Showing posts with label Burger King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burger King. Show all posts

Saturday, October 11, 2014

The Diamond Shamrock at the End of Texas Avenue

Burger King was the only occupant of the former Diamond Shamrock site for years. (Photo by author, ~2014)

This post is just on a Burger King (3129 Texas Avenue S). Before I get into that, let me tell you this. I would be lying to you if I said that nostalgia was not one of the driving forces behind this site. After all, I grew up here, and in these posts, published in the last few years and updated since then (such as this post, which received a rewrite nearly a year after its creation) detail most everything I remembered or should've remembered. I've already told about the shops and restaurants here, many of which I grew up, and in versions past of this site, even included things like my old schools, or Adamson Lagoon, and probably if I had more time and research, the doctors and dentists as well (the old pediatric dentist office is gone, with the old Scott & White building at 1600 University Drive East to come soon after).

This part of Texas Avenue, originally explored in a full post with all the descriptions of the stores nearby, including the pool store and the curiously unnoticed empty spot was really special to me in years past. You see, back in those days, the only reason why we would go this way is to go somewhere cool, like my uncle's house in Baton Rouge or perhaps Houston. Even in the early 2000s, there just wasn't a lot out there. Rock Prairie Road had stuff on it, of course, like the hospital, junior high school (whoops, middle school), or even the nice new Kroger that opened in 2000, but that was just about it. There wasn't even another interchange until Greens Prairie Road, and that just had the water tower and an Exxon/McDonald's combo.

Since the Highway 6 bypass was built in the 1970s, prior to around 2006, there was an intersection here with the southbound one-way traffic from the bypass intersecting with Deacon. To the south was Texas Avenue turning into an entrance for Highway 6 south with the northbound lane going from Highway 6. To the south at Deacon was a two-way frontage road that paralleled Texas Avenue up to Wal-Mart and became the southbound Highway 6 frontage road for the section south of Texas Avenue. Yes, for a time, you could drive straight from Nantucket Drive to the Wal-Mart parking lot and back without making a single turn or getting on the highway.

Around 2006, that all changed, and the set-up was altered. The road that paralleled Texas Avenue was cut off at an apartment complex, and the two lanes from Texas Avenue went to the frontage road south (now all one-way) or the highway. The post here also features another change to the intersection: for years there was a Diamond Shamrock (listed as "Big Diamond No. 1" in some materials) that based on listings and aerials, opened between 1984 and 1989. It even featured a car wash station in the back. I'm not sure when it closed (2005?) but it was torn down by December 2006.

Opening in 2007 (late 2007, since the Villa Maria/29th location opened first), this Burger King opened to replace the one at Culpepper Plaza, which was torn down and replaced with a Chick-fil-A. Many years later, a restaurant was built next to the Burger King (in previously unused space), Boomtown BBQ Company out of Beaumont, located at 3125 Texas Avenue South. This restaurant opened in August 2020.

UPDATE 10-02-2020: Updated the post for the first time since August 2015 when the rest of the "end of Texas Avenue" material was largely stripped out, including more information on Diamond Shamrock and the new Boomtown BBQ, making the post the first to use the [2020s] tag.
UPDATE 10-27-2020: Date added for Boomtown BBQ.
UPDATE 07-06-2021: New name as part of eventual page re-do. Added [College Station] to post.
UPDATE 03-12-2022: Boomtown BBQ Company closed in February 2022.
UPDATE 06-08-2023: Another restaurant has come and gone. So-Fly Chicken Sandwiches (part of the Eccell/Burger Mojo group) operated from July 2022 to mid-March 2023. Allegedly, this was because the owners reportedly had a good offer on the building, but nothing has replaced So-Fly following the sale.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Culpepper Plaza / Central Station

Signage and Chick-fil-A, May 2019

This post is a "mega-post" of sorts on Culpepper Plaza (later Central Station) which was opened in March 1976 with a Safeway and a full collection of other retail stores. In late 2006, the redevelopment began on the strip, which was looking pretty shabby (Weiner's, Eckerd, AppleTree, and other major stores had all left), and by 2007, parts of the strip were torn down, and assumed its current name at this time.

