A North Bryan Family Legacy

The former J.J.'s Liquor as it appeared in January 2026. (Picture by author).
Sometime relatively recently, I had a very brief conversation with Ms. Ferreri, whose late father, Joe, built a number of restaurants and a few hotels in the area.¹ But among those, Sugar 'N Spice, the other drive-in, was missing from my site, so like Wendy's and H-E-B Pantry, lets go for covering a complete set. From what I can put together, 1215 N. Texas Avenue was the original address of the location and aerials back this up.

It was in 1951 that the drive-in opened (as a North Bryan counterpart to the Triangle) by 1968 was under new management as Ferreri moved on with bigger projects (the hotels). By fall of 1970 it was closed permanently but Luke Court was to reopen the store as "Sugar N Spice Drive In Grocery", now at 1219 N. Texas Avenue, likely reusing signage.

A second location of this "new" Sugar & Spice soon opened at 601 W. 28th Avenue as well, and by 1972 two more locations were in planning or operation, 1402 W. 25th Street and 300 W. 19th Street.² In 1974, Court sold these to Southland Corporation, which first had advertised as 7-Eleven in spring of that year (with a few locations of its own also being built), and by August was holding grand openings for what would be eight locations.³ Apparently, 7-Eleven did add gas to this location, but its time as a 7-Eleven was short-lived. By 1978, it was sold and reopened as J.J.'s Filling Station, owned by J.J. Ruffino (the son of whom I have also briefly spoken to), which by 1981 would ditch the gasoline and become J.J.'s Liquor, which it would remain for almost the next thirty years.

This garage door faces Texas Avenue. (Picture by author, 1/2026)
As I previously mentioned in another post, Spec's bought the three JJ's Liquor stores in 2010. The one on Texas Avenue in College Station was their wholesale warehouse for a while, while Rock Prairie Crossing and this one continued to operate. But within a few years of that, the JJ's at Rock Prairie doubled in size when it rebranded, and this location simply closed up shop (around that time the H-E-B was rolling out its full size store, and it's a mystery why Spec's couldn't have replaced its store with something there, or expand the Bryan store).

While part of the lot was redeveloped as a self-service car wash at some point that continues to be in operation at 1217 N. Texas Avenue, the building, which had served under Ruffino, Ferreri, and 7-Eleven, was abandoned.⁴

1. Most notably Ramada Inn, Ferreri's Italian Cuisine, and Triangle Drive-In. This post should finish them.
2. The addresses, 1402 W. William Joel Bryan Parkway and 300 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Street respectively, are no more. The latter was demolished in the late 2000s while the former disappeared between 1995 and 2003. 601 W. 28th Avenue is still in operation as a convenience store, but not a branded one.
3. The local 7-Eleven stores were sold to E-Z Mart in 1993 after Southland's 1990 bankruptcy. By that time, none of the Luke Court-era stores were in business as 7-Eleven.
4. Abandoned on paper, maybe. There was a truck parked outside the building when I was taking photos and I could music coming from inside (which was crammed with boxes and other junk), so I'm hoping it was just security of some sort...but I wasn't about to find out! It's why I don't have too many pictures of the property.

UPDATE 06-21-2026: In cross-referencing with Carbon-izer, my notes say this was closed in 2014 (no way of verifying that independently), and I didn't mention in the initial version of this post that the building was definitely reopened as Carmona & JB Auto Sales in 2016, which even reused the sign structure. Carmona & JB Auto Sales can be seen in Google Street View. The original Editor's Note of this post has been removed.

Triangle Drive-In

Ironically, the "Charcoal Room" was not the one that burned down. I had to bump up the brightness a bit on this one. (Picture from author, 8/22).

I missed August 5th (sick all day) to make a new post and the next opportunity to fill in the "post in days not previously made" is September 21st. (Always next year).

As of this writing, Chicken Oil Company has reopened, but before I rewrite that post I wanted to talk about another building on the property but had a different address and different history, even if it was used as a "party room" for Chicken Oil Company in later days.

