7-Eleven page posted earlier this year.

505 University Drive East, For Lack of a Better Name

Picture from spring 2014 by author, artificially lightened up as the sun was setting.

Built in 1980, the 505 University Drive East shopping center at MacArthur and University Drive East essentially consists of two parts, a traditional shopping center up front, and some additional commercial suites in the back.

$1.79 Cleaners - Dry cleaners.

Cavalier Cigar Co. - This moved here around 2011 (from Texas Avenue Cigars near Park Place and Texas), features a humidor and lounge area. One of the few places in College Station to smoke indoors.

Charli - Women's clothing store; here since around 1997-1998. Their old location was 707 Texas Avenue, until part of the center was redeveloped for an On the Border restaurant.

Frank's Bar and Grill - Steak and seafood restaurant in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Fox & Hound - From September 1994 to October 2018, this bar anchored the main spot of the shopping center. It replaced Frank's Bar and Grill, one of the early restaurants here.

Interurban - Restaurant in the 1980s that was here first, named after the interurban trolley that ran on what is now Cavitt between College Station and Bryan.


The post is a little cobbled-together as I had wanted to update an older post but couldn't find a good picture for it. In the sidebar for "Other Related Sites", I added Columbia Closings, which despite a somewhat different format (and not even the same state, this time, Columbia, SC), it's sort of similar to this site and gives a good retail history of the area. It also has a healthy comments section, which I did for years but never really caught on.

Humpty Dumpty Children's Center

Requested by reader Jon Stewart (no, not that one) comes an ad for the late Humpty Dumpty Children's Center from 1980 (sourced from my GTE phone book from that year). Located at 3406 South College Avenue, I can't exactly tell when it went under, but it appears to have been sometime around 1986 (see later in the article). The plot of land it was on is shared with 3408 and 3404, the latter being in front of the store and serving as "The Guitar Studio" though is clearly a former gas station from a bygone era (this appears to date back to 1930 per county records). Additionally, some further reading indicates the Jones family lived at the site, with "3404A" being the address of one Larry Jones in 1980. Ms. Jones passed away in 2003 (combined with "since 1961" and "25 years", one can assume Humpty Dumpty closed in 1986) with Larry's death in 2009. For a brief time in the late 2000s and early 2010s, 3408 served as Brazos Valley Montessori, and presumably used 3406 as space. Interestingly, when the plot was sold in 2014 from the Jones family, the grantee (a shell company) was listed as "Humpty 3406 LLC", despite the fact that Humpty Dumpty had been gone for nearly 30 years. (current Street View)

Southwest Parkway Wendy's

Picture from August 2019
Despite my ambitions, the new "Return to Texas Avenue" series isn't going too well, partly since I already made many of the more interesting posts years ago, leaving a collection of odds and ends including photos from over five years ago. This is in contrast to the start of the Harvey Road series, in which all the photos were taken at the same time and in close succession, giving about half a dozen new posts clustered together with a bit of a story behind them.

The Wendy's on 202 Southwest Parkway East was built in 1984 after the previous Wendy's in town was opened (3216 Texas Avenue South in Bryan, which was built in 1978 but closed for the last 15 years or so) and I don't think this location ever had a salad bar, though I could be wrong. I don't remember one ever being there, and I don't think I ever (if rarely) ate here after a newer location opened much closer by to where I lived.

Additionally, the sign has the newer logo (which is not on the restaurant itself) partially due to the fact that a storm wrecked the old sign with the signage being replaced with the newer one.

Future attention on the blog will be paid to posts currently off the Index, which will return in updated forms.

Copy Corner and Company

Why is the building two-toned? It's a good question that won't be answered.
Across from Brazos Square is 2307 Texas Avenue. Built in the early 2000s, seemingly as a refuge for displaced Redmond Terrace tenants, it features a Kolache Rolf's, Copy Corner, and Texas AggieLand Bookstore. Not much has gone on here recently tenant-wise with the exception of Bike Barn, which opened in July 2015 after the bookstore closed about a year or two prior.

The three tenants also feature entrances to one another near the exits, so you could go from Kolache Rolf's over to Copy Corner (provided both were open at the same time) without leaving the building. Additionally, Copy Corner has an upper level, though it is just for employees.

