Lost Retail at the Lofts

The stoplight at Holleman and Dartmouth I want to say was erected in 2002 or sometime around that time, formerly a four-way stop. I know I haven't been doing much to the website recently, and part of that is the photos issue. I don't have a great source for photos and even then some of them are lacking. I have to watermark everything these days and my scans and stuff still turn up in places, even commercially published books (I'm not naming names, but stuff like the picture for Cattlemen's Inn & Steak House had its watermark cropped out.)

I've also been planning a big Post Oak Mall project but that's mostly stalled out, so let's move onto something else not too far from Post Oak Mall, namely the The Lofts at Wolf Pen Creek which stands out because it is one of the first mixed-use apartments in College Station. It opened in 2009 and while it contained all the trappings of high-end student apartments at the time (including an "Internet cafe", something I'm sure was repurposed fairly early on), it had several ground-floor tenants that all came and went. It was never fully leased, but at the most prominent of the corner started with Tutta Pasta Italian Market & Ristorante in January 2011, and after getting some bad reviews folded within six months. There was another restaurant, Arbano Cafe, that opened in April 2014 but also closed in six months; the signage remained up for a few years afterward.

Red Mango, a frozen yogurt place next to it, was arguably more successful and opened in late 2009 but closed at the end of 2015. A location of Honeybaked Ham & Deli also existed from around 2009 to 2011 as a third tenant but that closed and was replaced with Sabi Boutique, which ran for about six years before moving out as well.

The only tenant currently (and has been for the last several years) is "The Texas Bucket List Store and Studio" (associated with the "Visit College Station" facade but actually in Sabi Boutique's space). (A fourth tenant space was never developed. There were rumors Abercrombie & Fitch wanted to move to it from the mall but I can't confirm that).

TX Burger

This isn't my picture, unfortunately, it's theirs—source I've been sitting on this post for a long time, and one of the reasons was that I didn't have a picture of my own. However, there's nothing really special about it, something where I have to take a picture because it's going to change soon. (There is something I did for a future post; that will have to wait).

One of the things I did a while back was dedicate a lot of resources to the "open source" Wikimapia, and while I've described the reasons why I don't deal with it anymore has been described here (March 31, 2022) and I have to admit that much of this post is going to be adapted from what I wrote on Wikimapia, which I worked a lot on before I moved focus back to this blog. The building at 14895 FM 2154 has seen several incarnations come and go before its current incarnation as TX Burger, which re-did the facade and paved the parking lot.

Starting chronologically, the first tenant here when the building was constructed in 2004 was Junek's Barbecue, which moved out from the gas station just north of it. Junek's folded sometime around 2011 or early 2012.

After Junek's folded, for several years, the building was tenanted by a series of restaurants, none of which lasted a year. The second restaurant here was Outlaw Jack's Brew N Chew which featured hamburgers, barbecue, and fried seafood. It opened early 2013, closed, reopened a few months later, and then closed again. The third, Country Cafe, opened up in 2014, but was gone by January 2015. There was "Chubby's Meat Wagon" (late April or early May 2015 but closed September...as it lasted three months I know almost nothing about it) as the fourth restaurant.

The fifth restaurant here was Cajuns Bayou Grille. It opened February 2016, giving the exterior new paint and enlarging the parking area, but closed just five months later, partially because of new City of College Station ordinances that prohibited the expansion of the restaurant without additional improvements. This is the only restaurant in the spot that I actually ate at, getting some crawfish and having enough for some leftovers (though properly re-heating crawfish is something I have yet to master).

Finally, the sixth restaurant opened in July 2017, a branch of Madisonville-based TX Burger (formerly Texas Burger until around 2010 or 2011 when the chain rebranded, possibly to avoid confusion with a Midland-Odessa chain of the same name). TX Burger did a significant re-do of the front facade and paved the parking lot for the first time, and as a result it has been here since.

Editor's Note: Want to go beyond the limits of Bryan-College Station? Visit my new blog, Numbered Exits, featuring Waco, Dallas, and even out of state spots.

