Albertsons Gets Altitude

Picture taken in 2019 by author
Built in 1991 adjacent to the Wal-Mart in its pre-Supercenter days was an Albertsons supermarket (2205 Longmire), the first store of its kind in town (#2702 post-renumbering when it became part of the Houston division, as the Skaggs Alpha Beta also converted). Despite coming in with relatively low prices, thanks to the expansion of H-E-B Pantry and the pre-existing Kroger market, Albertsons would never really thrive in this town, despite beating or tying Kroger for store count of full line stores until 2006.

Albertsons is on the left, Wal-Mart is on the right completing its first expansion.
Despite the fact that it was much closer to my family's house than Kroger or H-E-B Pantry, my family actually never really shopped at Albertsons due to it being more expensive than those two other stores. As my family bought lots of groceries due to a growing family, it was more cost-effective to make the extra miles to H-E-B Pantry (later the full-line H-E-B) or Kroger (the location at Southwest Parkway and Texas Avenue), so it was fairly rare that I even went to it at all.

Around 2002, it remodeled, as the grocery market was heating up around it, probably to compete with the Kroger a mile north of it (an updated, albeit badly, Greenhouse model, and also one that outlasted a Winn-Dixie Marketplace catty-corner to it), and a large (Signature store) Kroger that opened in 2000 a mile south of it (also holding a Longmire address, natch). The décor of Albertsons in its early days wasn't all that memorable (I believe it was the "Blue & Gray" model), but I remember that a large mirror that you ran the length near the checkouts. Apparently it was where the break room and offices were. The remodel also added a Starbucks Coffee kiosk, and if I recall correctly, changed it to the "Marketplace" décor package (see above link) from the "Blue & Gray" model. It should've been surprising that the store remodeled at all (along with adding a third store in Bryan) as all around the same time, Albertsons was selling or closing stores across Texas, pulling the plug on the San Antonio, South Texas, and Houston markets, leaving a just few scattered stores that remained (along with North Texas, Austin, and Dallas-Fort Worth).

A few years after this remodel, it also added a little Sav-on logo to the front, as the chain tried to make an ill-fated attempt to capitalize on the Sav-on name like Jewel-Osco in the mideast (never mind that by that time stand-alone Sav-on drug stores had long vanished from the Texas market).

Seeing as how I don't have interior pictures (a visit less than a year ago had the store gutted entirely down to a shell), I'm going to try to walk through what I remember. Albertsons had two doors on either side, you walked in the alcove, grabbed your cart, and in the right, that was where the bakery and deli sections were, in the back was a fairly long fish counter that always smelled like fish because they couldn't move the product fast enough, on the back left was the dairy and ice cream, and in the front you had the customer service section. I think the produce was on the left side, and the Starbucks was definitely on the right. There was also a video rental place, we went there around 2003-2004. The discs were scratched up and it even had some old N64 (maybe even SNES!) games for rental, but the disc rental was cheap. Later on, this was totally gutted for Texas A&M sports apparel (I think it was in 2005), which would remain until the store's closure in 2008.

The summer 2008 closure seemed to confirm a long-standing rumor that Wal-Mart would buy the store for a Supercenter expansion, and in 2009, part of the store was demolished to make room for a physical expansion. After the Walmart was finished, the exterior walls of the old Albertsons were repainted a different shade of brown to match Walmart's color palette.

Ripping into the old Albertsons, 2009.
Walmart actually uses the back of the former Albertsons for storage and occasional other uses (sometimes the front of the gutted store was used for hiring fairs), and there's even a physical connection to the store's back to the current Walmart.

Post-Walmart expansion
Sometime in late 2016 or early 2017, I noticed that the front of the former Albertsons was being renovated into a new storefront...Altitude Trampoline Park, which would open August 2017. I ended visited the trampoline park with some family members, and created some new memories in a place that had long been vacant. Next to the Albertsons included some smaller stores with blue awnings, also with the 2205 address but suite numbers. These included Western Beverages (changed in 2016 to "WB Liquors & Wine" as part of a chain upgrade) and a few others. According to archives I found, Austin-based ThunderCloud Subs even had a store here at some point in the mid-1990s.

Previously posted on Safeway and Albertsons in Texas with some mild changes and additions.

UPDATE 12-12-2020: Reports are that likely owing to the difficulties of closure from COVID-19, Altitude Trampoline Park has permanently closed. There were also some minor edits made to differentiate the "front" of the former Albertsons (which Altitude used) and the "back" (which Walmart still uses).

Rice Garden

The big black thing in the foreground is the menu board for Taco Cabana. Picture by author, May 2019.
Behind the Taco Cabana (currently the now-closed Las Palapas) was another restaurant at 102 Live Oak. It opened in late 1994 as La Barroneña Ranch Steakhouse when it opened (though was initially planned as "City Slickers Steakhouse").

This is from the Battalion archives circa 2000 The later tenant chronology includes College Station Seafood (operating from 2004 to January 2011), Oceans Bar & Grill (operated in the very early 2010s), Vy's Kitchen Asian Cuisine (opened July 2012, same ownership and menu of Vietnamese Taste), and finally Rice Garden (changed hands around 2018, despite Yelp treating it like the same business, it appears that it was a separate entity--a residual link from the now-defunct EatBCS mentions that it was under construction as of September 2018). Rice Garden closed around 2020, a victim of COVID-19, and is still vacant.