This link currently has a picture of the Triangle as it appeared in 1948 (if the link dies, search Project HOLD or its successors for "Triangle Drive-In; photos (Aug. 1948)" without quotes--that is, if Project HOLD isn't down itself, which it is as of this writing). Friend of the site "Bryan-College Station, Texas: Now and Then" explains some of the history here (archived link--Facebook not required). You can also see an early photo of the drive-in here at this YouTube video.

From what it looks like, when the Triangle Drive-In expanded in 1957 to the Charcoal Room, the awnings to that building disappeared and another structure was built to the south and assumed the address of 3606 South College Avenue. The 1940s building remained during all this time. In the mid-1960s Triangle closed and by late 1967 had become the Triangle Club, billed as a private club for teenagers. By 1969 this was replaced with a traditional venue, "The Traditions Candle-Light Club", later just shortened to the "Candle-Light Lounge", which closed in 1970 and replaced with Bottle Shop, another tavern. Over the years the "Charcoal Room" continued to serve as a rotating series of bars. At some point it was "Lou's 19th Hole" in the mid-1970s, then opened as "Sonny's" in 1978, "Crossroads" as of 1989 (specifically mentioning a benefit party for the Texas Hall of Fame, which had suffered a major fire—see this post). Meanwhile, the drive-in booths of Triangle were ultimately redeveloped into the new home of Tom's BBQ in the mid-1980s (currently J. Cody's) and the last business I can find it was Boozer's (operating from 1995 to 1997, replacing Crossroads).

In July of 2025, the building was unceremoniously demolished for parking for the new Chicken Oil Company to reopen in early August.

UPDATE 08-16-2026: There was one more business...Brazos Hall, an events space, which opened in 1999. Also, I should note that when it became the Triangle Club, by the time the drive-in closed, it had become a "steakhouse", according to the article. (Joe Ferreri had existed ownership by that point).

Rodeway Inn of Texas Avenue

Official picture...probably taken before it became a Motel 6. Welcome to 2025! I meant to retire the blog a decade ago but ended up fixing it up and adding over 150 new posts, even if the release is spotty (2019 and 2020 got over 40 posts, 2021 and 2024 had around two dozens posts, some had less than ten, and a conspicuous absence for 2018).

Speaking of lack of activity, the [hotels and motels] tag hasn't seen much since I covered Hampton Inn and predecessor Sands Motel back in 2021. Several of them got updates (most notably relating to the original Holiday Inn in College Station, but a true new post has been lacking.

We've mentioned Joe Ferreri before, who passed away in 2023 at the age of 103 and some of his ventures over the years including Ramada Inn, the Triangle Drive-In, and Ferreri's Italian.

First announced in 1965 as a Rodeway Inn (opened in 1966) with a Kettle opening a year later (24 hours—though it looks like the "separate luxury restaurant" never came to fruition).

The motel stayed as a Rodeway Inn under Ferreri's ownership and was lost in 1988 to foreclosure and in the early 1990s rebranded as Preference Inn. In 2004, it changed names again to Americas Best Value Inn & Suites. For a very brief time in the mid-2010s was a Rodeway Inn again, before becoming a combo Motel 6/Studio 6 by 2017. Unlike other combo hotels, they operated as one business with no difference in rooms, nor had the old Studio 6 logo before it changed to look more like the Motel 6 logo (which also got a slight redesign).

I did visit here a few times in the late 2010s as a Motel 6 (knew someone who lived there for months), it wasn't great. (This is the motel's current website under Motel 6 where the picture came from).

Obviously the Kettle doesn't exist anymore. While it did briefly co-exist with the Kettle at 2712 South Texas Avenue, it appears to have closed sometime in the late 1980s and appears to have been vacant until Coco Loco moved in around 1998. Also at some point Coco Loco got its own address (1607)...

UPDATE 02-02-2026: In 1995, it still had the 1601 address and was the home of a Mexican restaurant called Dos Amigos.

Chicken Oil Company

The ramshackle-looking Chicken Oil Company before its renovation and reopening. This was the view facing north from the parking lot. You entered on the right side. The front view from College Avenue is harder to get. (Picture from author, 8/22).