Southwest Parkway East Shell

Evening shot by author, May 2021.
This was another post that I wanted to get to back in 2021-2022 but I decided to put off indefinitely because a good number of the posts I made in that time were gas station or convenience store posts and I didn't want yet another one. Including and between Christmas 2020 and Christmas 2021, there were 25 posts, 20% were on gas stations. Sure, some of them had restaurants inside, but it was just too much at one time. The gas station here, legally "Express Stop" at 450 Southwest Parkway East and built around 2000-2001 as a Texaco (converted to Shell in early 2003) has two sub-tenants. The one on the left (452 Southwest Parkway East) was, from 2004-2005, Cool Beans (legally "TC's Smoothies & More"), which left its sign up for a few years after it closed. From 2008 to 2011 it was Southwest Cleaners, and most recently, Salon Christiana which opened in 2012 but shut down due to COVID in March 2020 and never reopened. On the right side of the gas station was Casa Rodriguez Express from 2011 to 2014 and Master Donut since 2015). Before "Casa Rod" it was the fourth location of Mi Cocina (later Polly's Cocina). This was one of the "two additional locations in College Station" mentioned in this post.

One of the other reasons this never got posted was I had located on Flickr a picture of Cool Beans' facade. It was the side view and I even think it may have been in grayscale, but it got lost somewhere along the way, I think when new owner SmugMug purchased Flickr from Oath (Yahoo!) and cracked down on storage space. Here's the Street View for the site as of 2007. Less-blurry pictures are available but this one is the only one where you can make out the red-and-green Cool Beans facade.

Former Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy

This restaurant is out of service, but hopefully not for long.
Ah, it's great to be back! I've been updating Carbon-izer's city directory for the city chock full of things that will probably never see a full post, and I've been updating the Facebook page weekly with retreads and occasional new updates of posts but it's been a while since we had an all-new page here.

As outlined last November, only businesses that have turnover are covered, making it a bit more like Columbia Closings in that regard.

"Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy" opened its College Station location at 840 University Drive East in May 2006, and sometime in the early 2010s (2013-2016) became just "Abuelo's Mexican Restaurant". It shut down in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, with two others closed around this time, a location in Plano (3701 Dallas Parkway, open since 2001) and one that had been open since 2003 at Barton Creek Square (as an outlot, not in the actual mall itself). Do check out that link, it's one of the things I've been working on recently...and because I live in the Austin area now (it's true...) you'll probably see more along those lines.

Anyway, I can't say much about Abuelo's. I never did go there and the restaurant chain itself is alive and well, just not in the Austin or College Station areas anymore. I'm not sure about the Austin or Plano locations, but on University Drive East, the space is already signed for a new Italian restaurant, Casa Mangiare. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures! All of them were taken in May 2022 by the author.  

A bird flexes its wings on a sign for the curbside service. I'm not sure if these were put up shortly before its closure or pre-existed.

Despite signage up for the next restaurant, older "For Lease" and rent lockout signs still exist on the doors.

Inside, Abuelo's has been gutted, but a mural on the back still exists for now.
UPDATE 05-13-2023: Casa Mangiare opened in May 2023, almost a year after these pictures were taken. Also, for those curious, the Barton Creek Square reopened as Polvos, and the Plano location is now Sixty Vines. (Removed [defunct] from post).

Masfajitas

Masfajitas, menos Dickey's. (Picture by author, 8/2021)
Masfajitas (aka MasFajitas) has been listed in the local phone book for years, with (initially) a single location in Caldwell. Only very recently has it opened a native College Station facility, with this one opening in July 2020.

The building was built as Dickey's Barbecue Pit, a hot "barbecue as fast food" franchise that opened many Texas stores around the same time frame. The last commercial development at the old Boriskie Ranch site (see "'At Home' at the Boriskie Ranch", the post this one spun off of) and opening in May 2009 (another article), Dickey's never did particularly well and closed May 31, 2017 (though this website, which tracks closed stores, incorrectly lists it as "4/31/17").

