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.

Gumby's Pizza, Dominik Drive

This was taken sometime in January of this year, when I did the Whataburger re-post.

107 Dominik Drive was built in 1976 as a College Station branch of Pepe's Mexican Food but became a branch of Gumby's sometime in 1997 (The old Gumby's was next to Sweet Eugene's, the parking lot bumpers still mention Gumby's despite moving twenty years prior).

The history behind the Gumby's pizza chain is murky, the website for the chain gives no clue of its founding and I can only guess it was licensed from the decades-old children's TV show many years ago and allowed to fester and grow into its own identity to present a pizza chain more common for the college crowd. Even in the 1980s, there was a pizza known as the "Gumby Dammit". The website also features classic Gumby videos, which are bizarre in their own right, and almost feels like something they'd show on Adult Swim, as it gets even weirder when you're sleep deprived or otherwise under the influence.

It's the pizza chain that's very rare (less than a dozen locations, all near colleges). It's the one where you can get a pizza delivered at 1:15 in the morning (they stop at 2) and sells pizzas like the Stoner Pie, which includes mozzarella sticks, french fries, pepperoni, and sausage. It's also a place that can get away with having a non-lit sign and choosing instead to string Christmas lights around the non-functional signage.

I've eaten at Gumby's a few times and it's, well, it's not very good and if I was in the area (which I was a few years ago) I would probably go to DoubleDave's. The drama around Gumby's got interesting a few years back when they opened up a location in Wellborn called Black Sheep Pizza, which featured a different logo but still the same menu (and presumably the same recipe). The way I understand it is Gumby's was sold among different partners, and Black Sheep Pizza (renamed GranDandy's Pizza & Meals after a trademark dispute) spun off completely, with a clause that Gumby's could buy them back, which they did after GranDandy's became a moderate success, leading the owner to build Howdy's Pizza (long story...) with the modified recipes and menu.

UPDATE 02-24-2019: In October 2018, Gumby's moved to the former Wolfies location at Post Oak Square so that Whataburger could expand and rebuild.
UPDATE 02-26-2023: Since this post was written, Whataburger still hasn't done anything with the property, so it, the old gas station site, and the Gumby's are still as they've been. Howdy's Pizza unfortunately fell through and the restaurant that eventually opened in Caprock Crossing wasn't even the same restaurant. Gumby's has been here since approximately 1997, Pepe's was here from 1976 to 1994. The post has been amended to reflect that, while changes "(still in the works)" to "(long story...)".
UPDATE 01-15-2025: Sometime around 2024 Gumby's was finally demolished but Whataburger still drags its feet. Tags updated including changing [1980s] to [1970s].

Something to Aspire to

By the time La Bodega moved in it didn't resemble a house anymore. (Picture by author, 2014)
A little more than a month after I added a nearly-forgotten restaurant to 104 Church Avenue, I decided to do a full overhaul on the page as part of continuing upgrades to the site, most notably integrating the original 100 Church Avenue.

As of this writing, the new Aspire Reserve¹, after a few years of construction, is nearing completion with 19 stories and 346 units (though, as it's a student-oriented property, sells itself on 873 beds). I'm sure that I'll probably get hits on this post strictly because it IS an apartment complex-based post, but let's get down to the fun part...what did it actually replace? The stuff it replaced is within recent memory, but let's go down the list.

A good chunk of the land is recycled from the long exit lanes that branched off of University Drive, but there were namely three buildings on Church Avenue that it took over. The first one was 102 Church Avenue, the most interesting of the three. It was built as a house in 1959 as per Brazos CAD, built as a house, the first reference coming from a 1963 obituary about one Mrs. Marguerite Mary Edmonds, age 48, and at some point in the 1970s it was abandoned.

"Dead Solid Perfect" was a hamburger restaurant and the first that opened in the former house in February 1976. According to this article, "[owner Searcy Bond] did nothing to the building" during conversion to a restaurant, which matches up with this description is from Yuccadoo on TexAgs, with "no exhaust vents, smoke pouring out a coupla windows in the kitchen". It closed at some point in 1979.

