Former Kona Ranch Steakhouse

October 2019 picture by author.
The current occupant of 520 Harvey Road is Ozona Grill & Bar, a branch location of a single Dallas-area location, that based on reviews, appears to be nothing to write home about. It opened in early 2003 (February/March) according to what I could dig up online on the Eagle archives (it doesn't seem to want to cooperate with archiving links), but what's a bit more interesting is what it originally started out, Kona Ranch Steakhouse, built around 1999/2000, much like the Sonic next door. Not to be confused with Kona Grill, which is alive and well as of this writing.

Kona Ranch has somewhat of a murky history, originating out of Brinker International, spun off as Kona Restaurant Group, then getting bought as part of Fired Up, Inc., which also purchased Johnny Carino's off of Brinker.

The best description I could find of Kona Ranch was it was somewhat of a theme restaurant (like many chains), "[emphasizing] a Hawaiian cattle ranch theme with grilled and smoked meats, and specialties such as coconut shrimp tempura". Digging up some more information mentions a San Antonio location, but I doubt that it expanded much beyond the Texas area (except for Oklahoma). I can't even find anything where they opened a Houston location (it's technically possible, but I could find nothing) and from what I could tell by 2006 the restaurant had totally disappeared so Fired Up could focus on Johnny Carino's, later named Carino's Italian Grill (but I think the name reverted back).

This one was in Oklahoma City (from Loopnet).
The Kona Ranch location in Oklahoma City that was open even as far back as 1996 and was probably the first one ever opened, at least the only Kona Ranch when Fired Up acquired it. You can also see what the Oklahoma City store looked like courtesy of Loopnet, in pictures here and here. The Oklahoma City store is even listed on Zomato, giving us a look at the menu of the defunct restaurant.

Johnny Carino's next to Ozona continues to operate as usual, but it might not be for long. The restaurant chain has been in a spot of trouble lately...similar to the situation of Fazoli's, it's down to 16 restaurants in Texas as of this writing.

It was also tough digging up a "normal" logo of the dead chain, with only this ad from the Houston Chronicle as part of a group taking the restaurants to Kuwait. Chili's and Carino's continue to operate, but Kona Ranch does not (if it ever did).

The College Station Kona Ranch closed in December 2002.

UPDATE 04-06-2021: New research has given us more info on Kona Ranch. It opened the College Station location in or around June 1999 (not 2000, and thus, the [2000s] label is now [1990s]) and was one of three locations in Texas. Texarkana had theirs open in spring 1998 but closed in summer 1999, around the time the College Station location opened. That location, at 5118 Summerhill Road, was later Shogun Steakhouse & Sushi, and is "The One Buffet" today. A Round Rock location opened at 2850 North Interstate 35 in summer 1998 and closed in December 2002 as well.

The Round Rock location has been through several restaurants, currently Salt Traders Coastal Cooking (since 2016), and previously Mesa Rosa (the previous decade).

The closure of the Round Rock and College Station locations represented an exit of the chain from Texas.
UPDATE 06-16-2023: KBTX has reported Ozona Grill & Bar has closed permanently (new tags added).

Church's Chicken, College Station

The text is old but the picture is from August 2019.
Originally discussed in one of my oldest posts, this Church's Chicken at 2800 Texas Avenue South opened circa 2005, replacing a Wienerschnitzel, which opened in the early 1990s (1993 according to Brazos CAD). The buildings were almost identical, except Wienerschnitzel had red trim instead of blue (also, don't have a picture). I don't know when Wienerschnitzel closed: I want to say 2002. In any case, the older Bryan location still is open.

UPDATE 10-29-21: In or around October 2021, Church's Chicken at College Station has closed (a [defunct] label has been added to the post). Also, Church's opened in 2003, not 2005. This mistake stemmed from the fact that it opened around the same time the latest "Harry Potter" book was released (and thus, I was in the car when my sister went in to buy a copy), but it was the fifth book and not the sixth.

Pizza Hut, University Drive East

In 2014, the sun was starting to set on this Pizza Hut, figuratively and literally. (Picture by author)
With the recent news that Yum! Brands is closing some 500 sit-down Pizza Hut locations, that is, the ones that haven't already been closed down, it's high time for a look back at the sit-down Pizza Hut that College Station once had at 102 University Drive East (there was another short-lived Pizza Hut on University Drive proper in Northgate, and I promise I'll cover it soon enough). From newspaper archives and other sources, the Pizza Hut opened in 1974 but closed around July/August 2017. It did retain its iconic 1980s logo for a while after Pizza Hut started rolling it in more stores (probably as late as 2007), and today is home to additional parking for Fuego Tortilla Grill. The roof was redone in brown around this time.