Prior to the construction of the building there was a Quicker Sticker, which had been there since 1988, and sub-leased the building, with one such tenant being Home Brewers Supply (1994-1998). Behind it was a driveway that connected to Quicker Sticker also led out to about three houses beyond it (presumably with Texas Avenue addresses). The back part of this driveway continued to exist after the new building was built, but after the last house was torn down around 2015 most of the space was redeveloped as The Villaggio Condominiums, accessed from behind the Quality Suites and featuring Brentwood addresses.

Oddly enough, despite remembering a lot of Texas Avenue from New Main to Brothers in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I don't remember the Quicker Sticker at all.

UPDATE 01-01-2021: Made a small update where I accidentally put "brewing company" instead of the homebrew store that was there.
UPDATE 09-20-2021: Added name of said homebrew store, clarified regarding the townhomes. Further updates to this entry are coming.
UPDATE 02-18-2022: In December 2021, Bike Barn was acquired by Trek and rebranded.
UPDATE 07-08-2023: As of July 6, 2023 TexAgs has reported Kolache Rolf's has permanently closed.

Brazos Square

Brazos Square's modest signage, picture by author, January 2020 (as with other photos in this page)
Moving on from the Kettle, the next stop is Brazos Square at the southwest corner of Manuel Drive and Texas Avenue, and once again, many places between it and the Kettle have been covered. Both Park Place Plaza and Parkway Square (newly updated to account for College Depot's replacement), as well as NailSpa, the old Pelican's Wharf. Even Drew's Car Wash was mentioned last year, and I never imagined covering that had it not been for a hamburger restaurant that previously occupied the spot. Down the road from that is currently BCS Tires & Lifts. And of course, the Walgreens at Brentwood and Texas, or more accurately what was there before.

The sleepy Brazos Square shopping center was built in 1984 (according to Brazos CAD) but tenants were here as early as 1983. Despite promising exterior renovations, the shopping center has not yet seen anything. Unfortunately, getting information on old tenants on older tenants is difficult, like how ads for old businesses in Culpepper Plaza never mention addresses. It must have been all suite numbers, because some of the oldest businesses I've stumbled across including Toys Plus or PrioriTEAS all have 2206 as the address.

The pawn shop isn't pictured in this set.

2232 - College Station Pawn Shop. As mentioned in the Confucius Chinese Cuisine article, this was (back in the 1990s) Imperial Chinese Restaurant (not related to the place out on the bypass), which outlasted Confucius. The pawn shop was next door, and moved around 2002 after it and Confucius got torn down for the Walgreens. When the pawn shop's "new" building (at 2305 Texas) was torn down around 2006 for a new The Bank & Trust, the pawn shop moved back here, just one place down from its original location. The address is also shared with The Vapor Cave next door, which in the late 2000s and early 2010s was Loan Depot.

2230 - For years this was Advanced Wireless Inc. (through most of the late 1990s and early 2000s anyway). It closed in the mid-2000s and became All-American Sleep & Mattress (for a relatively short time), then became Fatty's Smoke Shop.

2228 - Cash America Pawn is here and has been here since at least 2007. I can't remember what was here before it. The 2226 address doesn't seem to be used, probably absorbed by it or KC Beauty Mart.

2224 - KC Beauty Mart has been here since at least 2007. Like Cash America, I can't remember a store before it.

2220 - For years, Once Upon a Child was here, but it seems to have moved a least a year ago out to Post Oak Square.

2218 - Play It Again Sports was located right next to OUaC with the same "recycle O" logo, also for years. It closed in the summer of 2012. It is now The Craft & Antique Mall of College Station.

2216 - 9Round was opened after 2012. It appears that the space was used for years as part of Play It Again Sports.

2214 - An Allstate insurance office is here, possibly since moving out from the Sears store a long time ago.

2212 - This was A&M Nails & Spa, then (briefly) RC Salon and has an Aggieland Supplements sign, but the business already seems to have been packed up for Parkway Square. By summer 2020, this became CBD Pros.

2206 - This address (skipping several numbers) is home of Juicy Crawfish restaurant. The space was previously a few clubs including Club Karma and Up Grade.

The gutting of Fuddruckers into an outdoor area. Notice the old column scars.