When this post was originally written, it was taken about five months after their 2022 fire and it wasn't clear if the restaurant would ever reopen or not. (Good thing I didn't bet real money against it). It's quite difficult to tell what the history of the Chicken Oil Company actually is. It did appear to be a genuine gas station at one time, dating back to the 1950s, and apparently, owned by Joe Ferreri of the nearby Triangle Drive-In. This newspaper ad suggests that it was built (along with another gas station) as a companion operation to Ferreri's restaurant operations (Sugar 'N Spice was Ferreri's other restaurant). The Amlico name was acquired by Fina by the late 1950s and eventually rebranded though I'm not sure if it ever flew under the Fina banner.

By the mid-1970s it was known as "Larry's Key Service Station", but this was soon purchased and expanded by Don Ganter into Chicken Oil Company, featuring a bar with hamburgers and beer. Gasoline was still an option but at some point this was discontinued and turned into another expansion of the restaurant. While its College Station counterpart of the same ownership, Dixie Chicken continued to focused on beer, Chicken Oil Company became known for its hamburgers and other menu items.

The restaurant is decorated with old advertising signs, though these have not been well-maintained and have rusted away. (Picture from author, 8/22).

On the afternoon of April 3, 2022, the restaurant suffered a devastating kitchen fire, which, although sparing the building from total disaster (the fate of Olive Garden and later, Harvey Washbanger's), caused significant damage to the restaurant. The insides of the building were photographed a few days after the fire¹. You can see that the kitchen areas were trashed but the dining room, while suffering extensive smoke damage, looks salvageable. For several years, Chicken Oil sat idle; this is when the pictures were taken, but eventually renovation started. Parts of the west side of the building were demolished to conform to Bryan's right of way (these were the most heavily damaged parts anyway) and the parking lot was finally rebuilt from the gravel lot it was before.

As a result, the "new" Chicken Oil looks substantially different from the old version. As you can see in this X post (archived version here) the kitchen and the dining room seem to have effectively switched places, but that's not quite true.² On August 4, 2025, the restaurant reopened. Does it still hold up to its pre-2022 reputation? Well, you'll have to decide that for yourself, but I found it an excellent value when compared to how expensive fast food is these days.

1. Courtesy James "Tex" Crowley, and originally hosted on YouTube under the "Texas Media Foundry" name.
2. From what I can tell, the old entrance has been sealed off and arcade machines placed there, with the current queue for ordering about where the kitchen window used to be. You can definitely tell the kitchen side is brand new.

UPDATE 08-06-2026: One year later there were a few little things I wanted to correct, fix, and add. [Joe Ferreri] and [gas station] added. The video source has been added.
UPDATE 08-06-2025: Extensive rewrite of post incorporating previous updates and to have less of a past tense. Previous updates archived.
UPDATE 08-28-2025: Upon a visit the restaurant is still laid out similarly, the old door has been sealed off. The kitchen is at the southwest corner of the building.

Northpoint Crossing

Sure it kind of looks nice but it's a bit of a failure. (Picture by author, 1/20)

In order to talk about Northpoint Crossing (not to be confused with Northpoint Business Park, we need to talk about what stood at that corner before it. That would be the "Plaza Hotel", which would be the most obvious answer (though not a wrong one), but to really answer the question, we at least should look at least need to look at the whole block Northpoint Crossing currently occupies.

Below is a layout of how everything looked in 2019, bounded by Hensel Street (CoCS) to the north, Texas Avenue South to the east, University Drive to the south, and the late Hensel Drive (TAMU) to the west.

Starting from the southwest corner, there's Northpoint Crossing of course and its buildings, then working our way up Texas Avenue, there's the current Hampton Inn, Home2 Suites by Hilton (covered on the big Texas Avenue page), the old Applebee's (soon to redevelop into a new Hampton Inn), Knights Inn, and finally at the southwest corner of Meadowland and Hensel Street, some old fourplexes that were holdouts from the demolition of this block in the early 2010s.