UPDATE 03-15-2021: Rice Garden is now closed permanently. It appears it was a victim of COVID-19 last year. Also, the Taco Cabana referred here has since closed and replaced with Las Palapas.
UPDATE 05-21-2021: Made a more extensive update that fixes a pressing formatting error but also adds dates to businesses.
UPDATE 04-25-2024: A third update to finally put in something for La Barroneña Ranch Steakhouse, and also to mention the passing of Las Palapas.

Schlotzsky's Near Walmart

Author's picture from 2013.
Built in 1998 as Schlotzsky's Deli (2210 Harvey Mitchell Parkway South) with indications it moved from Park Place Plaza, they started serving Cinnabon sometime around 2007 (I remember telling one of my friends this back in high school) and has undergone one other significant change, in 2009 or shortly after, they redecorated (with the "lotz better" décor instead of the "Silly Name, Serious Sandwich" décor) and officially dropped the "Deli" part of the name. (This post is split from this one). [Updated to account for the fact that the "lotz better" décor didn't happen until 2009].

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.

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".

Dominik Drive Whataburger

The sun sets behind this Whataburger, but don't worry, it's open late!

This Whataburger 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 I've heard (and felt) like quality is a bit sub-par compared to the Rock Prairie Whataburger. In 1969, it changed hands from an unknown seller to Grace Dobson (wife of Whataburger founder Harmon Dobson), with the earliest reference in newspaper archives to this location in 1971. In 1987, Grace Dobson to Whataburger. It changed hands again in 1987 to Whataburger officially, which was about the time a rebuild of the store commenced, as a permit had been filed in 1986. Regardless, it was rebuilt again in 1996. This is what Brazos CAD says about the store, and that is correct--I had heard when I was a bit younger of a large fire at the store in the 1990s, and later I found a newspaper that said that it did in fact burn down in January 1996, with a "mobile Whataburger" serviced the area until the Whataburger reopened that spring. The store was No. 78 even in the Dobson days and it still is.

While it is the closest Whataburger to campus, for a brief time it was not as you could get Whataburger in the Sbisa basement, and with the revelation that they had a "mobile Whataburger" even back in the mid-1990s, it makes me wonder how much money a Whataburger food truck could still make on campus today. It was at this location that I realized Whataburger had subtly changed its logo.

Today, it has an all orange logo (formerly, the name was in black and there was often blue trim). Compare this picture (not mine!) to the store today. There's another blank lot nearby used for overflow parking. This used to be a Shell station (it was a Texaco prior to 2003) just about three years later when Texas Avenue started to widen, and demolished a few years later. Since then, nothing has taken its spot, but it provides excess Whataburger parking. It was one of the "Max Food Mart" stores that were in a lot of the Texaco stores at the time. The gas station at 1405 Texas Avenue I believe did not co-exist with the old Zip'N at George Bush and Texas, as the stores I remember converting around January 2003 (Eagle archives show the conversion of the store at Southwest Parkway and Welsh converting, and I think that was one of the first to convert), and by February 2003, the old Zip'N had been completely leveled.

Update May 2019: This Whataburger is scheduled to be rebuilt soon, and the Gumby's has moved out.

Dead Lazlo's Coffee Pub

Courtesy Project HOLD. Sadly, those funky oversized door handles don't exist anymore.
Dusting off something from a longer post all in favor of integrating into that new "directory" project discussed previously, the space that is "Foundation Lounge" today (which was "Foundation Room" until maybe 2012 or 2013) was a long series of shops and restaurants that I have yet to fully document.

The earliest record I could find for this building was a store called White Auto Store at this spot in 1972.

In the early 1980s, this was a store called The Drafting Board, an engineer's supply shop (reminder: there were less computers than today), which lasted from 1980 to at least 1984 (formerly "News Office Supply", according to a 1980 phone book).

Later on it was called A&M Steak House by c. 1989 (hamburgers, apparently). After that was shortly another store, Condom Station (at the zenith of Northgate's decline). Condom Station may have actually lasted a few years before closing.

"We've Got You Covered" is what the small text says.
This was Dead Lazlo's Coffee Pub in 1995, which lasted a few years too. A newspaper article I read (I don't have it with me but if it turns up, I'll cite it) mentioned that Dead Lazlo's was owned by Sweet Eugene's House of Java which is still alive today. Given how crowded Sweet Eugene's gets, if they still owned a coffeeshop here on Northgate under any name, it would do spectacularly well.

Copacetic (or Copasetic, I've seen it both ways) Café in 1998, and Foundation Room later (which has even more recently changed to "Foundation Lounge"), but not before briefly becoming a bar called The Groove in the mid to late 2000s, which had live music. The Groove was around as early as 2004 (citing The Eagle archives) and as late as 2007 (Google Street view and a restaurant report card). The Foundation's current ƒ logo used to be a Comic Sans-esque "G". Not counting the name changes of Drafting Board or Foundation Room, that's been 8 tenants over the years, but there's probably more...

UPDATE: Here's a comment posted from 2016 regarding Dead Lazlo's from Mikes Teks: Just wanted to confirm that Dead Lazlos was owned by the same people that owned Sweet Eugene's (back when coffee came in ceramic mugs/cups and not paper cups with lids). College Main was closed due to a major reconstruction project during its first year of being open which hurt business. After its biggest supporter among the owners of Sweet Eugene's left (he used to part his Motorcycle inside Eugene's when he worked there, cool guy) they turned it into the Copacetic Cafe (or so pathetic Cafe as we called it) Same owners and coffee, but no longer had a Gothic feel to it and it soon after I 'm told. Best 2 years of my life in BCS was spent at Dead Lazlo's. Non-smoking section was in the back and the Coffin by the bar. Good times.