2204 - This is where the shopping center has some "new" features. Boost Mobile is next to a vacant space, which isn't officially numbered. Originally (as far back as I remember) this was Fuddruckers, with the record for it first appearing in 1986. After it moved to the corner of George Bush East and Harvey Road the space more or less remained vacant. There was "Cafe Beignet and Tea House" in 2005-2006 and "Asian Cuisine and Tea House" in 2006-2007 but neither made much of an impact and closed soon after opening. In particular, Asian Cuisine's sign remained for years after "opening" in 2006 and until the signage started falling off. Boost Mobile later came in afterwards.

So what I could figure, Fuddruckers address is listed as 2206 just like everything else was listed originally (Toys Plus, PrioriTEAS).

From what I can tell also, possibly as far back as Cafe Beignet, the interior of the restaurant was cut back (along with the skeletons of the awnings) to make a new courtyard. The end part of the shopping center facing Outback Steakhouse/Target I don't think has EVER been retenanted.

Looking back toward Outback Steakhouse, but we'll save that for another post.

UPDATE 08-03-2021: Some improvements to the Fuddruckers section, additional tags

Kettle College Station

Kettle has since disappeared from the Houston restaurant landscape, but it lives on in College Station. (Photo from August 2016 by author, modified to better show colors)

Over the years, there has been many, many places I've seen that Houston had and College Station-Bryan didn't. If there was any sort of chain in the College Station/Bryan area, then there was one in Houston too. There were exceptions of course, Albertsons had survived nearly a decade after the company pulled out of Houston, and AppleTree did the same. While College Station's Winn-Dixie only lasted sometime around the mid-1990s, Houston didn't even have any Winn-Dixie stores.

This also extends to restaurants. Last year, it was mentioned that Fazoli's no longer has any Houston locations, a result of closings trickling over the last ten years or so. And speaking of ten years, the next stop in the new Texas Avenue is from what I could tell hasn't seen Houston since around 2011, introducing the Kettle, which is the next "stop" on this series. (As this blog is about a decade old, many of the notable places between our last post, O'Reilly Auto Parts, have been covered before, including Exxon, Walmart, Altitude Trampoline Park, BB&T, the former Kmart, Fort Shiloh, and Days Inn).

Kettle #138 at 2502 Texas Avenue South has been around since 1981, built before the Manor House Motor Inn if the dates are right. It's part of a chain that no longer exists...it was once based out of Houston where most of its stores were located and had locations out to Florida.

Today, Kettle can be considered what what fellow blogger Zap Actionsdower considers a "broken chain". I've informed the blog about the Kettle, but he's in a different part of the country to check out the humble Kettle restaurant in College Station. There's another Kettle restaurant in Bryan that's a former Denny's, and there were even more in town, up to five in town, including at the site of Northpoint Crossing. There aren't even five Kettle restaurants in the chain anymore.

It's open 24 hours, despite the fairly quiet part of town where it is located. My guess is that the police station's 24/7 operation also keeps the Kettle in business, too, despite mixed reviews otherwise. (After all, for those working the graveyard shift, where else in the area can you get a decent meal at three in the morning?)

UPDATE 09-15-2021: Kettle is no longer "Always Open" since March 2020 (sad since the last paragraph no longer applies, but do I need to explain why?) and the "Always Open" part of the sign no longer lights up, though they are open until 11pm most days. Someone on Google added an old picture from the early/mid-2000s (not from January 2018) and it shows Kettle as I remember it growing up, with a cook posing inside the "K". A few new tags have been added as well.
UPDATE 01-13-2023: Unfortunately, Kettle never did reopen its 24 hour service (the Bryan one painted over its 24 hour service) and in late 2022 it was announced it would close for good after November 2022. Based on filings, the restaurant will be demolished for College Station's first Salad and Go.
UPDATE 05-26-2023: It was reported by TexAgs that as of late May (heading into Memorial Day weekend) that the former Kettle is being demolished. ([defunct] added).
UPDATE 10-16-2023: Salad and Go is now open. [defunct] is replaced with [2020s].

O'Reilly Auto Parts Texas Avenue, College Station

You are now hearing the radio ads for O'Reilly Auto Parts...
Editor's Note: Welcome to 2020! The theme to the next posts I'll be doing on this blog is "Return to Texas Avenue". Here will be additional places missed in the previous posts, with a new index specifically for Texas Avenue coming soon. Additionally, there will be new updates to old posts that will be returned to the index. Stay tuned!