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).

Alfred T. Hornback's

Picture from author, May 2014
For many years (at least since the early 1990s), Alfred T. Hornback's was located in Eastgate at 120 Walton Drive and featured a large floor with pool tables and country music. Eastgate was not a huge draw like Northgate was and it closed permanently in summer 2011 though remained open for special events a few years following. It's currently occupied by DC, Inc., after DC (Dixie Chicken, not DC Comics) moved out of the building that later contained Blackwater Draw Brewing Company. There's also a small professional office (122 Walton) that has dental offices (Dr. Dwight Hirsch and Dr. Monica Brown as of this writing). The building was built in 1967 as the Eastgate location of Ralph's Pizza, which it would be until 1973. In 1980, it was the home of Texas Moon Tavern, which featured steak, burgers, and beer, and while it had a different address for some reason (124 Walton) it had the same facade. The only mention of this restaurant on the entire Internet comes from this page though there's another ad for it I found. It was also the home of an even older bar called Sparky's, which is talked about more than Texas Moon Tavern. A comment from one Jim Gates on the old Eastgate page mentioned this about Sparky's: "A bar with a blacked out room lit by - you guessed it - black lights and painted in fluorescent paint graffiti. There were also two neon snow flake looking things on a tall pole overhead that flashed back and forth."

UPDATE 09-17-2021: Added mention of Ralph's Pizza to the article. Removed old Editor's Note.

Church Street Blues and BBQ

2014 picture by author
Church Avenue, another Northgate street, was always Church Avenue. It used to be when you could refer to this as "Church Street" and no one would care, but since the 2011 annexation of Wellborn, which has an actual Church Street, it forced the Church Avenue name into more common usage. Renaming either street would meet resistance, so we'll have to live with what we got.

The building at 100 Church Avenue was built in 2010 and opened before the "Great Church Street Mix-Up" and originally opened as "Church Street Blues and BBQ", which I personally never was able to eat at since it was not open for lunch and only in the evening and night of certain days (weekends and the days leading up to it). It was one of the first places to have New Republic Brewing Company beer on tap back in 2011, but in 2014, Church Street Blues closed.

In September 2015, the site became the home of "West End Elixir Company", which catered to an older crowd, with much of the staff being veterans. It also served wood-fired pizza. It closed in 2018 within a year of a new location opened in downtown Bryan.

UPDATE 02-10-2022: Removed note about being split from this post at press time. Added additional labels to post. Removed metapost about no longer doing a three-post-a-week schedule (wow!). Finally, a restaurant called "CALZ" opened here in July 2021.
UPDATE 03-26-2022: Whoops, CALZ isn't open yet; still, the owner vows to open despite having signed a lease and remaining closed for over a year. Some updates were made to the existing post.
UPDATE 05-10-2022: CALZ finally opened in late April 2022 but shut down less than two weeks allegedly due to a legal dispute. This may be the shortest-lived restaurant in the area ever.
UPDATE 04-22-2024: The building has since been demolished for another student housing development, Nova Northgate. It also replaces the failed food truck park at 102 Church Avenue. Additionally, the KBTX link has been fixed. [Demolished] added to post...this may be the only [2010s] building that has been [demolished].

Former JJ's Liquor, Texas Avenue

In the pre-JJ's days, though all but the ball-looking thing at the top of the sign survived to the end.
Originally located at the now-defunct Texas Avenue page and later at this page, this former liquor store (1600 Texas Avenue South) has been near the corner of Harvey Road since the 1970s (original build date unknown, it was listed in the early 1970s phone books but did not exist in 1971 as per aerials), originally as Discount Liquor Store. J.J. Ruffino bought it in 1983 to complement a Bryan store, and it remained as such for decades. In late 2010, Ruffino exited the liquor store and sold the three stores to Spec's. Spec's converted the store on Rock Prairie and Longmire to their brand but kept the two stores as JJ's, eventually converting them to wholesale only. I went into the store only once in 2016, when I applied for a job in the chain, though for unknown reasons it fell through. (I can tell you that the inside of the store was dark and dingy). The location at Redmond and Texas Avenue closed in 2017 when Spec's built a new store at University and Highway 6 at the former Linens-N-Things that incorporated their wholesale operation.
Southbound on Texas Avenue, March 2014, from car.
Southbound on Texas Avenue, March 2014. Another view.