After Dickey's closed, it sat vacant before MasFajitas, which by this time had locations in the Temple-Killeen and Austin areas, announced it would renovate the building and open a store. The renovation ultimately expanded out the building and left very little of the Dickey's facade (at least in front), only the brick part with the stars is original. You can see the original facade at Google Maps Street View and a side view of the building at the aforementioned At Home post.

UPDATE 10-03-2021: Forgot the address: it's 2297 Earl Rudder Freeway South.

Holiday Inn on Earl Rudder Freeway

This is indeed my photo from July 2020. It's a far cry from the glossy evening shot for the official website, but whatever.
Two posts in two days? You bet! If you haven't checked it out, visit the new Kyoto Sushi page. Last year, the the Four Points by Sheraton, at the old Holiday Inn on Texas Avenue, closed down. While it is up for redevelopment (no hard evidence of anything yet), let's turn to the last Holiday Inn in the city we need to cover (excluding the Holiday Inn Express locations on University Drive East).

The modern Holiday Inn & Suites College Station - Aggieland at 2500 Earl Rudder Freeway opened around 2006 (looks like it was still under construction in October 2005, but it might've opened in some capacity by the end of 2005) and contains about 116 rooms and 48 suites (per a 2005 directory, and based on my experience writing for The Houston Files, no room count is ever 100% correct), and briefly was branded with the 1980s-era Holiday Inn logo before receiving the modern 2007 one shortly after it was announced (unfortunately, I can't find a picture of the Holiday Inn before re-branding).

Kem's Restaurant & Bar, named after the hotel chain's founder is open for breakfast and dinner these days (lunch appears that it was cut even before March 2020). In talking about the old Holiday Inn this one replaced, I assumed that Holiday Inn's restaurants were only advertised due to a relative lack of other competition, but now I'm thinking it was a corporate decision at some point in the late 1990s to stop advertising their restaurants (or have unique concepts). I don't know if Kem's was the restaurant since day one, though.

As the hotel has gone through no new flags, nor has interesting restaurants documented, and of course, is still open, it makes it less interesting than the old Holiday Inn. Then again, there aren't many interesting motels/hotels in the area left worth writing about. We've already written about hotels in sixteen other entries, and covers 19 hotels in total, including the Hilton, both of the older Ramada hotels, Days Inn, and a few others. Well, 20 hotels, including this article you're reading right now.

The hotel has the address of 2500 Earl Rudder Freeway but its parking lot is at the intersection of Holiday Inn Lane (from Southwest Parkway) and Holiday Inn Drive (from the frontage road), and more recently, a large, multi-story storage center was built between the hotel and the highway.

UPDATE 06-17-2024: Kem's has some light snacks available in the evening but it does appear that dinner was permanently cut during COVID-19 and has not returned. I added [restaurants] to the post anyway.

Under the Water Tower

From John Ellisor comes this picture of Bud Ward Volkswagen. I think I see the old Holiday Inn in the background.
The pad site where Hancock Whitney bank (at 1912 Texas Avenue South) is today has its own history that's set apart from the large H-E-B store behind it. The water tower that stands guard over the H-E-B replaced a smaller water tower almost directly at the corner of the intersection, where the H-E-B gas station is today.

Originally, it was a car dealership. Richard Barton Mazda-Volvo was here from around 1975 to 1976 for sure, and from 1977 to 1988, it was Bud Ward Volkswagen, pictured above. A 1978 article from The Eagle mentions that Ward added Porsche and Audi lines (but did not stock top-of-the-line Porsche cars) when the facility expanded.

From 1989 to 1992 it was University Mitsubishi, and after that, car dealership use of the space ended (I was previously told Allen Honda was once located here but that seems to be incorrect). After that, it very briefly became Charlie's ("Charlie's Under the Water Tower") in 1993. I'm not sure if Charlie's built a new building (later used for El Chico) or used the same building. I was previously told Allen Honda was once located here but that seems to be incorrect.

In 1994, it opened as what I remember the corner being, El Chico opened in 1994. El Chico is still around in some form and despite a logo and image update, there's only 7 locations left in Texas from what was once dozens.

