Thursday, June 11, 2020

Brake Check

Brake Check, pictured here in 2014 (by author).


It's Thursday, and there's no more posts in the backlog to feature. Time to make a new post, luckily there's source material to whip something up. In this case, it's Brake Check on University Drive East (only Brake Check in town as of this writing). Originally, when it opened in 2007, the text above was different ("Alignment" was originally "Shocks & Struts", for instance). Before Brake Check opened, it was a Sonic Drive-In, one of the first in town (the other was at 914 South Texas Avenue in Bryan, which remained open and was completely rebuilt in the mid-2000s). It was open even according to the 1980 phone book, likely opened in the 1970s. This location closed around 2004 (possibly 2003) and stood vacant for a few years before it was torn down. (There was a gap of a few years before a new Sonic at Cooner and Texas opened).


The new Brake Check did not have access to Poplar as Sonic once did, as Sonic was once part of a 1970s-era "restaurant row" with Egg Roll House (now Jimmy John's) and the Pizza Hut.