This O'Reilly Auto Parts is at 2831 Texas Avenue South at Morgans Lane, and according to Brazos CAD, built in 2001. The picture above is from me taken in January 2016 (notice there's not any hotels being built behind it), so it's mostly clear blue skies behind it.

Chicks into Stripes

Picture from October 2019.
As we wrap up 2019 for this site, I'd like to share one more story with you. Like Greensworld, this post was supposed to be part of a "Highway 6" series. I was convinced when 7-Eleven bought Stripes from Sunoco, that the Stripes at Briarcrest and Highway 6 would be deemed an outlier and closed. That hasn't happened yet, and as such, it takes the crown of the largest 7-Eleven store in the United States (if it was actually branded as such).

The roots of this super-Stripes (600 North Earl Rudder Freeway) goes back to its roots as a mega-convenience store called Chicks. While its early years are fairly well documented on Yelp, the 12,000 square foot store was supposed to be a Buc-ee's knockoff, to the point where a lawsuit was filed. While Internet armchair lawyers argued that the logo was not a problem, a reveal inside was different, as Chicks had a line of gourmet foods similar in packaging to Buc-ee's, even a version of the sugary "Beaver Nuggets" (basically imagine Cheetos except with caramel coating instead of cheese dust). The lawsuit did force Chicks to change its logo (same shape but just the "CHICKS" name with red, white, and blue) before in 2014, when the store was sold to Stripes. Stripes briefly closed and reopened the store, and liquidated much of the old Chicks store merchandise for its own, and would replace the frozen yogurt counter of Chicks with a Laredo Taco Company (however, Chicks' hamburgers continued to be sold).

One more fun fact: a second (much smaller) Chicks was intended to go in at Highway 40 and Wellborn Road, this ended up being built as a Stripes instead.

Going forward into 2020, I intend to add much less to the site, as much of this year's content (over 40 new posts!) was breaking up existing posts and existing writing. An easy way to check on new updates is to join me on Facebook where updates, new and old, or just a post that I think deserves another look, will be posted.

Hastings College Station

Author's picture, July 2015

Opened in 1998 (from what I can tell from sources/my memory), Hastings was one of the big stores in the unnamed plaza featuring H-E-B Pantry and Gattitown and relocating from a smaller store at Culpepper Plaza. The chain (with the College Station location being at 2004 Texas Avenue South) was the small-town Texas version of the late Media Play, with each store focusing on books and media. There was a large video rental section that took up a quarter of the store (originally videotapes, but eventually transferred over to DVD). The video rental section would also keep multiple copies of the latest movies to hit the video market, with some good deals on those DVDs when they downsized their collection to one or two. There was a small books section (nothing like the selection of Barnes & Noble, or even Waldenbooks in the mall), as well as music, movies, and video games. Later on (maybe 2007), the Hardback Coffee Café was added as Hastings changed their logo and updated the store's exterior. By the time this store closed in August 2015 (the Tejas Center location went approximately a year later when the chain went bust), the store focused more of their merchandise on Funko Pops and other novelties.

After being renovated inside and out, the store reopened as Havertys Furniture, which opened in August 2016. A few of the exterior features added in Hastings' original renovation still stand, such as the small plaza at the north corner of the store where the outdoor seating for the cofeeshop was, as well as part of the drive-through (which originally was dedicated to returning videos, before the renovation made the coffeeshop the main attraction of the loop).

UPDATE 11-07-2020: Mild updates made to the last paragraph.

Greensworld

The former Greensworld has been reduced to just green again.

Editor's Note: Welcome back to Brazos Buildings & Businesses! I know I did promise a post on Post Oak Mall, which can be seen at this older post here. It also includes an update of another old post to cover stores from 1982 to 1992. Future updates (92-02, 02-12, 12-present) will probably replace existing posts, such as this outmoded post. But enough on that, it's time to talk golf...

In fact, one of the reasons I'm even bringing up this course was because my original plan was to use Post Oak Mall to segue into another series on Highway 6. That was probably too ambitious, but I have one more story along Highway 6 that's worth telling that I have never yet covered on this blog.