El Chico survived the construction of H-E-B, and continued with the chunk of the old parking lot they once shared with 1801 Holleman now connected to H-E-B's parking lot. Unfortunately, El Chico ended up closing in late 2005, largely citing popularity and access reasons (by that time, construction on widening Texas Avenue had begun).

A few years later, the pad site was demolished entirely (including the old parking lot) for MidSouth Bank, which was rebranded as Hancock Whitney in late 2019.

Former Academy Sports + Outdoors

From March 2019, by author. Yes, I know I covered this over a year ago.

In February 2002, Academy Sports + Outdoors opened a new location at Horse Haven Lane and Earl Rudder Freeway, either just prior to or after the closure of College Station Golf Center, a driving range off of the highway (for more information, see "At Home" on the Boriskie Ranch).

Academy was where I purchased much of my clothes and shoes over the years (never was a sharp dresser) but there was nothing particularly nostalgic about this location, especially given how much the new Academy resembles the old store on the inside.

For years, the store "competed" against the Gander Mountain next door, but eventually would close just as the Redmond Terrace location before it, with the store closing in June 2017 (a new store, about three-quarters of a mile south, replaced it). The store remains vacant, except for the occasional Halloween store that occupies it.

Editor's Note: A reason this post is spinning off from the At Home post is to separate the posts and partially so MasFajitas can have its own page someday.

Jimmy Jackson's Enco, 3000 South Texas Avenue

Nothing remains of the first Jimmy Jackson's Exxon but a rather standard Eckerd-turned-CVS. (Photo by author, 3/20)
Built in the 1960s at 3000 South Texas Avenue, "Jackson's Enco" eventually became Jimmy Jackson's Exxon (in the early 1970s, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed to Exxon to unify the Esso and Enco brands), and by the early 1980s, gained a second entrance when Restwood Drive was rebuilt as an extension of Villa Maria Road. The gas station was eventually sold to focus on the College Station location and in 1998, an Eckerd was built at the site and eventually converted (around late 2004) to CVS/pharmacy when parent company J.C. Penney decided to liquidate the chain.

Olive Garden's Original Location

In real life Italy, unlimited breadsticks are not a thing.
Besides marketing its food products in all the area grocery stores, General Mills brought two restaurants to the Bryan-College Station through its General Mills Restaurant Group subsidiary, Red Lobster in 1983 and Olive Garden a decade later. (The other two significant concepts at the time, Good Earth, and China Coast, never made it to the area, though the latter briefly saw Waco and Houston).

Neither my articles on Hastings or H-E-B Pantry mention Olive Garden, which sat at the corner of Texas Avenue and Holleman Drive from 1993 to 2004. The old Olive Garden met its fate when it burned down in a fire, and what was left of the building was declared a total loss.

In January or February 2005, a new Olive Garden opened at University Drive East and Earl Rudder Freeway, and by October 2005, two new buildings rose at the former Olive Garden site, a Chase bank (replacing the 2000 Texas Avenue South address), and a second building (2002 Texas Avenue South) holding Jimmy John's and Men's Wearhouse (Google Street View link). The Jimmy John's closed in late summer 2019 for reasons unknown but by that time, a Jimmy John's was operating at Rock Prairie Crossing and near Texas and University Drive East. Of course, Jimmy John's at the latter location has a somewhat interesting backstory, and that will be covered soon enough...

The ad is from the mid-1990s, before it introduced its newer logo (dropping "The" and adding what appeared to be a bunch of grapes to the logo) around 1999 (replaced in 2014 but still seen on many restaurants).

Former Red Lobster

It wasn't a red, it was a Red Lobster! (Picture by author, 6/20)

The current COVID-19 pandemic has done a number on local restaurants, and one of the victims appears to be the local Red Lobster at 1200 University Drive East. Opened in spring 2008 at the corner of Lincoln and University Drive East and replacing their 1983 location at Lincoln and Texas Avenue, the Red Lobster updated their logo in the early 2010s (2013) to their 2009 logo instead of the one they've had since the mid-1990s.