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.

A Look at Former Restaurants at 102 Church Avenue

By the time La Bodega moved in it didn't resemble a house anymore. Back before Church and Wellborn was taken over with new housing, there was a restaurant built out of a converted house not too far away from that intersection.

The structure was built in 1959 as per Brazos CAD, built as a house, the first reference coming from a 1963 obituary about one Mrs. Marguerite Mary Edmonds, age 48, and at some point in the 1970s it was abandoned.

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

In December 1979, One Potato Two Potato opened; I'm guessing it was the first "meal in a peel" style restaurant in town. In the summer 1983 it was retooled as Two Blocks North and added hamburgers to the menu. In 1983 Two Blocks North closed, and in August 1984, La Taqueria & Tortilla Factory opened. "La Taq" was arguably the most memorable of the restaurants in the space and is still talked about sometimes today. La Taqueria closed around summer 1991. According to Aggieland 1992, Rosalie's Pasta House opened September 25, 1991 in the former La Taqueria space (and had the same ownership). Around 1997 it closed.

Finally, La Bodega Baja Taco Bar opened in October 2000 (likely with a major renovation that brought it up to code), and closed in November 2014. I do have a picture of the specials as of May 2014 including the gimmick of the hotter it was outside, the cheaper drinks were.

Despite some talk of more upscale dining in the Northgate area, it and the adjacent apartment building next to it (104 Church Avenue, where Eccell Group operated out of) was torn down. What has replaced it is supposed to be a food truck park, called Wayside Food Park. It was supposed to be a permanent place for food trucks complete with electrical conduits and a covered pavilion area, but it failed hard, opening in December 2017 and closing by early 2019. In regards to that apartment building, I have terrible pictures of that, the one with my finger covering a quarter of the shot is from this May (2014) and I thought had a better picture that shows the building as a whole but I can't find it. It's not much better than what you can see from the older shots on Google Maps Street View.

UPDATE 04-26-2024: Article rewritten for better prose and better information. This article was previously amended in May 2019 to account for the coming and going of Wayside, but now it and the adjacent 100 Church Avenue have been knocked down for a new student housing complex. On April 22nd 2024, the article was been renamed to "A Look at Former Restaurants at 102 Church Avenue", with [demolished] also added.

Veronica's Country Corner

This is so obscure only the blurry 2005 Google Earth image shows it.
I lived in Houston for a little while and because I still had connections in College Station, I drove back and forth from College Station to Houston, and that included a lot of Highway 6 South between Navasota and College Station. That little section of highway used to be notoriously dangerous, as it was a four lane highway with no medians (just a double yellow stripe), and enough hills and little driveways to make it a significant hazard. But for me it was before I was driving and thus nostalgia. Usually the only time we drove on that section was to go to Baton Rouge (ultimately) though Houston too.

I do not lament the passing of the original roadway, though I still can "see" in the minds eye where the exit to FM 159 was, and that was back in 2005 (this is a reference to another one of my old blog posts, though I'm not linking to it). Now, with every thing that goes away, some fond things go away with it. I know that the post up there says "Veronica's", and I promise I'll get to that, but first, an ode to a defunct roadside park.

Despite there being a similar roadside park between Hempstead and Navasota, I do remember vaguely the roadside park in Brazos County. I don't remember much of it, it was literally a little driveway loop off of the southbound side of the road, just south of FM 159. Most of the pavement is actually still there.

Anyway, last week I went to the State Fair and I noticed south of Waxahachie a relatively recent closure of one such roadside park (new barricades, and a construction vehicle parked ominously near the southbound rest area), fresh enough that even Google Earth still had it open. The thing is, as much as there is nostalgia for these things, and I can definitely say that while they were an iconic part of traveling down highways when I was younger just like roadside hotels and restaurants, they are functionally obsolete and to an extent dangerous.