Now, let's take a look at what the block used to look like (2011). I annotated this one a while back.

At the southwest corner (marked as #4) is, or rather, was, a Kettle. Kettle #86 (1403 University) opened in 1979 and predated all the rest of the Kettle restaurants in town (at its peak we had FIVE Kettle restaurants! There aren't even five Kettle restaurants anymore). While it was clearly built as a Kettle, previous references for the address include a private house (as of 1970) and "Pool Country" swimming pools (as of 1974), suggesting it was a conversion. The "original 1403" held McLaughlin's of Corpus Christi (beauty salon, had a second location off of Patricia Street), and apparently, for a very short time, Heroes Clothing Company was here before moving to 1502 Texas Avenue South in 1976. Kettle operated here for years, finally closing at the end of 2003. The yellow P A N C A K E S signage (not unlike Waffle House's signage) remained up until its demolition several years later).

Pancake House...? (Google Street View)
Kettle sold the property in 2004 to Leonard Ross (Rossco), which like other properties he owned just deteriorated until it was sold to the Northpoint Crossing developers in 2011.

The white-roofed building (not the brown-roofed building behind it), 1405 University Drive, opened in 1966 as UtoteM (#811), part of UtoteM of Austin (as the other stores locally were...Houston was its own division, having nearly half of the chain there as of 1967).¹ In 1984, it was rebranded as Circle K but closed in fall 1985 along with the location at 105 Walton. You can see a glimpse of it as a UtoteM in the Plaza Hotel video from KBTX around 25 seconds in. Around 1988 it reopened as Thermal Shield Applications (it might've moved from a different location) offering car windshield tinting (and later cell phones and vehicle security alarms), though in 1989 they moved to 3213 S. College Avenue. In early 1991 it became home to Sterling Automotive, which specialized in Subaru repairs, and apparently even reopened as the now second location of Thermal Shield Applications in 1993.² Thermal Shield Applications seems to have folded entirely in 1996, though this particular location was sold and reopened as AC-Protech in fall 1996, but within a year had become a location of Just Smokes, which was already shut down by May 1998.

Fountain drinks?! You told it was just smokes! (The Battalion, 09/05/1997)
By late 1998 it had become Aggieland Tattoo, which changed hands to Ink Dreams in 2005³ and closed in the late 2000s, becoming Oasis Pipes and Tobacco, which was evicted in 2011 or 2012, moving to Eastgate. I'm not sure of the purpose or address of the building behind it, it had four units of some sort (office? residential?) and I can't remember the address.

#2 on the map is another mystery. Brazos CAD said this building was built in 1949, under "Units on Univ Dr", and I'm not sure of its purpose. It seems that this was 1501 University Drive, and it was home to U.S. Black Belt Academy in the late 1980s (you can see the picture of this building in the video linked above near UtoteM). This also seems to be the home of 1503 University Drive. Years ago, I said that this was a location of 100,000 Auto Parts, citing the same address of Ramada Inn, but retracting it due to it being 410 North Texas Avenue in Bryan. However, I was still right despite there being another 100,000 Auto Parts (which later evolved into a Carquest location) on University Drive East.

What are you?!
Of course, the rear of the building that appears to be attached and appears to be apartments of some sort makes this building even more complicated. I can't figure it out. Maybe more research another day is needed.

Next up is the Ramada Inn (later University Tower, later Plaza Hotel) which has its own sub-article here (this was located at 410 Texas Avenue South).

Piper's Gulf (#1 on the map) opened at 420 Texas Avenue South around 1973, offering gas (Gulf brand) and an auto garage and became Chevron in 1989 when Chevron largely retired the brand in this part of the country. The station officially changed hands in January 1999 as it became "University Chevron" (still Chevron, of course) but shut down in 2005 and was demolished afterward. You can see a picture of it on the hotel sub-article or this blurry video shot (not even a direct rip) from The Louisiana and Texas Retail Blogspot.