The restaurant was reported in late June 2020 to be locked out for non-payment of rent, and while some barriers have been put up to prevent vandalism/theft, I don't see the restaurant reopening. Also I apologize for the quality of the photos, it was taken when the sun was at a low angle, and I had to do some weird things to the photos to make them viewable.

All of the handicapped spaces were converted to to-go spots. I'm not sure this was actually legal.

GMRI Inc. is the corporate name of the original Red Lobster/Olive Garden group, descended from the original Red Lobster Inns of America, Inc. and named after the General Mills Restaurant group...though Red Lobster was spun off several years ago.

UPDATE 05-04-2022: According to KBTX, Austin-based Trudy's Authentic Tex-Mex is coming to the spot, confirming after two years that Red Lobster is gone for good. Parts of the original post have been touched up.
UPDATE 10-06-2023: Rumor is that Trudy's has unfortunately fallen through.
UPDATE 04-23-2024: Reports that Tyler-based Javi's will be opening in the spot.

Abandoned Quality Suites

The direct sun hurt this photo, but I think it gets the point across.

I first stumbled upon this hotel (at 3610 Highway 6 South) in fall 2019 to find it closed despite being a fairly modern-looking hotel (it was built in 2005) and on the highway. All the signage was up and graffiti had not yet hit the building, but the high weeds and tattered entryway said otherwise, nor any sign that the hotel would be opening soon (it was removed from the Choice Hotels website). Apparently, the hotel closed by early 2018 (mentioned on Yelp's "Tips" which seem to have disappeared in a recent redesign) due to a flooding problem and it never reopened. At this rate I can't see it reopening as a Quality Suites any time soon, and even without a virus decimating tourist trades, there's a lot of hotel competition that didn't exist when Quality Suites first went up. Despite being on the freeway as well, its access is a bit difficult, either requiring the southbound exit to Texas and staying on the frontage road, or working around Longmire and going back to Ponderosa. There's a good chance that it was planned before the new Rock Prairie exit was made, not only did the old Rock Prairie exit actually allow access to the hotel very easily (even southbound) in 2005, it did not visually obscure it.

According to one of the old Choice Hotel locators I have (from 2007), the hotel has 81 rooms, a swimming pool, exercise room, meeting room, and a few other modest features (like guest laundry).

Even if the hotel industry was better (overbuilding had gotten to be a problem), Quality Suites shows no signs of reopening anytime soon. The card reader on the south entrance has been ripped out, exterior maintenance is slipping, rooms have been dismantled (mattresses leaning up, etc.), and the lobby is trashed. It would not take much to reopen it under a different name, but it requires some work that the current owners have not put in yet. Personally, I'm surprised the high weeds have not gotten the pressure from city code yet.

In terms of placement, this is the very first address (apart from Veronica's Country Corner, an outlier in every sense of the word) that focuses on a Highway 6 address that isn't on the Earl Rudder portion, and the first hotel covered in a while (not since La Quinta).

UPDATE 10-24-2023: In early 2023 this hotel reopened as Wingate by Wyndham. ([defunct] removed).
UPDATE 12-25-2023: I wanted to mention that the hotel is dual-branded as a Hawthorn Suites as well.

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.

Exxon Rock Prairie and Wellborn

There was another Exxon located on Rock Prairie's other end. More on that another time. (Picture by author, Apr. 2020)
Sometime around 1997 or 1998, Rock Prairie Road was extended from Victoria Avenue to Wellborn Road, eliminating the need to trek back on North Graham toward Victoria. Within a few years, an Exxon station was built and later, a stoplight (I'm pretty sure the stoplight came before the railroad crossing--which upgraded and extended Gandy Road into a full extension to North Dowling Road).

This Exxon station (at 12727 FM 2154) anchors the southeast corner of the intersection, with the Shell station coming in about 3-5 years afterward.