One such park closure in recent years was in Sealy, Texas, with a large road side park in the inner median of Interstate 10 (though the two "halves" did not serve as turnaround lanes). It's not just the fact that people would prefer modern travel centers, restaurants, and gas stations, it's the fact that usually they just breed trouble, with illicit activities and illegal dumping. As for the dangerous part (besides the chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time) the short ramps make acceleration and deceleration a pain, you would not want to pull out of a parking space for someone to be barreling down the strip at 45 mph or higher. That would suck.

The other thing that disappeared during construction was the only gas station between the Exxon at William D. Fitch (still the furthest south gas station on the freeway) and the gas stations at Washington Avenue. I'm not sure when it was built (after 1995) but if it was before the opening of the Exxon/McDonald's, then the "last gas in Brazos County" would be what was a Texaco at Barron and Highway 6.

Veronica's Country Corner, as health inspection records state (at 26000 State Highway 6 South), was demolished around early 2006, and I remember it being extant at least as of 2001 (I would appreciate more information...) and I want to say that the gas canopy was fairly large (the aerials make it a bit hard to tell). Sadly, because I lack photos, ads, or a lot of meaningful memories of it (I never even stopped there), I can't say much about it, and only want to bring it up to make sure it isn't forgotten. If this topic seems vaguely familiar to you, I did "sort of" cover it on the blog a long time ago, in a now-removed post that covered Millican and the southern end of Wellborn Road.

UPDATE 09-18-2021: Veronica's operated between 2001 and 2005. Today there is "Veronica's Daquiris" on the site, with the same address and ownbership. New labels added. But, there was one more gas station on Highway 6 that I somehow missed...

Former Taco Cabana

Picture from May 2019 by author.
Texas Avenue has always been full of restaurants and hotels, and occasionally both. Saber Inn was one such place at 701 Texas Avenue South, and featured a restaurant along with a small motel section (just 36 rooms) and a cloverleaf-shaped swimming pool. As not many restaurants were in town in those days, hotel restaurants were a viable choice when dining out for locals. (Nowadays, most of the hotels have restaurants near them, not in them, though there are still some notable exceptions, like the hotels at Century Square).

The motel was torn down years ago. From what I've read, it lasted from 1957 to 1982, and then became "Baker Street Restaurant & Bar" (unknown if related to the Baker Street Pubs in Houston, some of which have since closed), and that was torn down too for a Taco Cabana (unless of course, I'm wrong again and the restaurant was at the motel site), which opened sometime in 1989 (Brazos CAD says the main restaurant was built in 1988 with the patio in 1989).

Saber Inn had a restaurant as well, but the scan cut off the address.
For years I argued that the Grapevine was never in the Saber Inn (partially because for years they ran another location down the road from Saber Inn), until I did find proof of it in another phone book; seems they took over the dinner service at one time while expanding to have wine and cheese. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the date, and I still need to work on the chronology of that.

Taco Cabana would stand guard at the corner of Live Oak and Texas Avenue for over thirty years, though the logo and exterior updated as the chain changed its image, with the last incarnation being tan with pink accents, and a pink sign with white lettering. This would come to an end in January 2020 when the store and 18 other Taco Cabana restaurants closed with parent company Fiesta Restaurant Group citing underperformance (given the competition Taco Cabana faces between Mad Taco, Fuego, and Torchy's, all of which produce a superior taco at a better price point, it shouldn't be a surprise).

UPDATE 03-15-2021: In March 2021, Las Palapas (also from San Antonio, like Taco Cabana) opened. "Las Palapas Aggieland" as the sign says, has a color scheme in terms of lighting that resembles a bit of how Taco Cabana used to be. Post renamed to "Former Taco Cabana" to better reflect state of pictures.
UPDATE 07-21-2021: Removed [Defunct] as Las Palapas now operates in the spot. I should also note that it is open 24 hours (except on Mondays and Tuesdays), making it a rare 24 hour sit-down operation. Menudo is served on weekends.
UPDATE 05-26-2023: Tragically, Las Palapas ended up cutting down on hours again (10 pm weekdays, 2 am weekends) like other restaurants these days...and eventually the dreaded "closed for remodeling" suddenly cropped up. A Facebook post by the company later confirmed it. (Re-added [defunct] to the page...)

College Main Wash & Go

Be honest, have you ever seen a "Grand Opening" ad for a common laundromat? (from The Eagle)
Located just north of Northgate (and colloquially considered part of it), 4405 College Main is completely abandoned, but it wasn't always that way. The building was built in 1985 according to Brazos CAD and was divided into two suites.