The Last Days of the Diamond T Stables

Back in 2013, I wrote about Alta Vista Christian Academy, which included a bit about the west part of Rock Prairie Road and mentioned these, some stables that had been on the road (originally Gandy Road) for a number of years. A few years ago, the land went up for sale on this one, and I knew I had to act fast: because a month ago or so, the city had revealed Equinox subdivision, which would eventually become "The Revelry Townhomes". And that's when I took these pictures. Diamond T seems to have opened in the early 1990s. Google Earth shows them there in 1995 and my 1998 phone book lists it, but the 1993 ones (and earlier) do not. Soon after I took these, the entire property was completely torn down and construction on the new development began. The Diamond T Storage next door continues to live on, though, but for how long is anyone's guess.

3270 Rock Prairie Road West (Gandy Road)

Updated 11.15 with new title, slightly updated information, and other minor changes.

The Exxon on Boonville

Stover Boys still had remnants in 2014, long after the restaurant closed.
The Exxon at the corner of FM 1179 and Boonville, which I have only recently seen, as shown here in a picture I took this February. It has been open since 1995 and has had several restaurants in it (a bit unusual for something not off of a major thoroughfare), since it has a kitchen and an eat-in area. "Fratello's Pizza Company" is the only one I've found at this address (3200 Boonville Road) but they also have their location as at the old Daylight Donuts space a bit west of here.

In late 2007, it became the home of Stover Boys, a hamburger-and-fries outlet that kind of had a "rural outlet, specials written on a chalkboard" feel to it that opened to much local acclaim. It was where Bryan-College Station was acquainted with Charles Stover and his restaurants.

Stover's restaurant was an instant success, and people would come out to this little gas station and fill up every available parking space. When it turned out that people would pass it by rather than fight for parking, it was clear that Stover's had outgrown itself and Stover Boys moved into an old restaurant pad in Westgate Shopping Center, clear on the other side of town. This was in 2008, and although it opened around early 2009, the Stover Boys signage still hangs at this Exxon, which also suggests how rarely new restaurants come in.

As of 2018, "Taqueria Poblano" operates in the space.

UPDATE 06-17-2023: I know I previously updated this to account for Taqueria Poblano but I wanted to clarify that beyond Fratello's (which was here and did move to the other Boonville address), Stover Boys, and Taqueria Poblano, the other place I found was "Deli Depot". The gas station opened in 1994.

Marion Pugh Drive

Officially, this post has been removed from the site, but remains up for posterity purposes. Please visit the Index for current features.

I am well aware of Marion Pugh being a real person, but the story of how Marion Pugh Drive started to become a real road started not so much with the first tenant on the stretch (Marion Pugh Lumber Co. at 101 Jersey Street West, which dated to the 1940s) but rather Tree House Apartments at 205 Jersey Street West. This would turn part of an abandoned railroad right of way (International & Great Northern, from the 1960s) into a paved alleyway with parking for the apartments. These apartments were one of the first apartments (and remain so) catering to off-campus "non-regs", which started in the 1960s.

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)

Just to the south of that was 102 Luther, Brazos Valley Concrete, and although the concrete plant and the construction company were right next to each other, neither of them had rail access of any sort nor was Marion Pugh even connected between them: only the unpaved right of way (undoubtedly driven on) connected Luther to Marion Pugh.

At 101 Luther Street West was Schaffhauser Distributing Co. (dealing primarily in liquor). Apparently, 102 Luther was once home to the National Guard building, as Fugate's comment is replicated here (seen here).

1 comment:
Grover Fugate said...
Yes Luther extended over the railroad. That road led to the dump. Right across the railroad was a beer distributor on the left. On the right was a National Guard building.
Right past the NG bldg was a place that made charcoal for a while. Maybe two hundred yards back was a pond that we played around as kids. You can get in touch with me via Anne Boykin. I would rather answer your questions via phone or a personal meeting. Ed Hrdlicka was my Grandfater. I lived in his house with my Mom and Dad. The house was right in front of the railroad crossing.
June 19, 2011 3:46 PM

In the early 1980s, the area was officially named Marion Pugh Drive but only extended to about Luther Street West, with Treehouse adopting the new address of 200 Marion Pugh. Treehouse II (400 Marion Pugh, but originally also 205 Jersey Street West into the 1980s) would build soon after next to it, with Treehouse Village (800 Marion Pugh) soon behind, building in 1985. This put a lot of cars crossing at Luther Street West's railroad crossing, which was steep and unsignaled and was even worse after Wellborn Road (until very recently at this time, "Old College Road") was widened in the early 1980s.

At first, this doesn't seem like a big deal--after all, the 1985 map shows how Holleman can be used instead of Luther Street West, until you remember that most of those connections didn't exist in 1985. Marion Pugh didn't extend to Holleman for nearly another two decades, and never did extend to FM 2818 (unless, of course, they used the old ROW as a dirt road like they did for what is now I&GN Road, but I don't have any proof of that).