One of the College Station's pre-2000s golf courses was located off of Highway 6, with the clubhouse roughly between Douglass Nissan and the now-closed Ninfa's. The actual greens were accessed by a concrete bridge, and at some point, a flood washed out the other side's connection. I remember getting a picture of said bridge a few years ago (it's still behind Hampton Inn) but I can't seem to find it in my "file morgue". The address is a bit of a question, the 1989 phone book suggests 1101 East Bypass as the address, but the early 1990s phone book says 1005 (likely the "real" address).

As Douglass Nissan was built in 1996, that's probably when the golf course closed, despite not actually taking up the golf course land or the club house area. The club house remained into 2005, with Douglass Nissan tearing it down by 2008 and developing it as an expansion in 2012.

Plantation Oaks Apartments

For many years, Briarwood Apartments composed half of the former Plantation Oaks. Click on it to see the full resolution!
Back at Harvey Road once again, we're skipping directly from Kona Ranch down to Plantation Oaks (on account of either no information available or already covered). Plantation Oaks was built in 1972--before Post Oak Mall, before anything on Harvey Road worth mentioning, possibly even before what is now Earl Rudder Freeway opened. Plantation Oaks Apartments was initially an enormous apartment complex bisected by Scarlett O'Hara Drive and bounded by Rhett Butler Drive to the west (the theming not subtle), but by 1980, the western half section was sold off with a minor renovation done to turn it into Briarwood Apartments. True to many of the trendier apartments in Houston (or even College Station), it included a nightclub, Zacharias' Green House.

In 2018, the apartment complexes (neither in particularly good shape, judging by reviews) were re-combined under new ownership and renamed as Castlerock Apartments, which only listed a year before becoming The Grand 1501. The picture above is for Briarwood from 1980 (the Plantation Oaks ads from that era aren't nearly as interesting, and a color one from 2005 can't scan properly) and originally appeared on the old City Directories page from Carbon-izer.com, this blog's parent site.

Former Red Line Burgers

This car wash is built on the remains of a small hamburger restaurant that despite making an impression on me, didn't even last a decade.
Before continuing on the Harvey Road series (which will be restarted next week), there's a quick stop on Texas Avenue that I've wanted to cover. One of the "College Station of the 1990s" features that I do remember was a small hamburger restaurant across from Parkway Square (which, by the way, is the most popular page on this blog)...Red Line Burgers at 2401 Texas Avenue.

The restaurant has long been a mystery, since I only remember it being boarded up before being wrecked for Shammy Express Car Wash in the early 2000s (which around 2014 renovated into Drew's Car Wash), you can see the pre-Drew's on Google Street View.

Only did a December 2014 visit to the Dallas area spark my memory as I realized a small hamburger stand was almost the exact one I'd seen in my memories. Sadly, the aforementioned Red Line is now a memory itself, having been closed the following year and demolished for a 7-Eleven, but it did last long enough to make it to a Yelp review.

Further looks into the restaurant that predated Shammy/Drew's showed that Red Line built the College Station store around 1993, and was based out of San Antonio. Even by the early 1990s, they were having some trouble keeping stores, this Corpus Christi Caller Times article about a food truck taking the name has a photo of a closed Red Line in Corpus Christi in the early 1990s.

The picture in this post is taken by the author, October 2019.

UPDATE 04-25-2021: New title, mostly.
UPDATE 08-13-2021: This was Dogs & Such (#2) from approximately 1997 to 1999. Explains why I don't remember the neon hamburger on top...

Circle K on Harvey Road

Taken October 2019.
This (603 Harvey Road) was a Diamond Shamrock originally (or within three years of building the station in 1986), and only in the mid-2000s did it become Valero due to a conversion by Diamond Shamrock's new corporate parent, Valero Energy. It recently updated its logo and convenience store (becoming a Circle K instead of Corner Store, as it was under Valero).

Former Kona Ranch Steakhouse

October 2019 picture by author.
The current occupant of 520 Harvey Road is Ozona Grill & Bar, a branch location of a single Dallas-area location, that based on reviews, appears to be nothing to write home about. It opened in early 2003 (February/March) according to what I could dig up online on the Eagle archives (it doesn't seem to want to cooperate with archiving links), but what's a bit more interesting is what it originally started out, Kona Ranch Steakhouse, built around 1999/2000, much like the Sonic next door. Not to be confused with Kona Grill, which is alive and well as of this writing.