Brazos CAD isn't all that clear when everything was built, indicating the car wash was built a full two years before the convenience store was in 2000. In the first year or two, the Exxon featured an A&W restaurant, which had returned to College Station-Bryan after a 20+ year absence (there was a location near the modern-day intersection of University Drive and Texas Avenue, but that's for another post). A&W's attempt at what was then south College Station didn't last long at all, and I had to make sure of it through some digging on Project HOLD to make sure it wasn't just the power of suggestion getting to me, but by early 2001 A&W was gone, and a Sonic took its place in the summer of 2001. The addition of Sonic added the traditional Sonic canopies to about seven parking spaces, and evidence suggests these were functional carhop spaces.

In 2008, the Sonic moved to a new space next door and the space was abandoned. By early 2009, it was operating as Taco Casa, which reused a lot of Sonic's infrastructure by painting the red trim on the canopies orange to match Taco Casa's branding scheme. But it too closed after a few years (sometime in mid-2011). It didn't help Taco Casa's case that 2009 and 2010 were plagued with major construction. The Exxon actually lost about a dozen parking spaces in the front, with an entrance to Rock Prairie also closed (though that became three new spaces). Sometime within this same time frame, the signage updated to electronic numbering.

Finally, around early 2013, the space was filled with Little Caesars, which ditched the interior seating for a walk-up counter and the only Little Caesars in the area with a drive-through.

The main "Tigerland Express" food mart was there from the start, with a third tenant serving as a liquor/tobacco store (but is only accessed from the inside, despite the presence of an exterior door). Finally, the car wash is next to the convenience store.

Rock Prairie Crossing

The "Pharmacy" on the right originally held the "Signature" logo.

In the adventures of of this website thus far, we have covered all the former Albertsons and all the former AppleTree stores, but haven't gone too deep into the grocery stores currently in the area. That is about to change, as we are about to tackle Rock Prairie Crossing, a shopping center built in 2000.
The shopping center is anchored by Kroger (3535 Longmire) and had massive success, as it had (for about a decade) the distinction of being the farthest-south grocery store in town, and is usually still pretty crowded.

The Starbucks wasn't originally there, it appears that according to the map, it was an enclosed cart area (the carts were moved outside after Starbucks), but it did appear after a few years, either opening before or around the same time the Albertsons up the street did.

It features a prominent and open mezzanine; however just for offices seems a bit of a waste, it almost feels as if the upper level was meant to be used for additional seating or some other purpose, given the (original) presence of a daycare and all that. The Randalls store in downtown Houston (though given how much the chain continues to shrink, I don't know how long it will last) also has an upper level like Kroger's but is well-utilized. You can sit down with your items purchased from the Starbucks up there or other items (like the deli or the bakery) and eat them while having nearly a full view of the store below.

As for a basic description of the store, it's around 63,000 square feet, has a bakery, deli, produce department, meats and seafood toward the far back right of the store, then pharmacy to the right, with some space cut for the "curb-side pickup". I did not take any pictures of the store, partly because you can find it elsewhere. The decor on Yelp from 2010 is still the Kroger's design now and Google also has a few photos (but it's contaminated with stock photos that look nothing like this store).

The Kroger currently has "Fresh Fare" décor with tiles featuring orange and green accents ("Millennium Decor") but it may have the Neon Decor.

I actually did acquire a store directory back when the store first opened back when the store's moniker "Kroger Signature" actually meant something (the name was removed sometime last year as of this writing, to just Kroger). This can be seen at my main website, Carbon-izer. While this Kroger did have the day care area, it did not, to my knowledge, have the food court as the 1993 Houston store did.

Nearby is the 3505 Longmire building.

Suite A - This has been DoubleDave's PizzaWorks for years, pretty sure it was an original tenant (so no "suite B"). Originally, there used to be a big glass window where you could see pizza being prepared (with a step for the shorter people in attendance). At some point, it was re-arranged to have that be an open window and the area blocked by the buffet table.

Suite C - Formerly home to FabricCare Cleaners, which moved to a new strip center off Highway 6 (in Tower Point) around 2016-2017 (roughly around that time). In 2020, AnyLabTestNow took up the space.

Suite D - Currently home to a Jimmy John's, which opened around December 2013, after two other locations in town opened (the University Drive East location and the Texas Avenue/Holleman location). It used to be Blue Kangaroo Children's Boutique, which opened in 2004. It may have been something else before that.