So the crossing remained with signals but no road for several months until it was finally built in early 1986, and Luther would keep their crossing open until it too was closed off (at which time, I presume, traffic was finally restored between Luther and Marion Pugh).

Sometime during the 1980s, J. Arnold would shut down, but something else would take its place: Amtrak! Amtrak came into town with the Texas Eagle in 1988 and a new station. This train connected Dallas to Houston with only two stations between: College Station (restoring a train stop) and Corsicana. Unfortunately, the train only ran until 1995, when the line was cut. The mural in the train station was moved to A&M Consolidated High School, which unfortunately, I don't have a picture of.


Amtrak didn't last too long. (from an old calendar)

After the demise of Amtrak, the concrete plant (now abandoned) had a few buildings leftover: "Traditions Night Club" wanted to open in 1997, but the city reacted to the word "nightclub" even though by the prospective owners' words it was to be less "bar" and more "normal restaurant that serves beer and wine". It didn't even have a dance hall. Probably for the better as the location was still bad (only way in was George Bush Drive or way out from 2818 via Luther). The restaurant was doomed anyway by harsh criticism from area residents, including the Marion Pugh's widow Helen Pugh. Among the arguments was that "noise, trash, and traffic would be too close to College Station's historical district", never mind that places like the dumpy Piknik Pantry and Varsity II apartments were far closer, and furthermore, around that same time, a McDonald's would build at George Bush Drive (Jersey Drive's new name) and Marion Pugh.

I initially thought this McDonald's near Marion Pugh was a rather strange and ugly specimen. In a misguided effort to fit in with campus, the McDonald's (which was built in the mid-1990s, I'd say) featured a maroon-on-white mansard roof instead of a stock yellow-on-red mansard roof. It would've looked great if the colors were flipped, but they weren't, so McDonald's truly looked like the Aggies on an away team game. Around 2003 it renovated to what it is today. In summer 2011 it suffered a bout of bad publicity when a man ate a meal there and stabbed a little girl on the way out (her father was an employee). The restaurant was also robbed that same day, and said employee later sued because these weren't the only major incidents that happened during that time frame. Yikes. It seems to be doing better now, though. I wish I had a picture of that original McDonald's, though.

At around the same time all this was happening, a "five-story women's dorm" was proposed, this would turn out to be the co-ed upscale "Callaway House", which featured its own parking garage and was the first "upscale" student apartment complex. A few years later, Callaway Villas would build and destroy Luther Street West (or what remained of it) in the process and also extending Marion Pugh to Holleman. The road now featured Treehouse Apartments (in the late 1990s briefly named College Park - Treehouse), Stadium View Apartments (formerly Tree House II), Meadows Point (formerly Treehouse Village and the pre-2005 limits of Marion Pugh), Callaway House, and others. Finally, in 2011, U-Club Townhomes were built, which opened by 2012.

Marion Pugh Drive had been expected to extend all the way to Dowling, which is why another old I-GN segment between FM 2818 (Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.) and Dowling Road was named Marion Pugh Drive for a few years, before it was renamed Jones-Butler Road in 2005 to match the new 2004 Jones-Butler Road, and was ultimately closed after the Jones-Butler segment became Holleman.

H-E-B Pantry / Gattitown / DSW

The store today (picture mine). The facade just keeps getting bigger and bigger...

H-E-B built its first store in College Station in 1991 (according to InSite Magazine) at 2026 Texas Avenue South, a time when they were starting to expand H-E-B from outside of its confines in Central Texas toward East Texas, Houston, and even Louisiana. College Station-Bryan got three of them in 1991 before the first Houston stores in 1992.

Unlike the full line H-E-B stores, the Pantry stores were small even by early 1990s standards (averaging 20k to 30k square feet) and lacked departments that other stores had, only with a meat counter, produce, and a very small collection (maybe one aisle) of non-food items like HBA (health & beauty aids) and pet items. At the same time, two more stores were built in Bryan, one near the intersection of Twin Boulevard and South Texas Avenue, and one near the intersection of Old Hearne Road and North Texas Avenue.

I'm still mad that I lost both of my store directories for this store, which in addition to showing the layout also listed all of the H-E-B Pantry stores, though you can see the list here on Houston Historic Retail.

Instead of parking spaces in front of it like the other stores in the center, it had a large ramp in front of it for shoppers. Inside, it had mid-rising drop ceilings with a few random "Texas" graphics, such as a picture of a bunch of haybales scattered through a field. The produce was in the right side, there were ten check-out stands (with one being an express lane, 10 items or less), a photo developing kiosk, a "bakery" that didn't seem to make anything that fresh (fare was mostly limited to some tasteless bagels, the stuff that would be sold in the bread aisle today).

In 2002, this store closed and was replaced with the massive and modern store across Holleman. That wasn't the end for the space, though in summer 2003, Gattiland closed its Bryan location and moved into the old Pantry Foods store within the month. Although I was getting too old to be part of the Gattitown demographic by the time it opened, I visited anyway, because it was new, and it was to be the latest in the technology. Gattitown totally rebuilt the facade (the Texas part remained visible from the back, but unless you lived in one of the apartments behind the complex, you could not see it) and removed the ramp in the parking lot, making it smooth. You also had to enter through the sides.

“When we built [the Bryan location] it was the second GattiLand we built,” Moffett said. “This is the latest generation, and it’s going to be more comfortable and fun for every age. From here on out, they’re all going to be GattiTowns.”