Burger King (one of the wood-trimmed-interior ones built in the early 1980s, 1719 Texas Avenue) would move out and be replaced by a new Chick-fil-A, the second Chick-fil-A in College Station (that is, if you didn't count the four CFAs at the time on campus--Ag Café, MSC, Underground, Commons--though they were all "Express" locations) and the first that wasn't part of a larger structure (Post Oak Mall, specifically), and also the second stand-alone CFA in the county. Specifically, Burger King would move and replace an old Diamond Shamrock (the classic old green-and-white design, with the helvetica lettering) at Deacon. To this day, that Burger King continues to be the only Burger King in town, while McDonald's has the area well saturated. The strip center was renamed "Central Station", though people rarely call it that (in favor of its original name or "Kohl's shopping center", which is increasingly becoming more common as Culpepper fades into memory).

I also remember a weird hobby shop that hadn't been remodeled since the 1970s that I remember from the very early 1990s. For some reason I remember a bronze interior and it being fairly dark, too? (It was one of my earlier memories of the plaza...)

My original source, beyond some random forum postings, was an old Sanborn Fire Insurance map from the 1980s and some poor VHS screencaps (not just taken from a VHS tape, but photographed near the TV--admittedly it's better than nothing--thanks je):

In late 2006, the redevelopment began on the strip, which was looking pretty shabby (Weiner's, Eckerd, AppleTree, and other major stores had all left), and by 2007, parts of the strip were torn down. Burger King would move out and be replaced by a new Chick-fil-A, the second Chick-fil-A in College Station (that is, if you didn't count the four CFAs at the time on campus--Ag Café, MSC, Underground, Commons--though they were all "Express" locations) and the first that wasn't part of a larger structure (Post Oak Mall, specifically), and also the second stand-alone CFA in the county. Specifically, Burger King would move and replace an old Diamond Shamrock (the classic old green-and-white design, with the helvetica lettering) at Deacon. To this day, that Burger King continues to be the only Burger King in town, while McDonald's has the area well saturated. The strip center was renamed "Central Station", though people rarely call it that.



We have an ad here for Culpepper Plaza. It lists Quick as a Flash, which is strange since not even the parking lot is connected. It shows some things I didn't know existed, including a popcorn shop (in the 1990s, there was a bagel shop), Starships & Dragons (comics and collectibles?), Games Galore (arcade on what is now the Los Cucos side, but I can't place it). and Singer Sewing Center. This must be (in 1988) just prior to Safeway selling out to AppleTree.


There's a better list below that I've created from directory listings and others, but it's far from complete--lots of stores and restaurants aren't even on here.

1505A - As far as back as at least the 1990s, this was the local Bennigan's restaurant. I never ate at Bennigan's, but it had an old mural (of the logo, nothing special) facing Texas Avenue. It survived the Central Station remodeling, but it closed in July 2008 when the parent company imploded. Later, it became an AT&T store, which it is today. This was one of the stores on the "smaller strip" and facing Texas Avenue.

1505B - The location of "He's Cafe" today, this has been serving Asian cuisine for years. From the early to mid 2000s to sometime in early 2016, this was Ping's Buffet. In 1996, this was "China Wok Restaurant". In 1989, In 1989, this was "Singapore" or "Steamboat Singapore", which helps dat a map I found referring to a "STMBT SPR.". (H/T to Andrew Y.)

I've always wondered if the two restaurants were one tenant at one time.

1507 - Swensen's use to be here. One of my fondest memories is the inverted ice cream cone resembling a clown face. It lasted until around 2004. It was here when my parents discovered I could read signage at a young age. It was one of the earliest stores, existing as early as 1979 (it gets coverage in the 1979 TAMU yearbook, a two-page spread!). Eventually, it was filled by Firehouse Subs.