Going back around past the Ramada Inn and past the other hotels, we come to 100 Texas Avenue South (marked as #7 on the map) and built as Dutch Kettle, opening in spring of 1962 as a 24-hour diner (link). Dutch Kettle is not to be confused with the Kettle restaurants as described above⁴ and a few examples of former Dutch Kettle restaurants exist...or at least existed. There was one, for example in Houston that outlasted the College Station's building by about a decade at 8301 Gulf Freeway, though it had been heavily modified at some point in the past (note the dual chimneys).⁵ Galveston's restaurant seemed to be the last one in this location and closed in 2012 (2011 Street View).
Not mine, originally from a Brazos County history book
With its history intertwined with Kettle, it looks like Dutch Kettle might make for a good subject of its own. A 1963 article mentions its pies to go ("made fresh daily the Dutch Kettle Way in our own Commissary") which tends to heavily imply they had some sort of operation based out of Houston. In 1968, shortly after opening the (non-Dutch) Kettle at 1601 South Texas Avenue the diner became "Pick Wick Coffee Shop" before reverting to the Dutch Kettle name, where it operated until sometime around January 1975, liquidating everything shortly afterward (even selling its oval sign frame). In fall 1976 it became the first Schlotzsky's restaurants outside of the Austin area⁶ and it closed in 1997 (by this time, Schlotzsky's Deli was a fast-growing chain), before being replaced with Dalin's Donuts in 2001. A few years later, this was replaced with Snowflake Donuts, which quietly closed sometime in 2006.
Street View of the restaurant shortly before demolition
Marked as #6 on the map, a number of fourplexes existed on Meadowland, and at least at one time were marketed together (they had a swimming pool) with ownership common to Plaza Hotel (Rossco). Today, only two exist, now as independent properties, 1402-1404 Northpoint Lane (1402 being closest to Northpoint), but even as late as 2017 they were known as 149 and 151 Meadowland. A few older houses existed on Meadowland (likely cheap rentals) like 125 and 127 Meadowland (Street View shot) existed up until around 2012 as well.

After the Plaza Hotel was imploded and the rest of the site was cleared, Northpoint Crossing was built on the site, spread across six buildings.

The 425 buildings (closest to Texas Avenue) and 424 buildings were the only two buildings to ever ground level retail. As of August 2025, a few of the Texas Avenue storefronts have retail with suite 100 (closest to the north side), 300, and 500 (no even numbers), with those being taken by 4.0 Cuts, Aggieland Barber & Beauty Supply, and Modern Barber & Beauty Institute, respectively, and these three are the only ones to really make it. World of Beer still has signage up, but the hip chain closed in late 2023 (after opening in September 2015). Others didn't fare much better.

Over in the 424 building, Toastie's Sub Shops out of Austin opening in spring 2015 in suite 1700 but closed a year later (coincidentally, around the same time an Austin location was locked out for lack of lease payment, and by January 2017, the Toastie's chain as a chain, was, well, toast. In June 2018 it became Smallcakes Cupcakery & Creamery. In January 2021 this closed and was replaced by Smoosh Cookies, which opened in November 2022 but within a few years that was gone too (which was even shorter-lived than the Jones Crossing location).

Suite 1700 had Minuti Coffee opening in 2016 but it struggled and did not reopen after closing in December 2019, re-emerging a year later two miles east of its old location and got much better business. This was later replaced with Möge Tee which has also since disappeared.

Finally, another tenant in the 424 building but at Northpoint Lane and a road what we can only assume is also "Northpoint Crossing" a Gateway Newstands convenience store opened 2017 but closed in 2020 when its parent company exited the United States.

The Clubhouse is for residents only, standard for student apartment complexes. (Picture by author, 1/20)

In November 2024 the City approved a request for some unused ground floor space to be converted into 29 more units, functionally ending any new retail at Northpoint Crossing.

So what caused the issues at Northpoint Crossing as far as retail went, especially as the pre-redevelopment tenants did okay?

1. Access. Under the old system, there was a left turn into Meadowland, allowing one to get in and out of Kettle or whatever was at 1405 University relatively easy. Poor Chevron couldn't benefit from that...even the Exxon at the northeast side of the street has alternate ways to get in and out.