This is the sixth restaurant to open under the GattiTown name and “eatertainment” theme, and each is decorated to reflect its community, Moffett said. At the College Station restaurant, an Aggieland Dining Room will be lined with reproductions of Benjamin Knox paintings. The drink station is positioned beneath a mock water tower, and other rooms include a city hall and a mock movie theater.

The game room will occupy the entire back section of the restaurant, but Moffett said adults can find quiet dining areas in a corner cafe and the Library, which will have high-speed Internet connections and five iMac computers for customer use.

Moffett said he plans to hire a full-time marketing employee to promote the restaurant’s meeting space, which is free to use once customers buy a meal. There also are two meeting rooms set apart from the customer traffic flow, and some of the dining rooms have sliding walls that can divide them into smaller spaces.

The "mock water tower" was modeled after by-then defunct old water tower at the corner of Park Place and Texas Avenue, and as for the "Library", I never did find (employees didn't seem to know where it was, a sign of bad things to come), but it apparently did exist and was soon converted into another theater room. The midway area wasn't all that better than Gattiland, if anything, it seemed smaller. There wasn't even room for a playground. The old style tokens that Gattiland used was replaced by a card system.

Well, initially Gattitown was a huge success and the parking lot stayed packed every Friday and Saturday night. But as the years wore on, Gattitown started to get competition in the form of Chuck E. Cheese which opened at Post Oak Mall in 2005, and at Grand Central Station, which happened soon after. Chuck E. Cheese did the most damage to Gattitown, with Gattitown's knockoff formula competing with the original, and just like that, Gattitown slid downhill just like its predecessor. It was pretty much exclusively for kids (no classic arcades, or even alcohol) for that matter, and even then stayed pretty empty except for the "Kids Eat Free" nights. In July 2012, Gattitown closed. The pizza was now abysmal (not even fully cooked) and Mr. Gatti's left the area for good after nearly 40 years of jumping around town.

It wasn't the end of the space, though: in fall of 2013, it reopened as DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse). Despite the fact that the facade of the old Gattitown/Pantry was completely covered up, the design restored the appearance of a retail store, so if you go inside and close your eyes you can almost remember how the Pantry used to be laid out.

In the same shopping center (developed by H-E-B originally), there's also Hastings, built after H-E-B, and later became Havertys.

2006 - Star Nails
2008 - Originally Sir Knight Tuxedoes (1996-2005) and later The Pita Pit (operated from 2006 to around 2021)
2010 - Marble Slab Creamery
2048 - Scoots (scooter rental)
2050 - Freebirds World Burrito
2050E - Old Navy (took up unused space but added a new facade, opened 1998).

UPDATE 02-24-2022: Updated for Pita Pit's closure, adding the tuxedo store previously mentioned, did some rearranging to list Old Navy with the others (along with a fixed date), and updated an old sentence to account for Hastings' closure.
UPDATE 04-04-2023: Our sister site Carbon-izer did manage to have the H-E-B Pantry College Station picture submitted to them through an anonymous contributor. Check it out here! Some of the first paragraphs have been changed, including linking to a Bryan store.
UPDATE 06-30-2023: In fall 2022, a new restaurant, Champion Pizza, opened in the former Pita Pit, but it probably won't last the year—a photo from TexAgs shows the odd, short hours the pizza restaurant actually has (even if it IS from NYC).

Post Oak Square, featuring Weingarten

Picture by author, c. 2019. This shopping center's success hasn't always been here.
Like some of my other older posts, this one has gotten numerous rewrites and updates, and initially the original version of the post actually had some wrong information. This was because the supermarket in question only lasted two months. Post Oak Square was built in 1983 as a strip mall companion to Post Oak Mall. The center struggled in its original incarnation because it was built by different developers than the mall and had very few inlets and outlets. An attempt to connect to Post Oak Mall's ring road was also shot down as the mall decided to take advantage of their property rights and put barricades blocking the access road, and eventually posting guards there before the driveway was removed. (A shout-out to Henry Mayo who helped me nail down where Grandy's was, and also gave information about the ring road access).

Post Oak Square had just one main anchor when it opened, an outlet of Weingarten. The intrigue I've had with this plaza goes back some time, as according to the HAIF's DrFood, "Weingarten's in College Station in the shopping center next to Post Oak Mall. The store was very upscale when it opened. They had gourmet food like Central Market does, a coffee bar, and a huge candy/nut bar. They had a bakery that today would rival Central Markets. Being a Weingarten's they had the only Kosher section in the [greater area]. It then became another name when Weingarten's sold out on the verge of bankruptcy."

When it opened in November 1983, Weingarten was on the small side, but relatively upscale
This was because Weingarten opened in November 1983, just a month before parent company Grand Union decided to divest the company. The older Weingarten near downtown Bryan got sold to Safeway but no such luck for this store.

Definitely some resent there. This has to be the shortest-lived supermarket in Texas. After some seemingly conflicting information, the supermarket did reopen under a new name, Mariel's Fine Foods, in May 1984 (a second location of a Conroe-based independent). By November 1984 (when the ad is from) they had rebranded as Mariel's Home Town Foods associated with Schepp’s Grocery Co. of Houston. Note that it offered video rental (rare in 1984) and delivery (also rare, and before 2020 had long fallen out of fashion for smaller markets).

The Conroe location until 2003 but the College Station location closed in 1985 as Schepp's Grocery and the Home Town Foods co-op collapsed.