1509 - From summer 2009 to late summer 2014, this was the location of Spoons Yogurt (the FIRST Spoons in the chain). It looks like it was part of Swensen's originally (the space, that is). Supposedly, the reason it closed was a failure to renew the lease. That said, Spoons Yogurt's plans for expansion in later years never really took off--under the name "3 Spoons Yogurt", locations opened as far away as Clemson, SC, Lawrence, KS, and Knoxville, TN, but they all failed. Only the locations built in Texas (Huntsville, Waco) did well and remained open. After Spoons Yogurt closed, it was reopened as Galaxy Ice Cream & Bubble Tea (or Galaxy Tea House). Surprisingly, within a year, Galaxy was "sucked into a black hole" and Spoons Yogurt reopened in the space by late September 2015...and from the pictures I've seen of them on their Facebook page, it looks almost identical to how I remember it.

1511 - Current location of the UPS Store. I don't know what used to be here. In 1980 this was "Mother Nature Home of Nutrition"

1513 - It's likely the address was originally on the smaller strip, which some sources indicate as an address for Dollar Tree. Was it originally here before it moved into the larger strip?

1515 - In 1980 this was Godfather's Pizza. It was gone from here by 1989. I can't find any data on it in neither the '96 directory, the 1980s map, nor present-day searching...I believe it was absorbed into 1517.

1517 - This was "Luvz Jewelers" back in the mid-1990s (as for 1515, I can't find ). Luvz wasn't short-lived, it was around in 1988, as seen in the ad in this post. Muldoon's Coffee House opened in 2009 and closed at the start of the fall 2014 semester, the exact same timeframe as the also-missed Spoons. After Muldoon's closed, it became "Eyemart".

1519 - Supercuts. Has been here since at least '96 (if not longer).

1521 - When I was a kid, this was Pancho's Mexican Buffet (opened early 1992). Featuring a little guy in a sombrero, Pancho's was a Mexican buffet restaurant. While I can't say too much about the food, it was a wide open area, with a collection of large, creepy "sun masks" hanging above the food. They were traditional Mexican art, but none of them had painted eyes (just holes) and all of them were staring at the customers. As a little kid, these things freaked me out. My sister also had a traumatic birthday here when she was young (with the "singing waitstaff surprise": you should never let a restaurant know it's your birthday, for children or adults). Needless to say, with both her and me traumatized by separate incidents, we never went here again, and it finally went out by the early 2000s or late 1990s. Around 2002, it was replaced with Los Cucos, a much classier Mexican restaurant. In the mid-to-late 2000s, Los Cucos ended up becoming notorious with a string of issues related to the Health Department, but Los Cucos has stayed out of the spotlight since. Los Cucos In the 1980s, the space had been carved between two tenants. One of them was Cow Hop Junction, a spin-off of the Northgate establishment. Not sure what the other one was, but the 1980 directory lists "Little Mexico" for this tenant.


1601 - At the very end of Culpepper Plaza, this space has traditionally housed a large restaurant.

It was home to Rosewood Junction in 1980, this was Mama's Pizza in 1989 (relocated from what is now Torchy's). By the late 1990s, this was Bullwinkle's. Bullwinkle's Grill & Bar was located at the very end of Culpepper Plaza, closest to Dominik Road. It's still talked about on TexAgs sometimes.
Later home to Margarita Rocks (a seafood restaurant, in fact), which closed August 2009 (according to Yelp), it was replaced by Katsuya, a Japanese restaurant opened in late 2010 or early 2011 at the end of the strip (lots of vacancies). It had a short life: it got good reviews, but it had a kitchen fire soon after and did not reopen. The sign was soon taken down after about a year.

TITLE Boxing Club, the first non-restaurant in the space, operated from late 2014 to early 2020 (or very late 2019).

1607 - 1980 directory lists this as "That Place II". I think it was some sort of hair salon. Today it is a salon as well...Apex Salon and Cuttery.

1611 - H&R Block was here in the mid-1990s and still here (there's mostly vacancies in this stretch, have been here for years). Interestingly, 1609 is also listed for H&R Block, so I really don't know which they do inhabit. Serendipity Shop was here in 1980.