4405A was primarily a laundromat. The first one, College Main Wash & Go, only lasted until 1989 but it served as a laundromat sporadically over the years, including Come 'N Wash (2004-2005) and BV Washateria (2005-2009). There might've been something in the during the 1990s but research has been inconclusive at the latest update's press time. By 2014, it was converted into the i-Stop convenience store but by 2015, i-Stop had shriveled up, leaving the center completely empty.

At 4405B, the earliest restaurant I can find is Carrie's Kitchen in 1987, immortalized in the "Camptoons map" (from Carbon-izer) While I don't have phone books for the late 1980s (except 1989) readily available, it appeared that before the more well-known Thai Taste (which occupied B for most of the 1990s), "Carrie's Kitchen" was at 4405B in 1987 (and according to taxpayer records, only lasted a very short time). Thai Taste opened in 1990 and moved out to University Square in 2002. From what I've heard, Thai Taste was well-liked in this location, the University Square location, not so much. Details on Thai Taste are still sketchy, but I seem to remember from reading on forum postings that Thai Taste closed in the mid-2000s on College Main, but the name was bought and it reopened on University Square for a few years. Vietnamese Taste began operations in 2003 (keeping the "Taste" part of the old sign). Vietnamese Taste closed in May 2012 (roughly) and reopened as "Vy's Asian Kitchen Cuisine" just off Texas Avenue a few months later. It lasted another five years in that spot before changing hands; they must have done SOMETHING right.

After that, it was registered as "Bottoms Up" (presumably a bar) but Googling it just shows it as a taxpayer entity and not anywhere as an actual business. Despite "existing" for a year, this was probably just a stillborn business. With Vietnamese Taste having left in 2012 and never reopened, and the short rise and fall of I-Stop, the whole building has been vacant and is for sale. It can be yours for about $860k.

UPDATE 08-03-2021: New name, minor rewrite, new details, removing [2000s], [services], and [northgate], adding [defunct], [service businesses], and [college main].

Former Ken Martin's Safari Grille

Apart from being in generally poor shape, notice that the STEAK HOUSE was removed first. Picture by author, 2013.

Although Ken Martin's Steakhouse didn't start here at 3231 East 29th Street (it was originally located at 1803 S. Texas Avenue, an auto dealership now) it did end here. Over the years, the Ken Martin restaurant empire included three Pepe's restaurants all in College Station-Bryan, with one at Post Oak Mall co-branded with steakhouse spinoff "Ken Martin's Chicken Fried Steak", Pepper's (a hamburger shop about where Harvey Washbangers is now), Fort Shiloh Steakhouse, and a few others. This building started out as an upscale restaurant called Pacific Coast Highway (1982-1984, though I suspect the exterior was different), with Ken Martin's Steakhouse moving in around 1985. Sometime around 2005 (correct me if I'm wrong, here), Ken Martin's rebranded to "Ken Martin's Safari Grille", which updated and expanded the menu (though, despite the new theme, did not add exotic meats to the menu).

The menu for the Safari Grill is below.

Because I scanned it from a phone book (still very much intact), some of the letters were blurred. That should be "aged to perfection and hand-cut", "garlic mashed potatoes", "texture and robust taste", prices down the line were 9.99, 12.99, 10.99, 14.99, 3.99, 1.99.

For the seafood, "served with rice pilaf", "served with our homemade", the Breaded Golden Fried Shrimp is 9.99.
For the chicken, "lightly breaded and fried", "topped with pineapple", "served with". Extra shrimp with the chicken is 3.99.

In December 2011, after about four decades of serving chicken fried steaks, Ken and his wife retired from the restaurant business and shuttered Ken Martin's forever.

UPDATE 02-28-2023 : A few things were changed since the last update in 2020, mostly streamlining and correcting dates.

Holiday Inn College Station / Four Points by Sheraton

To replace the stock picture that used to be here, here's one from 2015 taken from the Jack in the Box across the street.

The building at 1503 Texas Avenue South was originally a Holiday Inn, opened circa 1973 (it was under construction in 1972). Why Holiday Inn didn't build new on the highway, as that was their modus operandi, was because even though the bypass did exist at that point, there was nothing on there, and Texas Avenue still was where the activity was (even a decade into the "East Bypass"' existence, there were the duplexes on the frontage road in Bryan, the mall, and Plantation Oaks Apartments).