As I said before, there was also a Grandy's between the two entrances.

At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, Grandy's lost the "Country Cookin'" name.
With a second attempt at a supermarket dead, in the late 1980s and early 1990s it began to transition to a modern power center. In 1986, Cavender's Boot City was built at 1400 Harvey and a new retail building was built in 1987 close to Harvey Road on the west side of the property. In 1990, Pier 1 Imports was built in front of Cavender's in a new building (making Cavender's impossible to see from the road). Grandy's was closed in 1992 for the biggest redevelopment of the center which demolished a good part of the main building for Toys R Us (opened c. 1993, this was the address for Linen Warehouse from 1984 to 1987)), T.J. Maxx (opened 1994), and Hobby Lobby (opened 1993 in Weingarten's former space). As a result, the shopping center finally saw success over the next decade. Hobby Lobby moved out in the early 2000s and of course Toys R Us failed with the chain in 2018 (keeping the original logo until toward the last few years), but the center has done well, all things considered. Going clockwise from the former Pier 1 Imports closest to the mall...

1402 - Mattress SleepCenters - Formerly Pier 1 Imports until the early 2000s when it moved to Texas Avenue Crossing at Texas Avenue and George Bush. This building was built in 1990 but is considered part of the shopping center.
1400 - demolished - Former Cavender's Boot City, moved out around 2006 and NEVER retenanted (it's the blank spot behind Mattress SleepCenters, and nearly impossible to see). Brazos CAD (had to go back in the archives to see) says this was built in 1986.
1306 - Ollie's Bargain Outlet opened in April 2020 following the closure of aforementioned Toys R Us.
1200 - The aforementioned former Weingarten, Hobby Lobby was in the location for much of the 1990s (since 1994) and left for its current location as soon as the center at Texas and Holleman was built (around 2003). After it left, it was divided into two stores (1200 Harvey and 1210 Harvey), which at the time was a store called "The BOUNCE!" and the 99 Cents Store, which was expanding heavily during that time. The BOUNCE! (hereafter referred to "The Bounce") was a bit overlooked, though it had a colorful facade. According to a surviving ad I found, The Bounce was a "locally owned and operated 12,500 square foot party facility featuring your favorite inflatable castles, obstacle courses, huge slides, rock climbing walls and more, all in a safe, climate controlled environment" and featured "four private party rooms with a private jump arena are available" along with "diner seating with drinks, coffee and snacks plus WiFi access."
These things tend hinge their existence on birthday parties, and for whatever reason, it failed within a few years (maybe lasting from 2006 to 2009), and I think that it's the same reason why Putt-Putt and Gattitown declined and ultimately closed.

Burkes Outlet opened in 1200 in 2013 but closed a decade later (being replaced with an O'Reilly Auto Parts in 2024) and 1210 Harvey is still vacant. Tuesday Morning closed it in an early 2023 bankruptcy round with the remaining chain going under a few months later. 1140 - LL Flooring - This used to be Avenue (with the address of 1200A), opening in 1994 as part of the center re-do. 1140 - LifeWay Christian Stores - used to be Avenue, a plus-sized women's clothing store. LifeWay Christian Stores opened in spring 2014. It may have absorbed two smaller stores at some point in the past. The store announced closing in February 2019 shortly before the remainder of the chain one month later.
1128 - TJMaxx - Here since 1994 in the corner. 1120 - The current space combined the former 1112 (Wild Birds Unlimited was here from 1997 to 2004) and 1120. It has held GR8 Laundry since November 2019. 1106 - This has been Once Upon a Child since early 2019, which relocated from Brazos Square. From about 1996 to 2010 the space 1108 was Treasures Gift Shop, later home to Q Beauty. Q Beauty later moved to the former Taste of China building.
1104A - Plato's Closet - This opened around 2009 and still remains open.
1102 - Gumby's Pizza - My records say that this was Imperial Chinese Restaurant from 1984 to 1994, related to the later Texas Avenue location but unrelated to the one on the bypass today). Ninfa's opened in January 1995, according to InSite Magazine. When Ninfa's moved around 2008 to a new spot on the bypass, the space was vacant for a few years before Houston-based Wolfies Restaurant (2012 to September 2016).

The 1100 building as of August 2022 features, from east to west, Victoria's Variedades y Tipicos (this was Merle Norman from about 2006 to 2015, suite D), Bea's Alterations (Suite C, home to Merge Boutique before it moved to Century Square), RA Salon Spa (suite B, Edward Jones until the early 2010s), and Al's Formal Wear (from 1987 to its abrupt August 2023 chain-wide closure).

Finally, for a long time it was rumored that Grandy's was torn down for visibility issues: it did not seem to be stop current management from signing a genuine Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store to be built in the parking lot closest to Mattress SleepCenters. Previously, the closest College Station-Bryan had to Krispy Kreme was some products sold in Shell gas stations around 2003 and 2004, which were made in Houston (as it had a small handful of stores at the time). If you want to hear about the Krispy Kreme's first attempt in Houston, I suggest you visit Houston Historic Retail, which is not my site but I recommend it anyway.

Krispy Kreme opened in April 2019 at 1312 Harvey Road.

Get them when they're hot!