1613 - From early 2012 to early 2015 this was Grateful Dog Self-Serve Dog Wash. Despite constantly advertising on TexAgs, I was not sold on the idea of a dog wash place--with all the effort it takes to load a filthy dog into your car and pay someone for use with presumably hoses and soap, why not just use your hose at home? The place officially closed because the owners were moving back to Dallas (if I read correctly) but I may have a theory on the REAL reason it closed...it just wasn't enough to make ends meet. Two years later the space was reopened as Sweet Horse Bubble Tea, a "dessert café" with rolled ice cream and bubble tea. Historically, this was once part of (store space-wise) Lewis Shoe Store back in the 1980s (even in 1980). I don't have information on what it was prior to that, I know that it was one of the many vacant stores on that end of the shopping center.

Sweet Horse closed sometime around 2020, not too long after a second location in H-E-B Jones Crossing closed (probably a reason for the parent company's demise—the H-E-B location did a terrible business).
1617 - In the mid-1990s, home to U.S. Black Belt Academy. No info found on the current tenant today.

1619 - Current home to Honolulu Poke House. Prior to this it was Coach's Liquor. A comment below mentions that this used to be at Highland and Jersey (later George Bush), which I do remember it being there. I always wondered why there was a liquor store when Spec's was down the way, but I think it had moved after the building at Highland and George Bush was redeveloped for Aggieland Outfitters but before Culpepper Plaza got redeveloped. This was Lippman Music prior to 1994 and in 1980 was "Animal World Too" (spin-off of a long-standing Manor East Mall store, which eventually held out onto the very end). Yelp! mentions that the store closed in December 2014 rather abruptly for reasons unknown, and despite the dubiousness of that particular user, the closure is corroborated by the 2015 Google Street View, which shows the note (illegible) and decaying interior (signs fallen down, no open sign, etc.) In October 2017 it reopened as Honolulu Poke House.

1621 - In 1980, this had been listed as "The Seat Cover". Might have been upholstery to cover chairs but I think mostly of toilet seats. Now a State Farm agent (Scot Semple)

1623 - Douglas Jewelry in 1980 and "Triple Crown Sports" in 1996. This was vacant for a while in the revived Central Station but it later became Breezesmokes (styled as breezEsmokes, but whatever), which opened early 2014 or late 2013 (to my knowledge). As of January 2016, it's now Signature Eyebrow Threading (apparently store #4) with no sign of Breezesmokes in that space. It seems like they retreated back to their Waco location (home base).

1625 - American Passenger Travel Agency in 1980 and Linder's High Tech Health in 1996.

1627 - Sandy's Shoes in 1980. An anonymous comment submitted in November 2014 says that her parents (store named after mother) opened the store in 1977.

1629 - Aggieland T Shirts in 1980. Seems to be unrelated to current Aggieland Outfitters.

1631 - Originally Hastings (at least back to 1980), which moved circa '98 to the corner of Holleman and Texas Avenue (where it died in 2015). Much of the space it was in is now occupied by P.O.E.T.S. Billiards.

1635 - "No Return" in 1980, which is not the name of a store, but it implies that there was something there once.

1637 - Modern day spot of P.O.E.T.S. Billiards, a pool hall. This survived the renovation. I think it came in around the late 1990s, because my 1993 directory does not list it.

1641 - Wyatt's Sporting Goods in 1980 and "Rick's Sporting Goods" in 1996. Today, the space is still intact, but vacant. It's possible that this was larger in 1996 and not a small storefront like today.

1643 - Painting with a Twist is here today, a "paint-n-sip" studio. In 1980 it was Brazos Valley World of Books Shoppe.

1659 - This was Anna's Linens from the time of the Central Station redevelopment. It takes up half of the old Weiner's. In June 2015, Anna's Linens went the way of Weiner's and closed. It is now Wally's Party Factory as of summer 2016. Within about a year, that became Party City (for reasons I'm not entirely sure of).