2. Nobody likes mixed-use. You can see this in Houston, too. Mixed-use is a hard sell here, in addition to substantially worse parking situations (which tends to deter customers) you also have much higher rent. These things aren't easy to maintain on foot traffic.

3. Poor integration with Century Square. This one isn't Northpoint Crossing's fault, they included a "stub" road (Northpoint Way) to integrate with Century Square, but instead they put up a parking garage of their own for their own customers. Which makes sense, they don't want you to park in Century Square's garage for Northpoint's tenants (and the same would likely be true in reverse).

With Northpoint Crossing being an unremarkable collection of apartment buildings to replace a large hotel, it really begs the question...is it an improvement? Maybe, but that was only because the hotel itself had such a bad reputation. At times like these I wonder if it just could've gotten a major exterior re-do as part of a renovation.

1. UtoteM was based out of Houston, though in 1967, they merged with Omaha-based Fairmont Foods, with UtoteM being a division of Fairmont. Fairmont moved its headquarters to Houston in 1975, though Fairmont's operations in the Midwest like their Kitty Clover potato chips and dairy operations (as well as some other functions) remained in Omaha. Ultimately, Fairmont was reorganized as UtoteM Inc. when the combined company was sold to American Financial in 1980 before its new parent company offloaded it to Circle K a few years later.
2. A 1995 directory lists this as still being Sterling Automotive.
3. How exactly I don't know, tax records suggest it was seamless. It may have rebranded at a different time.
4. Well, sort of. See footnote 5.
5. The tax data with this Dutch Kettle is associated with Kettle restaurants in Austin and Houston, and further digging reveals that some of the other restaurants were originally Dutch Kettle restaurants were as well, suggesting that the later Houston-based Kettle went their own way. 6. I say "Austin area" because there is a San Marcos location that predates it, though in that time there was a LOT of empty space between Austin and San Marcos.

UPDATE 08-09-2026: Major retool of the entire article. Differences include moving the "modern" development to the bottom of the page, adding mention of other Northpoint Crossing tenants that weren't listed, expanding on "Units on Univ Dr", expanding on 1405 University Drive, and new tags.

Ira's

Sounds good to me, especially in a time of sub-par and small grocery stores. From the early 1980s.
This was previously one of the oldest unrewritten posts on the blog with only piecemeal updates. Located in the parking lot of Kmart, Ira's opened in 1983 as a two-story gourmet foods store, featuring (among other things) wine, chocolate, baked goods, and deli meats, but went under in 1985, likely due to the Texas recession and remained empty until Ferreri's Italian Cuisine opened in 1989, owned by Joe Ferreri who had filed for bankruptcy after losing the beloved Ramada Inn. Probably the red, white, and green striping was added to the building at this point. I just don't have a lot of information on Ferreri's, though, but during this time the address went from 1704 Valley View Drive to 2702 Texas Avenue (which makes sense as 1704 is the wrong side). It appears Ferreri's closed in February 1996 (at which point Ferreri retired for good, though he lived for many years afterwards).¹

Later that year, it became Burton Creek Pub & Brewery. The place sold cigars and homemade beer, with décor including a "walk-in humidor, leather sofas, [and] bear skin rugs" (according to a source that doesn't seem to be found by Google anymore). Newspaper articles also mention a dance floor and live music. It closed around mid-1998 and was replaced with Taste of China in December 1999. It was rather forgettable but I still remember getting takeout here—greasy noodles and whatnot, but it was arguably one of the better Chinese buffets in town (not saying much) at the time. In summer 2014 it received a repaint to yellow, previously it was white with red/green/white striping at the top (from the Ferreri's days); however, it closed in spring 2015. In 2016, it became Q Beauty Supply (without fanfare) and C2 Education Centers (suite 200).

1. Ferreri passed away in 2023.

UPDATE 07-20-2025: While this post has received updates over the years, including 2014 (new Ira's ad), 2015 (Taste of China closed), 2016, 2017 (formatting), 2019 (new post header), the most recent update mostly worked on the dates and combined the sections into paragraphs as well as new labels.