While it hosted guests for the next three decades as a Holiday Inn, the most interesting part of the story of the Holiday Inn was the restaurants. One of the things about Holiday Inn was their restaurants, good enough that it was able to function on its own as a semi-independent component and not just a liability to keep guests in the hotel. The link to Pleasant Family Shopping above talks about this in great detail, and given that the Holiday Inn restaurants (among others) attracted guests even in cities with more dining choices, I'm guessing that the idea of advertising a hotel restaurant as an independent restaurant has largely gone out of style, though the restaurants with Holiday Inn seemed unique enough into the 1990s to stand alone.

From what I could tell, the first restaurant (at least as of 1980) was the Brazos Room Restaurant & Lounge. It wasn't especially well-publicized, but the newspaper did still have advertisements of what they'd be serving that day (1983 papers seemed to mention only what they'd be serving, Mexican, etc.) That all changed in 1984, when the restaurant became Mongolian House, a Chinese buffet and Mongolian grill.

"American menu also available"

Garfield's was a higher class establishment than the more family-oriented Mongolian House. Open 6 am to 11 pm, Garfield's marketed toward more than the hotel crowd, and offered a menu that included prime rib, steaks, seafood, burgers, and sandwiches, as well as "54 beers of the world", which was rather good considering that craft beer was not the market it was today, and between Garfield's and Mongolian House, there was "Daddy O's" according to a city directory, and by the mid-1990s it was "Bronco's - The Texas Café", and in 2001, Beckendorf's. Naturally, there are going to be some I missed.

Holiday Inn's got your goat...and your fajitas, too!

A new Holiday Inn opened off the freeway around late 2005/early 2006 (which we have profiled here) and while that was in the works according to a 2005 directory...

Seems like a simple case of moving... ...the actual deal looks like the original hotel dissolved its franchise agreement before the new Holiday Inn was built. The same owners since 1994 (phone book advertising also indicate that they owned the Ramada Inn practically across the street during this time) renamed the hotel to Clarion Hotel by September 2005 (restaurant report cards from The Eagle) but by October 2005 the new Holiday Inn was still under construction (Google Earth imagery).

From a source that I forgot when I originally posted it, here's what the Four Points/Holiday Inn looked like as a Clarion .


By February 2009, Clarion had been converted to "College Station Inn" (which changed the Clarion sign at the top of the hotel), and sometime in late 2010 the hotel closed. After a major renovation inside and out that took place in 2011, Four Seasons by Sheraton opened, a mid-range brand owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, in April 2012. Four Points had a small in-house eatery, the Century Café, which was one of the first clients of New Republic Brewing Company, even before they started making cans.

In September 2020 the hotel closed during a downturn in the restaurant and hospitality industry (do I even need to explain it?) and was removed from Marriott's website (Marriott had bought Starwood during this time).

This time, there was no second chance at the hotel. After over two years of abandonment, it was announced that it was to be Melrose College Station (not to be confused with the clothing store in the mall), an assisted living facility, which opened late 2023. I'll leave you with one last look at the hotel as a Holiday Inn when it was still doing well, advertising in a local tourist guide.

Notice the text below the sign has been added in after the photo was taken. UPDATE 10-01-2020: The hotel closed around September 2020 permanently for unclear reasons, and has been removed from Marriott's website. The rest of the article is unchanged, however, and will probably update again when it inevitably reopens under a new name...or gets demolished.

UPDATE 10-12-2020: A recently uncovered picture to be used in a future version of the article shows that the "square" was on the top level was never there as a Holiday Inn, only getting branded with Clarion after the hotel swapped names. That line has been removed from the article. A full rewrite of this article will arrive when the property changes hands again.

UPDATE 10-15-2020: Clarion picture restored as part of "featured post" upgrades.

UPDATE 04-01-2023: Full rewrite done following announcement of the hotel becoming Melrose with a new picture, new mention of the Brazos Room, and a new picture.

UPDATE 12-19-2023: A few minor touch-ups including mentioning opening.

Sunset Gardens

Welcome to Sunset Gardens!

3020 South Texas Avenue

Quick, what's between Sonic and Wings N More on Texas Avenue? A bunch of things, actually, including the old location of Petal Patch, a Domino's Pizza, lawyers offices, a fitness place, a pool store, and a burned-out greenhouse/garden store that has been more or less untouched since the late 1980s.