1661 - Weiner's from at least 1980 to at least 1996. It was a clothing store. The address and half of the space is taken by Dollar Tree today.

1663 - "Kids Mart" in '96. Modern day location of Cato Fashions.

1665 - Starship Hallmark Shop (a Hallmark store, no relation to Starships & Dragons, it seems) in 1996.

1667 - My 1996 directory scan lists University Book Store Inc., Sew Vac City, and Douglas Jewelers all in one place. Strange considering that the Sanborn Fire Insurance map and the modern day location of Brazos Running Co. (well, until it moved to 1717) shows it isn't very large at all (indicating that it was probably an error). It's now Grand Nail Spa.

It used to be Shala's, which closed in 1985. Click for a larger picture, it is pretty small.
This is one of those 1980s clothing stores that went out of business in October 1985. I'm guessing that it died early from the oil bust fallout.


The 1980 directory further complicates this by listing Starship Hallmark as 1667 and "A A A House of Curtis Mathes" as 1667b.



1669 - Radio Shack in 1980. Later moved.

1671 - Cato Fashions in 1996, which is still around in a different place. The image above is from a picture pre-redevelopment. In the early 1990s (it closed by '96), it was Colberts. As you can see by the image below, Colberts had some rather outlandish women's clothing. This space was razed for Kohl's. In 1980 it was "Rush R & Co"
...that's for a costume party, right? Right? (1992 ad)


1673 - Radio Shack was here. It closed shortly before the space was torn down for Kohl's. I remember driving here circa 2006 to look for something related to a school project only to find nothing. We ended up going to the mall, which until around the time when ol' RadioShack went bankrupt had one (there's still one in Bryan). In 1980 this was Roseanne's.

1701 - Address of modern day Kohl's.

1703 - One of the shops torn down in the redevelopment, this was The Curiosity Shop in 1980, Career Apparel in 1996 (listed as 1702, that can't be right), and by 1998 Bruegger's Bagels. By 2002, it was operating as "The Bagel Station" (source: August 2002 Restaurant Report). When it closed within a few years, we didn't have a bagel shop anymore. We still really don't.

1705 - "Floppy Joe's Software Store" in 1996, opened sometime in the late 1980s (open by 1989). According to comments received (edited for clarity), "Floppy Joe's was a place that rented out mostly PC games and later some console games. You left with your rentals in a gallon size Ziploc baggie full of 3.5's. I frequented that place quite a bit, a husband and wife ran it, he was going to A&M and I believe went on to work for Dell, really cool people, but a younger guy bought the store (I think he mentioned his grandparents fronting the money), could have been a sign of the times but it did not last after that.

In 1980, this was Top Drawer Pant Company.

As an aside on Floppy Joe's, I have to wonder how that even worked, as PC games in that time had notorious copy-protection schemes that often involved looking something up in the manual or on a piece of paper, so I'm wondering if they rented out the cracked copies, which in turn could be re-copied on another floppy disk.

1707 - "Right Price" in 1996 and "Regan's Dept. Store" in 1980. Demo'd for Kohl's.

1709 - Eckerd Drugs was an original tenant, lasting from 1976 to at least 1996. Demo'd as well, but it had moved out for some time prior to that. While I'm not sure if Safeway (later AppleTree) had its own pharmacy (it certainly had the space for it), Eckerd was often co-located with the Houston division Safeway stores, sometimes next door. I'm pretty sure that Eckerd did move to 2411 Texas Avenue in 1999, which makes sense chronologically (especially if it recycled its store number, which on the newer store was #382).

1711 - Payless ShoeSource, but died when it was evicted for Kohl's. See the image above (where Cato Fashions was discussed). In 1980, this was the home of Carnaby Square, a women's clothing shop.

1713 - This space has flip-flopped between restaurant use and non-restaurant use. In 1980 it was Trudi's Restaurant (as per the directory) and the spot of Clothestime (in 1996), though this was a CiCi's Pizza in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Post-redevelopment, it was HobbyTown USA (relocated from the Best Buy/Barnes & Noble shopping center) until it closed in January 2016. In June 2016, Nothing Bundt Cakes replaced it.