In December 1979, One Potato Two Potato opened; I'm guessing it was the first "meal in a peel" style restaurant in town. In the summer 1983 it was retooled as Two Blocks North and added hamburgers to the menu. In 1983 Two Blocks North closed, and in August 1984, La Taqueria & Tortilla Factory opened, by Donnie Anz, who later opened the nearby (and more successful) Cafe Eccell). "La Taq", though, was arguably the most memorable of the restaurants at 102 Church Avenue and is still talked about sometimes today but it closed around summer 1991 in response to the opening of Two Pesos. It was extensively remodeled² as a new restaurant called Planetary Grub & Juice Bar, featuring trendy California cuisine, opening late August for the new fall 1991 semester. Unfortunately, it was mistaken as a vegeterian restaurant (no doubt, the California/Austin vibe it gave off turned people away) and after just a month of heavy losses, reopened as Rosalie's Pasta House on September 25, 1991, which proved considerably more successful, closing around 1997 in favor of Cafe Eccell Annex, serving as Cafe Eccell's banquet hall.

After Cafe Eccell and its sister restaurants were sold to co-owner Costa Dallis, 102 Church Avenue reopened as a restaurant with La Bodega Baja Taco Bar opened in October 2000, and closed in November 2014. I do have a picture of the specials as of May 2014 including the gimmick of the hotter it was outside, the cheaper drinks were. By the end of 2016, it had been torn down.

2014 picture by author
The second of the three buildings was the original 100 Church Avenue. Despite many buildings in the Northgate area being decades old, there was no 100 Church Avenue (colloquially Church Street, though the annexation of Wellborn meant there was now a Church Street proper in the city limits) until 2010, built and opened as a modern restaurant conforming to Northgate design and use at the time, called "Church Street Blues and Barbecue". I never got to visit it as it was never open for lunch and only in the evening and night of certain days (weekends and the days leading up to it). It was one of the first places to have New Republic Brewing Company beer on tap back in 2011, but in 2014, Church Street Blues closed. It soon reopened as "West End Elixir Company" in late 2015, which catered to an older crowd, with much of the staff being veterans.³ A Bryan location followed a few years later, but in 2018 the decision was made to shutter the Northgate location. In late April 2022, CALZ, a cazone restaurant opened having signed a lease a year before. Unfortunately, CALZ shut down in less than two weeks after a legal dispute (allegedly), the social media pages wiped and the doors locked, perhaps becoming one of the shortest-lived restaurants in town. By spring 2024 it was torn down, with the construction of Aspire Reserve starting shortly afterward.

The third building was just an apartment building (104 Church Avenue). It was built in the early 1970s but some of the units had been converted to offices—namely, this is where Eccell Group operated out of⁴, even in the mid-1990s. It was torn down around the same time as La Bodega. I did take a picture of it, but my finger covered a quarter of the shot (May 2014). It's not much better than what you can see from the older shots on Google Maps Street View.

There was also a fourth business on the premises, Wayside Food Park (taking the address of 203 First Street). It was supposed to be a permanent place for food trucks complete with electrical conduits and a covered pavilion area, but it failed hard, opening in December 2017 and closing by early 2019. In previous versions of the post, I had referred to it replacing 104 Church and La Bodega, but it didn't even sit on the same part of land, suggesting that it had nothing to do with the demise of the two Eccell-affiliated buildings.

1. Originally planned and announced as "Nova Northgate"
2. At some point, a renovation that brought the building to code as a restaurant and less of a house, it's possible it happened during this time. 3. Dustin Batson, the proprietor, wasn't always doing bartending, he was forced to resign from the local Walmart after shooting a shoplifter in self defense.
4. Eccell Group briefly was at University Square Shopping Center, but nowadays Mojo Concepts, the successor business, operates out of a mailbox...1511 Texas Avenue, PMB 333.

UPDATE 07-23-2026: Renamed and rewritten post (previous updates archived), merging in 100 Church Avenue. (Last titled as "A Look at Former Restaurants at 102 Church Avenue"). New tags were added ([2000s], [1970s] , [residential] ,[2020s], [punny titles])

Dominik Drive Whataburger

The sun sets behind this Whataburger, but don't worry, it's open late!
This Whataburger (number 78) at 105 Dominik Drive is another restaurant that has been here for decades (though been rebuilt a few times). This is the closest Whataburger to campus and its quality was rather mid-line, better than the later Wellborn Road Whataburger but not as good as the Rock Prairie Whataburger. While Whataburger drags its feet on a redevelopment of the site that would integrate the pads of a defunct Texaco-turned-Shell and the old Pepe's-turned-Gumby's. The first reference comes in 1970 but was rebuilt around 1986. In January 1996 the store caught fire but a "mobile Whataburger" serviced the area until the Whataburger reopened that spring. While it is the closest Whataburger to campus, for a brief time it was not as you could get Whataburger in the Sbisa basement. It was also at this location that I realized Whataburger had subtly changed its logo.

UPDATE 06-19-2025: Archived previous update and shortened some of the post. UPDATE 06-05-2026: Added [Whataburger] tag.