UPDATE 03-20-2021: After a previous update in July 2020; changed bit about no store doing grocery delivery (at the time), man has that sentence aged poorly! Also a bit more precise on Mariel's arrival and death.
UPDATE 04-04-2021: A few minor touch-ups, including new date on T.J. Maxx.
UPDATE 04-21-2024: Major rewrite, from "Post Oak Square, featuring Krispy Kreme" to "Post Oak Square featuring Weingarten".

Alta Vista Christian Academy

The entire Class of '98. (picture from The Eagle)

The time is September 1997. Rock Prairie has just recently or is in the process of extending from the stub where it abruptly dead-ended at Victoria Avenue all the way to Wellborn Road. Using the rural back road of North Graham Road was about to end, and in February 1998, a railroad crossing connecting Gandy Road and Rock Prairie Road was approved. It was this time that Alta Vista opened at 3110 Gandy Road.

The Rock Prairie extension only had a street sign (Wellborn/Rock Prairie Road) and a stop sign (along with a new Exxon station that opened, which included an A&W). Beyond the railroad was a dusty road ending at a yield sign, and that was Gandy Road. Though a dusty, rural road, it included the Diamond T Stables (still with "3270 Gandy", which remained on the sign until it was eventually sold to developers and torn down), some sort of facility that looked like a fish farm or water retention (little ponds in the back), and Alta Vista Christian Academy.

My only experiences of Alta Vista came from exploring the new extension of Rock Prairie after it opened circa 2000-2001. The new extension was fascinating: there was a dip in the railroad crossing (as opposed to the "humps" in the others): this was taken out when they expanded Wellborn Road. In the early days of the crossing (circa 2001, I believe), there was a four-way stop at Old Wellborn, and several country-oriented places along the way: including aforementioned Diamond T Stables, the adjacent Diamond T Storage (now Tex Storage), and of course Alta Vista (a small private school). The new extension went all the way to North Dowling, and then, on the other side, Blue Ridge Drive, which went even further.

Of course, all that began to change as urbanization slowly crept west. Alta Vista struggled for years, even having to be saved from bankruptcy in the early 2000s thanks to donations, but by the mid-2000s, Alta Vista had folded up and disappeared, with no trace remaining. It's now the Williams Gate subdivision.

As an aside, I remember how the old railroad ROW looked in 2001 (now the intersection of Holleman and Rock Prairie): it was a sad, gated-off place that was kind of creepy-looking due to the overgrowth, with the (patchy) I&GN Road going the other way. That was the original ending of Gandy (it curved into I&GN). The rest of the way has the partially-undeveloped Great Oaks Estates, farmland, and another trailer park (substantially less attractive than the ones closer to the old ROW). Today, that intersection is a stoplight with concrete and four lanes in all directions.

Battle for the Promenade - 301 Patricia

From The Eagle, so apologies for the quality.

Rarely in this town do buildings vanish without a trace. Sure, Fish Richard's is gone completely, but those are exceptions, not rules. Did you know there was a tiny strip center where the Northgate parking lot is, which is next to the Promenade?

It was built at some point in the 1960s (it existed in 1971) late 1960s or early 1970s, and it featured four spaces, with the end store being a UtoteM, a convenience store commonly found in the South. The chain was ultimately bought and absorbed by Circle K in the mid-1980s but most of the UtoteM stores ended up closing (more on that later).

A bit blurry, but on the original, you can actually make out the U TOTE M sign!

A view from the early 1990s, looking east toward College Main.

Besides the UtoteM, the tenant history has been a little hard to tell: at one point, the three tenants renumbered. In the early 1980s, there was The Varsity Shop (a), Aggieland Washateria (b), and UtoteM (c), and in 1988, there was The Varsity Shop (a), Burger Boy (b), and "The Deli Shop" (c). At some point, however, the space that was UtoteM ended up becoming B, Burger Boy was in C, and B was Advanced Tutoring Services (in the early 1990s). In the mid-1970s, Planned Parenthood even maintained an office here (before their location at 303 College Main) in the era of UtoteM and Varsity Shop. Advanced Tutoring Services (ATS) was owned by the owners of Burger Boy, who might've sub-divided suite B. Additionally, in the mid-1980s (1983/1984 range), there was also Chanello's Pizza, which may have predated the spot where Burger Boy was.

The Varsity Shop, which survived from the 1970s to the 1990s. This ad is from the 1970s.
The UtoteM didn't survive long enough to be a Circle K (a 1983 phone book lists it as part of the UtoteM stores, but by 1984, it wasn't listed with the newly rebranded Circle K stores). If it did convert to a Circle K, it was brief: Circle K began to cut back the most run-down stores (many of the former UtoteM stores exist: the convenience store at College Main and Old College DID survive into the Circle K era). An InSite Magazine issue from 1997 (regarding the Northgate redevelopment) indicated that there was an Indian food store there at one time, but I haven't found it (it didn't seem to be "The Deli Shop", which offered "Frankie's Fried Chicken"). By 1996, it was the offices for the Northgate redevelopment. By the summer of 1997, it was being gutted.

Varsity Shop lasted for around 25 years but closed after spring 1996 after "they could not get any of their beauty operators to return because beauty operators depend on following and there were too many rumors going around" (InSite Magazine), which indicates that they were closed in summer.