Kona Ranch has somewhat of a murky history, originating out of Brinker International, spun off as Kona Restaurant Group, then getting bought as part of Fired Up, Inc., which also purchased Johnny Carino's off of Brinker.

The best description I could find of Kona Ranch was it was somewhat of a theme restaurant (like many chains), "[emphasizing] a Hawaiian cattle ranch theme with grilled and smoked meats, and specialties such as coconut shrimp tempura". Digging up some more information mentions a San Antonio location, but I doubt that it expanded much beyond the Texas area (except for Oklahoma). I can't even find anything where they opened a Houston location (it's technically possible, but I could find nothing) and from what I could tell by 2006 the restaurant had totally disappeared so Fired Up could focus on Johnny Carino's, later named Carino's Italian Grill (but I think the name reverted back).

This one was in Oklahoma City (from Loopnet).
The Kona Ranch location in Oklahoma City that was open even as far back as 1996 and was probably the first one ever opened, at least the only Kona Ranch when Fired Up acquired it. You can also see what the Oklahoma City store looked like courtesy of Loopnet, in pictures here and here. The Oklahoma City store is even listed on Zomato, giving us a look at the menu of the defunct restaurant.

Johnny Carino's next to Ozona continues to operate as usual, but it might not be for long. The restaurant chain has been in a spot of trouble lately...similar to the situation of Fazoli's, it's down to 16 restaurants in Texas as of this writing.

It was also tough digging up a "normal" logo of the dead chain, with only this ad from the Houston Chronicle as part of a group taking the restaurants to Kuwait. Chili's and Carino's continue to operate, but Kona Ranch does not (if it ever did).

The College Station Kona Ranch closed in December 2002.

UPDATE 04-06-2021: New research has given us more info on Kona Ranch. It opened the College Station location in or around June 1999 (not 2000, and thus, the [2000s] label is now [1990s]) and was one of three locations in Texas. Texarkana had theirs open in spring 1998 but closed in summer 1999, around the time the College Station location opened. That location, at 5118 Summerhill Road, was later Shogun Steakhouse & Sushi, and is "The One Buffet" today. A Round Rock location opened at 2850 North Interstate 35 in summer 1998 and closed in December 2002 as well.

The Round Rock location has been through several restaurants, currently Salt Traders Coastal Cooking (since 2016), and previously Mesa Rosa (the previous decade).

The closure of the Round Rock and College Station locations represented an exit of the chain from Texas.
UPDATE 06-16-2023: KBTX has reported Ozona Grill & Bar has closed permanently (new tags added).

Harvey Road Sonic

The upscale color scheme once suggested how College Station was becoming something different than it used to be, with Harvey Road on a growth spurt. (Picture by author, October 2019)

Opening in May 1999, the Harvey Road Sonic at 512 Harvey Road is mostly notable for its unusual color scheme of tan and green rather than the typical blue and yellow of the regular Sonic logo, it's still at the end of the day an ordinary Sonic restaurant. 

I've been told that the city originally wanted a McDonald's restaurant in the spot but there was some sort of disagreement that resulted in the restaurant pulling out. I'm not sure on the details there, but it sounds intriguing...      

It may have received some upgrades since 2000, but they weren't listed on Brazos CAD.
UPDATE 09-24-2020: Changed store opening date (and as a result, the tag) of the store as per a source that worked there. Also removed Editor's Note.

Rudy's Barbecue on Harvey Road

Always a popular choice, even on Sunday morning. (Picture by author, October 2019)
Rudy's Barbecue has long been a favorite restaurant of many, from the fatty brisket to its long picnic-style tables with red and white tablecloths and rolls of paper towels. While it has been here a good part of my childhood and all of my adult life, it was not always here. The restaurant at 504 Harvey wasn't even always Rudy's, nor was it even in the same building, it did replace a previous building on the site.

Demolished buildings are often difficult to find information for but in 1982 a plat was filed for "The Christmas Store". Apparently, the full name of the store was called "Cashion Cane: The Christmas Store" but "Christmas Store" is what shows up in my listings. There was talk on TexAgs that the store moved to University Drive sometime later, and indeed, there was "Cashion-Cane" at 404 University Drive East in 1989.