Yes, this is Sunset Gardens. Considered an unclaimed property since 1992, Sunset Gardens was destroyed in a fire in March 1988 by reasons unknown, and supposedly, according to MyBCS, due to the fertilizer contamination, would require lots of cleanup dollars invested if that area was to be ever utilized again.

I have no idea what Sunset Gardens looked like before its devastating fire: seems that there's no readily accessible satellite imagery from those days. However, I do have this ad, which given the original October 1985 publication date, indicates it first opened in 1983. Notice the logo: you can still see in the modern pictures, three decades after it opened. I took a trip out there in spring 2012 to take pictures.

Something MAY be happening out there, I took a trip in late 2017 to see that the site had been cleared, and the sign knocked down. I tried to pull out the iron(?) "sunset" logo but it was bolted in from the other side. Additionally, the fire date is sourced from the fire department yearbook.



Same area, different view


The sign, relatively untouched, even with some of a labelscar attached, in a similar font to the "Parkway Square" font near the Kroger. Unfortunately, it's been marred by the anti-bevel crowd, which is a stupid issue I care little about.


Looking out.


A bit of foundation visible.


This structure was saved, except for the burned puncture.

UPDATE: Added opening date, and the ad based upon which this was derived.
UPDATE 6/17/18: Added fire date and site update. A duplicate picture was also removed.

Putt-Putt Golf & Games

The building today

The late 1990s were a pretty sleepy time for College Station, and that was where I spent my youth. Many of these have been covered, but for mini-golf, it was Putt-Putt Golf. Located off Valley View and Harvey Mitchell at 1705 Valley View Drive, and opening circa 1988 (after the 1987 filing), Putt-Putt (no relation to the children's adventure game by Humongous Entertainment), was always pretty small (nothing too fancy, no windmills or exciting options, mostly green carpeting, beginner and less-beginner golf courses), some large fiberglass animals thrown around (giraffe, elephant: trying to with a vaguely "safari" theme), plus an arcade with tokens and prizes (it was really small--I don't even remember it having air conditioning or not, even as of circa 1999), a batting cage, and a small area for bumper boats, the only place in town for them. I later discovered that the establishment opened as a franchised location and taken over by the main company in 1991. The blurb that I found mentioned it had been expanded slightly, though I don't know what features they actually added.

While the bumper boats and mini-golf were unique, it was no Gattiland. If you wanted to have fun as a kid in those days or wanted a cool place to have a birthday, you went to Gattiland, case closed.


The logo. It's an edited version from Putt-Putt of Rome, Georgia, which did not update their logo, enabling me edit it for the purposes of this article.



Probably because of that fact (and everyone knew it), Putt-Putt just got sadder and more run-down over the years. The bumper boats went first, closing in the early 2000s (not that it was very big, I think it could only fit four), then the Putt-Putt name ("Brazos Valley Golf & Games" was the new name). By 2005, they had converted the bumper boats area to a skatepark, which seemed mildly popular. But by the end of 2006 (or early 2007--help me out here), the whole thing was closed, with only some tattered mini-golf holes, a creepy-looking abandoned batting cage, and those fiberglass animals, now fading in the sun.

Eventually the batting cage and mini-golf remnants were demolished, and the bumper boats area filled in for good for its new tenant: Paradise Scuba, which relocated from Parkway Square. They doubled the size of the old arcade building, even adding in a swimming pool inside (why they didn't use the old Bumper Boats area, who knows). They did, however, leave the lighthouse from the bumper boats area, though the lower rungs were removed so you couldn't climb up.



Paradise Scuba opened in September 2008 closed in June 2012 for good, despite the renovations to the property. Two years later, it reopened as a second location of Aggieland Cycling, which presumably filled in the pool inside. Neither business used the old batting cages area, and in late 2016, Domino's began to build a new location there (replacing their location on Texas Avenue near Deacon and Sunset Gardens), which opened in April 2017. The Domino's (no "Pizza" anymore due to corporate rebranding) has the address of 1801 Valley View, and unlike its old location, features dine-in seating. Weirdly, the official "entrance" to the pizza restaurant is the far side of Aggieland Cycling's parking lot, the closer driveway (shared with Aggieland Cycling) is supposed to be an exit-only lane.

