Former Burger Chef

One of the last ads, appearing November 19, 1972 (The Eagle)
As of this writing, I recently rewrote the article for "Pooh's Park, Tinsley's, and Others Replaced by a Shopping Center"with a new name and some new features, and in the process removed the little shopping center with Champion Firearms and Starbucks, planning to update the Texas Avenue page on Carbon-izer (which I've talked about before), which has a few issues I needed to fix anyway. Among adding things I came across the fact that I wanted to add something to this blog rather than the page, Burger Chef.

Burger Chef was once one of the biggest fast food hamburger chains in the nation, second only to McDonald's, and in 1969 they landed at 2301 South Texas Avenue in Bryan. Unfortunately, Burger Chef's corporate parent, General Foods, which bought it that same year, wasn't a great manager of the chain, and this particular location closed around the end of 1972.¹ Burger King had also opened in the Texas Avenue corridor around this time, and it too had a short shelf life (likely stemming from problems with corporate parent Pillsbury), with McDonald's opening in the area in the early 1970s and being VERY successful since.

By 1977 Bryan Alternator Company was in the spot, and operated through 1985. The building was later used by a car dealership next door, but it hasn't been a car dealership since 2005. (Google says "BCS Family Auto Center" is here, but unless it's REALLY recent I can't find proof of it being there).

1. The chain would reach peak locations in 1973, and by 1982 had sold to Imasco, which closed and reopened most of the corporate locations to Hardee's, leaving the franchised locations to die.

Sweetbriar Nursing Home

Help wanted ad from 1999 featuring the last logo of Brazos Valley Geriatric Center
Up to this point, I've never covered anything on Anderson Street despite it being another road important in my youth (tied with Holleman and Southwest Parkway), and among the places on Anderson Street was the nursing home on 1115 Anderson. (If you grew up in the area between the 1970s and the mid-2010s you probably visited here at least once, if only for a school event or volunteer function).

Operating nearly 45 years as a nursing home before its 2019 closure, this opened as Sweetbriar Nursing Home in March 1975, with the common ownership and name of another nursing home in Brenham.¹ In 1979 it became Brazos Valley Geriatric Center, which it would have throughout the 1990s, from there would become Colton Inn Health Center (in 2000), Sheridan of Anderson (2003), and Magnified Health & Rehab in late 2008, and at that point I knew the nursing home as "changing names every few years" as by 2009 it had changed names three times in the last ten years, but it remained as Magnified until its closure by the state in summer 2019².

In 2023 the building was demolished and in March 2026 the first phase of Unlimited Potential opened, with most of the buildings (save for one being offices) being cottages for people who have aged out of the foster care system. (It appears they had a different location elsewhere in town.)

1. Brenham's Sweetbriar opened in 1966 at 401 East Horton Street (now 401 E. Blue Bell Street). The current High Hope Care Center does not seem to be the original building and appears to be a later expansion (though both sides were there in 1981). Another location opened in Navasota in 1968 at 1405 East Washington Avenue (now Navasota Nursing & Rehabilitation).
2. The state's official list can be found here.

Boardwalk Plaza

This picture isn't mine, unfortunately, it's from Loopnet.
Long before H-E-B even considered a full supermarket at Holleman and Texas Avenue, at Park Place and Texas Avenue there was the Long John Silver's, Mazzio's Pizza (later Harvey Washbanger's), and the 1800 Texas Avenue South, with an empty lot behind that, presumably as an expansion for 1800 Texas Avenue. Around 2011 this was finally developed as a new commercial building ("Boardwalk Plaza"). The somewhat sleepy strip center originally featured Systek Computing in suite 100 (moved from the building that Long John Silver's replaced, then moved out in 2019) and Lucky Dog Wash & Grooming in suite 102 (a big "DIY Dog Wash" sign, though there seems to be various groomers that have come and gone from operating inside). In 2020, Systek was replaced by Yummy Buy Asian Market (somewhat odd hours), while suite 104 eventually hosted a restaurant.

As of this writing (September 2026), it currently hosts Nova Eatery, originally hosting Yangtuo Club, then Ten Seconds Noodle House in the early to mid 2020s (a spin-off of one of those businesses in the "Chinatown" area on Bellaire Boulevard in Houston), which I ate at in November 2025 (the College Station location, not Houston).

Unique food experiences in College Station! I would take a visitor to here. (Author's picture, 11/2025)
Editor's Note: If you're an infrequent visitor to this site, don't forget about Remedies that was covered a few days ago with some information on updated posts. And if you're new here, welcome!

Remedies

I think I found this from Zillow, though the pictures are from bcsrealtor.com.
Even today, there's almost no restaurants west of Harvey Mitchell Parkway and north of Dowling Road (where Harvey Mitchell Parkway goes to an east-west road). There's Gate 12 near Easterwood Airport...the Stella Hotel restaurant...Poché's Seafood...the fast food places near the West Bryan Walmart, and in 1996 all of those did not exist. That was the year Remedies opened at 4660 Raymond Stotzer Parkway in a converted house (originally built in 1965), just about a quarter mile to the east where The Country Kitchen once operated. (For several years, I thought that the locations of the two were one and the same, when I started working on the post for The Country Kitchen, that was what I had in mind). Despite its obscurity, Remedies operated as late as 2004. It would make occasional appearances in the Eagle's Dining Guide, health reports, and in reports of private meetings not open to the public. The fact that it was reservations only suggests that it was never open unless there were reservations and it was weekends at best. A Practical Guide to Bryan-College Station (Second Edition) describes it as this, and perhaps the best description other what the dining guide gave ("Small, intimate fine dining served in a European manner. Their specialties are special tenderloin cuts of all meats").

The area's most exclusive restaurant requires reservations – one to two weeks in advance is recommended. With steaks and seafood prepared for taste as well as show, this five-course experience provides a night to remember.

But between the fact that it was so exclusive, and the fact that it was in a rather isolated part of town, not many people even knew about it when it was open.

In 2006, Lin's TV & VCR Service (later Lin's TV & Appliance) moved to the location from College Station Business Center and operated there until around the end of the decade when it moved to Bryan. After that, at some point was renovated into a traditional residential house (three bedrooms and two bathrooms), though Zillow lists both 4660 and 4660B (one of these seems to be the old commercial component), though both of these look to be the same.

Editor's Note: There's a whole lot of stuff I've done since we last met, including a huge update to the Northpoint Crossing article (Learn about the former Circle K! See what we found out about that 1940s building! Discover how the Dutch Kettle and the Kettle are related!), some updates to various commercial developments McDonald's & Blockbuster also got its first update in a decade.

But there's more "in network" to see. Numbered Exits has gotten several new posts, though most of them tend to be recycled content that has previously appeared on Carbon-izer before (except Loews Midtown Motor Inn). Tennis World, profiled over at The Houston Files is brand new.