The lettering glows red at night. (Picture by author, October 2019)

Seems that the Christmas Store was originally on a smaller lot until a few years later when it expanded to the west, taking over an adjacent lot that had "Spin 'N Grocery". By 1989, however, 504 Harvey was the home of Sneakers, a bar and nightclub with a sand volleyball court.

By 1998, Sneakers was closed and planning for a new restaurant began. Opening in 2000, Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q replaced the Sneakers building and parking lot. Due to its origins, it often has a small convenience store section and I seem to remember there being a small counter to that effect inside the restaurant, but I could be wrong (even if it existed, it was very small). In the case of College Station's location, Country Store was never even on the signage, as unlike other Rudy's, it lacked a gas station.

UPDATE 02-14-2024: Changed opening date from "sometime around 2001" to "2000".

The Notorious Harvey Road Apartments

From here, we see what was originally Tanglewood South.

I don't write about apartment complexes all that often, when I do it's usually as part of something more interesting, like Mansard House restaurant at Doux Chene Apartments. Later, during the period I ran The Houston Files, there were some quirky apartments I did cover but it's still a rarity.

Following the Harvey Road series (it's across from Fazoli's), I titled this the way I did because it's got some bad press in recent years (if we go by examples in Houston, dense, super-large apartment complexes are never a good idea) and it may not even be the Pearl Apartments in a few years from now. By the year 1984, three apartment complexes were operating along Harvey Road: Travis House (505 Hwy. 30), Tanglewood South Apartments (411 Highway 30), and Courtyard Apartments (600 University Oaks).

By 1998, Tanglewood South was now Kensington Place (401 Harvey Road, same block), with BCAD records indicate that the name had been in place since the early 1990s.

By 2002, the apartments were known as "University Place I & II", likely due to the common ownership around 2000.

Down the street, looking east. Note the Circle K in the distance.

Now, from what I could tell, as late as 2007, Courtyard Apartments (built in 1977, wasn't able to find when Tanglewood South was built) still operated independently, at least, as its own brand, with Campus View operating the rest (it had adopted the name by that time). In 2011, Vesper Campus View LLC, the holding company that owned the other two apartment complexes, bought Courtyard, and it was absorbed into Campus View.

In the last five years, the local media has shown a light on how bad Campus View really is, with hundreds of calls to the police every year, with drug issues, public drunkenness, fighting, shootings, domestic violence, along with multiple maintenance issues. At least under The Marc, the new name adopted in 2016, reviews have been horrible.

This picture illustrates all three complexes, notice the different building designs.

From reading, reviews under another name a few years later with new management, Pearl Apartments, have improved, at least in terms of better management and weeding out the worst residents. But these things can change on a dime (it doesn't help the last time I was in the area, the surrounding blocks were being swarmed with cops due to a shooting in the complex), and without living there it's difficult to judge.

Editor's Note: I wanted to mostly write about this for completionists' sake since it deals with the history of three different apartment complexes. In the next few posts, we'll talk about the restaurants along Harvey Road.

Fazoli's at Harvey Road

Apologies for the lower-res than normal picture, it was taken from Connecting Point's parking lot.
From the parking lot of Connecting Point Church or OfficeMax, depending on what year it is, we come across the Fazoli's restaurant at 400 Harvey Road. Fazoli's is actually one of those chain restaurants that the Houston area doesn't have anymore (or Dallas for that matter), and the College Station location is just one of 15 restaurants as of this writing, scattered across Texas with no more than one per city (except Waco, which has two).

BCAD says that Fazoli's was built in 2001, a few years after the OfficeMax was built. It's been years since I went to Fazoli's, but from what I remember, the food really wasn't worth writing home about. The menu emphasized pasta, but for things like spaghetti and meatballs, you could make that at home fairly easily, and even things like the breadsticks (which were rather salty) have frozen-food equivalents. I don't remember there being anything that I ordered there that's rather difficult to craft at home (like, say, a steak or french fries). That's at least how I remember it, maybe it's changed since then, but this isn't a food review blog, that's what Yelp is for.

This picture and above was taken by the author, October 2019.

In the next post, we'll continue the new Harvey Road series, with a quick look across the street...