Going back to Putt-Putt, it lasted over a decade, but to this day, we don't have a real mini-golf place. Sure, Grand Station Entertainment, the only place for bowling (Triangle Bowl and the MSC met their demise around the time Putt-Putt closed up shop) or mini-golf (of the "glow in the dark" variety, and they've got some sort of weird Western theme going on. If you want to golf in College Station, you'll have to stick with real courses and driving ranges.

Extensively updated in July 2014 with new tenant and picture, then again in 2015. In October 2017, a number of later updates were integrated. Minor updates in April 2020

Randall's / Albertsons

The decaying monolith beckons.

If you're reading this article from the archives, this isn't the first blog post (a number of other early articles were removed), but it is the oldest one available.

In the fall of 1991, Randall's Food Markets, based out of Houston, opened a "New Generation" store in College Station at 615 University Drive East, fairly close to the Texas A&M University campus. Until H-E-B began building larger stores in the 2000s, it was the largest grocery store in the county (not like there was much competition) and definitely the largest one in College Station. It had, according to this article featured "a coffee department with a bar and stools, fresh-made juices, pizza from scratch, a full-line floral department, a full-service bank and a one-hour photo shop", and at 80k square feet (the size of the H-E-Bs now), it was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, due to ongoing difficulties with Randalls' financial conditions, in 1997, it was sold along with stores in Pasadena and Round Rock to Albertsons, which renovated and reopened the stores. In College Station at least this resulted in the closure of the University Square store, though as you can see from that page Albertsons at some point realized this to be a mistake and made plans to renovate and reopen that store until financial difficulties scuttled the plan.

By 2011, this was the only Albertsons remaining in town, and it was sold, along with the Kerrville and New Braunfels stores (the latter two remnants of the defunct San Antonio division) to H-E-B, which reopened the Kerrville store but simply closed the other two. While parking was used for A+ Tutoring, it continued to hold a lease on the store for the next decade.

Eventually, H-E-B's lease expired, and plans have been filed to renovate the building into a REI Co-op and Crunch Fitness.

Some of my additional interior photos can be seen at Safeway and Albertsons in Texas.

Over to the west side of the store is 607 University, a small strip center with about four or so stores. Besides Haiku Sushi & Hibachi Grill, which I remembered being here for a long time (don't know when since I never remembered the building as a Randall's), and became Kobe Steak & Sushi much later (around 2012--this new incarnation shut within months). Most of the places here were pretty forgettable: "TGF Precision Haircutters" was another that was later absorbed by A+ Tutoring.

There was a little café in that strip center called Tuscany's that had a several year stand in the 2000s (my records show it closed in early 2008). Proudly proclaiming that it was the only gelato in miles around (a fact) plus offering upscale-ish coffeehouse goods (coffee, tasty-looking bagel chips), it opened around 2004 with being an Internet café a defining feature (that and the gelato). Any number of factors could've caused its closure: it's possible it wasn't favored by students as a place to hang out (if they wanted any students--some places don't), it was hard to see from the road (invisible heading westbound), or maybe just gelato was a novelty that wore off quickly.

A+ Tutoring is here currently, taking two places at the far end. They came in just before "The Martial Arts Studio", which replaced Tuscany's, moved to Homestead Place (the little shopping center on Texas Avenue, near the cemetery, where the library used to be, if you can remember back that far). A+ Tutoring gets really crowded on some nights, taking up a good half of the parking (which is why the owner of A+ ended up buying the property).

The side closest to University Drive East (Ste. 100) is currently GoldStar Barber (opened as Mike's Barber Studio), Anything Bling Boutique from 2015-2017 (roughly). Notably, from 1998 to around 2013, this was Haiku Japanese & Korean Restaurant, though changed names to Kobe Steak & Sushi in its final years. There was also BedzGalore.com in Ste. 106 briefly, I don't remember signage on the building for it but it took up the Albertsons signage on the roadside for a while until it rotted off.

Speaking of signage, Early Bird Cleaners also sub-leased space since 1995 (it was kept through the conversion!) and was accessible from the store itself. This was Crown Cleaners when it opened in 1992. It looks like Early Bird may have closed as early as 2002, but it was definitely shut by the time Albertsons died. Finally, you should see this awesome YouTube video of a Randall's opening in 1992 in Lufkin. While not in College Station, it gives a feel for what it was like, as the décor was almost identical.

UPDATE 02-01-2024: Partially rewritten and updated. Previous updates have been commented out, with some new edits to restore it closer to what it was originally before the outsourcing.