Despite parking under trees being a danger, this shopping center is always crowded.
Suite E - Was the home of W.E. Gibson Insurance (possibly original), then became the home of Athena Learning Centers in 2013 but closed five years later (likely due to lease issues). It has since been absorbed into Spec's.

Suite F - The former location of Maggie Moo's. I don't know when it closed, probably late 2000s (Googling shows it was definitely open in 2006) then absorbed into Spec's. The franchisee later took to Southwest Crossing as "Harold's Hot Dogs & Ice Cream" until it eventually folded.

Suite G - Spec's Liquor is here, it used to be a modern location of JJ's Liquor. After Spec's bought the JJ's Liquor mini-chain, it renamed and expanded into the former Maggie Moo's space.

Moving clockwise, there's a CVS/pharmacy at 1800 Rock Prairie, which I didn't photograph but it (like almost every CVS in Texas prior to 2005) was an Eckerd originally. I didn't take a picture of it, but the Google Street View people did. A bank building, located at the corner of Longmire and Highway 6, isn't part of the shopping center.

You can see where it was repainted, as the pre-2009 Jack in the Box logo was tilted at an angle.

The next plot is a vacant space, an empty Jack in the Box. I think it was built a bit after the Kroger store, so maybe 2000 or 2001. It first temporarily closed in summer 2017 due to ownership transition (to corporate from franchisee, along with the other stores in the area). It briefly reopened around the fall of that year, but sadly, the reopening was short-lived and it closed soon after (probably a month or two). As the blacked-out Jack in the Box logo on the signage still shown through on the main shopping center (still never updated to the 2009 logo), it made me sad that I couldn't head down there after dark from my then-home at Longmire (I lived briefly at Longmire and Deacon) to pick up food, and only reminded of Jack in the Box's fairly wide and diverse menu from commercials nearly four decades old. It was one of my go-to places in spring 2017 when I didn't live at Longmire (but lived in the general area), going there for the late-night "Munchie Meals" after my shift ended at a call center near Highway 40, which is where I worked at the time. One of the drive-through windows looked bashed up; clearly someone had tried to force it open as part of a robbery attempt. I also think the access problems had something to do with it...

There's another building (3515) with the UPS Store (suite B) and then T. Jin China Diner (sit-down Chinese restaurant) and the UPS Store (in suite B), don't know when either opened, then another strip to the immediate left of Kroger (3525).

Suite A - Cotton Patch Cafe has been here since the early 2000s, and I ate here once or twice. Haven't been back in a number of years.

Suite D - Because Cotton Patch takes up so much space, there's not an A through C, and suite D is occupied by Freebirds World Burrito (always a good lunch option).

Suite F - Kolache Rolf's (a good breakfast option; suite E is skipped due to Freebirds' larger footprint).

Suite G - Facelogic BCS (some sort of "day spa", website)

Suite H - Angel Nails

Suite I - Balboa's Barber Studio currently, former home of Classic Cuts Plus

Suite J - Used to be GNC, now "American Shaman", selling CBD oil products. Pretty sure the former (original?) tenant GNC was shut down in the round of closings in 2019.

Suite K - Eye Trends as of this writing, though a sign at the corner of Longmire and Graham promises a new location.

Suite L - Witt's End, local woman's clothing shop

Suite N - Hallmark store (no suite M).

Wrapping up on this shopping center, what was mildly interesting is the fact that the center's first few years had NOTHING across the highway, with only a "two way dead end" sign at Rock Prairie's other side. There's also a large right of way between the highway frontage road and the frontage road; this was created when the frontage road was rebuilt around 2008.

UPDATE 04-24-2021: Minor rewrite for better flow. AnyLabTestNow opened.
UPDATE 12-02-2024: Should be mentioned the Jack in the Box was reopened as Bank of America in 2021.

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.
UPDATE 10-31-2024: Subway closed briefly for a renovation in August 2024. By this time, the entrances have been reconfigured. Only one driveway goes to Holleman now (right in/right out) while a new right-turn only comes in from 2818.

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.

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.

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...

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".