1717 - FX Video Game Exchange moved here shortly after the center was rebuilt (guessing 2007?) but closed in December 2017. I did buy a few video games here used, but many of the merchandise was in poor shape (particularly strategy guides) and overpriced, and the trade-in values were absurd. After FX closed, Brazos Running Company relocated here.

1719 - Burger King (one of the wood-trimmed-interior ones built in the early 1980s) was here for a number of years and would be the only Burger King in town despite the rapid of expansion of McDonald's stores in the area. As part of the renovation around 2007, Burger King moved out and was replaced by a new Chick-fil-A, the second Chick-fil-A in College Station (that is, if you didn't count the four CFAs at the time on campus--Ag Café, MSC, Underground, Commons--though they were all "Express" locations) and the first that wasn't part of a larger structure (Post Oak Mall, specifically), and also the second stand-alone CFA in the county. Specifically, Burger King would move and replace an old Diamond Shamrock (the classic old green-and-white design, with the Helvetica lettering) at Deacon (more on that here). In 2017, the Chick-fil-A completed a re-do of the exterior that added a second drive through that eliminated a number of parking spaces (you can't park in front of the store anymore).

1723 - "Shoe World" in 1996, now Sally Beauty Supply.

1725 - Originally also encompassing the modern 1729, this opened as the city's third Safeway supermarket in 1976 and becoming AppleTree in 1989 when Safeway spun off the Houston division. It was my parent's supermarket when they moved into town, but I don't have anything but the vaguest recollections. The AppleTree survived for far longer than the rest of the Houston-based chain of almost 100 stores, as it was one of only six that survived after the company sold off most of its stores in 1993, and it only closed in November 2002 following the opening of the H-E-B down the street, especially since H-E-B trumped it in every category: it was newer, cheaper, larger, nicer, more upscale, et cetera and it was the third to last to close. After it closed, it remained vacant, was extensively renovated on the same footprint when the center was redeveloped (it likely reuses the foundation), and even then the address wasn't re-used until 2012 when OfficeMax moved into the side that Spec's didn't use. To note, this was one of the largest Safeway stores in Texas when it opened. The OfficeMax, store #6501 closed around December 2017, presumably so the company could consolidate with the Office Depot down the street. As of this writing (May 2019) the space is becoming HomeGoods (owned by the TJX Companies).

1727 - Napa Flats Wood-Fired Kitchen. This used to be Souper Salad for the longest time. This isn't part of the main strip, this is directly behind the Exxon. Before that, it was 3-C Barbecue.

1729 - Spec's Wine, Spirits, and Finer Foods takes up of the old AppleTree and is a newly badged address. This opened in about 2007.

UPDATE 03-15-2021: Most of the previous updates have been lost but 1613, 1667, and 1717 were updated. A full audit of the center needs to be done again.

Friday, January 20, 2012

The Burger King Near Blinn

From August 2019 with the gas station recently de-Rattled. Picture by author.

When I first made this post back in January 2012, it was titled "The Terrible Food at Blinn", which was a rant on how awful the food was at Blinn compared to my new digs at A&M (which only lasted one semester before food was outsourced to Compass/Chartwells). I have no idea what Blinn's current digs are like but was astounded at what awful quality it was: there were very few places to eat on campus at all. There were vending machines (overpriced more than usual), the college bookstore with a small selection of convenience store items (Pop-Tarts were the usual item of choice here, despite an obvious push to stock more "healthy" items), and the student center having two "food court" type establishments, both of which were absolutely terrible, "Clux Delux" and "Block & Barrel". Clux Delux, according to what the packaging stating was supposed to be a bit like a poor man's Chick-fil-A, but it was just cafeteria food sitting under heat lamps, with cartoonishly bad everything. Unidentifiable gloop, an item on the menu literally listed as "chicken chunks"...Clux Delux had it all. Block & Barrel was just pre-packaged items including soggy, plastic-wrapped sandwiches (when were they made? who knows!)