It was suite C, though, that caused the stir when the building was going to be demolished in 1997. That was Burger Boy at Northgate (the only business left by December 1996), which had been there since the latter part of the 1980s. The owners of Burger Boy at the time felt like the city was overstepping its boundaries in the eviction of the restaurant, and there wasn't any suitable spot to move to Northgate at the time. It had to stay on Northgate, as a full 90% of its business was delivery via bike. It's worth noting that when Burger Boy moved to Northgate, it replaced the restaurant which is now the Bryan Fat Burger. In 1989, they also had their original location at what is La Familia Taqueria at 300 North Texas Avenue but closed it in favor of the Northgate location, which was now (at this point) at the soon-to-be-razed 301 Patricia. I don't know what was there before Burger Boy.

Ultimately Burger Boy was able to find a new location in Northgate (what is now Daily Ruckus, though prior to Burger Boy's move-in, it was a garage), which the Sopasakis continued to run for the next 13 years. After the Sopasakis retired, the location soon moved and closed in December 2012 (January 2 had the announcement that it would not reopen).

As for the rest of the building, it was flattened in late 1997 or early 1998 for the Northgate Promenade.

Here is one last picture, from The Eagle with George Sopasakis standing in front of his business. Again, apologies for the quality.

Information and photos are derived from a few The Eagle articles:
"Local Eatery Seeks New Home" - December 12, 1996
"Business owners express concerns about relocation" - June 11, 1997
"New Northgate look" - June 12, 1997

Updated March 2019 - Removed redundant paragraph, removed last section due to outdated metaposting, removed "Part One" from post title

Skaggs Albertsons / Skaggs Alpha Beta / Jewel-Osco / Albertsons

January 2011. The Albertsons had been closed for about 13 years by this point.
301 South College Avenue

Rhetorical Question: Why am I re-posting this, when I have had it since 2011?

Originally discussed on the University Square article, the old Albertsons that once anchored the center confused and perplexed many Aggies that have been here over the years, so here's the story. While scanning items for Project HOLD a few summers ago, I found that it opened as a Skaggs-Albertsons, with the center being (apparently named) the Skaggs Shopping Center. This was in 1971. I thought that the Skaggs name was dropped later, but what actually happened was a complicated brand name swap: Skaggs was a drug company, and Albertsons was grocery, so Skaggs Albertsons was a chain that had one of the first now-standard food and drug operations. Here's a picture of a Skaggs Albertsons in Florida. The Skaggs Albertsons would remain until late 1979, at which point Skaggs acquired American Stores, thus renaming itself as American Stores, and turned the store into what many people would know it by: "Skaggs Alpha Beta" in fall 1979.

Now, I do have an ad from that era but it's in such unbelievably low quality (for the microfilms, of course) that I'm ashamed to show it to you. Can it be cleaned up with a photo-editing program? Sure. Will I do it? Probably not, especially given at the rate that pictures are ripped off of here on a high basis without "real" visitors. This isn't other people's faults entirely: the new way that Google Image Search works now is rip the image out of context, which is unfortunate.

The new "American Stores" company continued to manage this store until it rebranded it as Jewel-Osco in 1991. Shortly after, Albertsons came back and bought the entire market off of American Stores (they would later come back and buy the rest of the company), and rebranded the store as Albertsons.

And so from about 1992 to 1997, Albertsons managed a store on the corner of College and University. However, Randalls, an upscale supermarket further down University, sold its store to Albertsons, causing the small supermarket to quickly be abandoned (it closed in November 1997, according to Wikimapia), and it continued stand for nearly another 15 years, longer than it had been any name.

Of course, a vacant building won't last forever, and in 2012, it finally began to come down, with demolition halting for months but continuing about a year later. Not much more than the east wall remains as of this writing.



An ad from the brief Jewel-Osco days. Note the "Special Supplement to The Eagle" to the left.

There's even a shot of a Sunny Delight bottle as I remember it, before they changed it to "Sunny D" (and later "SunnyD"). Tangy Original was called "Florida Style" and "Smooth" was "California Style".
Other shots, taken January 2011...






Regrettably, I couldn't get any of the interior on that shot, or any other time: the windows were painted over, and my one shot of the interiors was kind of messed up by the flash, and while it did capture some of the interior in a blurry configuration that revealed rows of fluorescents and columns, it mostly created a reflection of me, which I didn't like.


Whoa, Albertsons was open 24 hours! Must have been super-convenient, relatively rare (I don't think even H-E-B did when it first opened), and must have been fun to see at night when the bars had closed for the night.


What was left of Albertsons after the first major demo.


The first Christmas at the store.


Albertsons interior. (Official Stalworth Picture)


From The Eagle, shortly after the demo began.
The real fun thing that no one really knows about the store is that there were some real plans to actually reopen the store under the Albertsons name!

From the city's archives. Click for full size.

In May 2000, Albertsons filed plans with the city to reopen the store as Albertsons #2797. This time around, the Albertsons would have gained a fancy "Albertsons University Market" branding and come complete with a Starbucks and "J.A.'s Kitchen", a deli concept (JA stood for Joe Albertson) that Albertsons played around with for a short while in some stores (from what I can tell, it was just the regular deli usually placed in smaller stores or drug stores). The main reason this never happened was probably because of the issues the company was having at the time, trying to integrate American Stores into the company (which it bought) and fighting a losing battle in the main Houston grocery market (which the 27xx series were part of).

Too bad that was never the case, and the site is now a fenced-off grassy area, returned to simply potential.

Crossposted with some edits from Safeway and Albertsons in Texas. Post updated May 2019.