This was depressing to me, as way back when Blinn was opening the Student Center building in the early 2000s, it had real fast food, one of which was a Taco Bell (I suspect the other was a Yum! Brands restaurant). Indeed, underneath the cheap banners of CD and B&B, you could see holes drilled in where the restaurant signs once were...and you know you're in for a real disappointment when Taco Bell is considered high cuisine to whatever they served.

Naturally, no one but the desperate wanted to eat the overpriced slop at the student center, so the nearest go-to place was a Burger King at the corner of 29th and Villa Maria, and due to schedules, was still too long to be walked to and from. Opened in 2007 along with an adjacent Rattlers', the first new Burger King in town in over two decades (certainly slow compared to the growth of the city's McDonald's restaurants). My memories of it were thinking it was grimier than the typical Burger King, and also around 2011 or 2012 when they switched to having monitors for the menu instead of just the normal menu system that slid to show breakfast and lunch items at different times.

The Rattlers', of course, is still branded as such, despite the takeover of the chain by Stripes. The chain's Shell stations have all been converted to Sunoco stations, but the Exxon-branded Rattlers' remain, for some reason. Or at least they would, except this is no longer a Rattlers', and instead a generic Exxon convenience store as of August 2019. (It also throws the other Exxon Rattlers', like the store on Boonville and Highway 6, or the one in Navasota, into doubt). This seems to have happened very recently, it's even still on the Stripes store locator page (#5258) as of this writing but lacks even the Stripes drink cups. The convenience store is at 2411 East 29th Street whereas Burger King is at 2401.

As an update to the above written, as of March 2020, the name of the convenience store is now called "Rustlers Den", a similar name to the Rattlers except with red lettering.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Chicken Express, Downtown Bryan

The Chicken Express here didn't look much different from the Burger King it replaced (you can see that picture on Yelp). This picture is from August 2019 by the author.

The Chicken Express at the corner of South Texas Avenue and East 29th Street is rather pedestrian, and probably would not have been covered had it not had a previous tenant that had fond memories for me. As a kid living and growing up in College Station (this was originally named "College Station Roads & Retail", after all), going to downtown Bryan was a fairly rare occurrence. Of these trips, most of them were to the downtown Greyhound bus station where relatives would often come down by bus (Waco or Houston), including cousins and my grandfather. This is why Chicken Express is covered, is because of that bus station (located at 405 East 29th Street).

Granted, it was dirty and run-down especially by the late 1990s and early 2000s, and I've been told the building started out as a UtoteM (and that may have had Amoco gas, from what I've heard) and became a bus station by 1980. I don't think it was remodeled much at all between tenants, and it had a drop ceiling, florescent lighting, really worn tiles, possibly dated from 1960s to 1970s, some rather drab and cheap-looking chairs, and the like. There were a few vending machines, including some candy dispensers and (if I remember right) even a coffee vending machine. While it was a miserable place that seemed to be falling apart, it had charm (though I'm sure I'm the only one that thinks that) as a wonderfully grungy place that was a gritty time capsule of the 1980s.

After it was torn down in the late 2000s, the replacement of the store was a Burger King with the address of 401 South Texas Avenue (ironically, despite the new Texas Avenue address, the site was rebuilt to not allow access to Texas Avenue), part of a proposed bunch of new stores as part of a new franchisee. The new Burger King opened around April 2009 and closed in January 2011 (but not reopening). Reason was probably because B-CS just isn't a Burger King town (the one at Texas and Deacon seems to get pretty low volume). It reopened as a Chicken Express some months later (2012 I believe) which did little to the restaurant except give it red trim instead of blue (and serve an entirely different menu under new ownership and a new name, of course).

The redevelopment into Chicken Express also demolished a building (built as a house, though it likely was no longer serving as residential by the time it was torn down) at the corner of 29th and South Houston Avenue. This may be researched in a further update.

Updated in July 2020 to further expunge the original "downtown Bryan memory" format