View of the center today
Before we get to the shopping center covered above, there are two tenants that I should cover before we get to it. There were other structures on Holleman Drive East that I have yet to identify.
The first is Tinsley's Chicken 'n Rolls, located next to Washington Chapel Baptist Church.
Chicken done well, chicken well done!
Opening in late 1979, Tinsley's was located on 1905 Texas Avenue South as the chain's only College Station location (there were locations from Waco to Houston, and two in Bryan--one of which has
an article on the blog). In 1985, the Tinsley family sold out to Church's Fried Chicken. Church's closed sometime around 1989 (likely due to the Church's/Popeyes merger at the time). In the 1995 it reopened as Santa Fe Pizza (aka Santa Fe Market Cafe). In 1997, it was Kokopelli's (Southwestern food, I have a menu but never scanned it) and Clay Oven from 1998 to 2000 (Indian food).
It should be noted the plane was a real thing, though, as David Tinsley used an actual 1930s plane
to promote his restaurants, not unlike how
Flying Tomato used hot air balloons. Despite a brief re-appearance in Huntsville around 2009 with much fanfare (in a former KFC and now Hartz Chicken Buffet), Tinsley's is current a dead chain once more.
Next up was Pooh's Park at 1907 Texas Avenue South (later re-addressed as 105 Holleman Drive East).
This is from one of my early 1980s phone books, but I'm not sure which one.
There used to be a Facebook post that discussed Pooh's Park in more detail and have some old photos and newspaper articles, but unfortunately, those photos seem to have been wiped. It's a reminder...SAVE what you want and ARCHIVE them on a more permanent medium like a blog or something. Like THIS blog, which has been around since 2010 and I only remove things for a reason, like for quality control reasons, and even those I intend to put back up in some form or another. While I don't have those pictures, I might be able to restore some newspaper articles (though this current rewrite was not intended to re-add those articles).
In any case, one thing about Pooh's Park was that it had higher standards to keep rowdier customers away, demanding that "kids dress properly and keep and their hair trimmed" but during the height of its popularity that didn't matter much. Pooh's Park closed in November 1986 citing
taxes and insurance reasons as well as a dwindling customer base. Things were left on the property (there was a report of a theft of a "blue furry robot", for instance) and the building was still there as of February 1995, but ultimately just the sign remained up by the early 2000s.
Google Earth 1995, with modern streets overlaid. Most of this is still not ID'd properly.
Some older maps (circa 2001-ish, long after Pooh's Park bit the dust) put a "Pooh's Lane" roughly where the Bahama Buck's is now, but unless that first part of Holleman Drive East was actually called that (after all, there's a few things that do support that, including the odd alignment of Holleman Drive and Holleman Drive East suggests that the East part was first, and then Holleman Drive extended that way later by way of a particularly awkward curve, or the fact that the subdivision nearby (behind the strip center and the other businesses on the east side) is named Pooh's Park Subdivision.
This ad was in October 1985 (The Eagle) when Pooh's Park was still in business. I guess they had furniture sales on the side.
In decidedly more modern times, the center was redeveloped around 2002.
Going around the center, we have 1901 (split between four enants, Super Nails & Pedi Spa, Aji Sushi, Petco, and Great Clips, the latter two facing east)...the Petco is an original tenant (store #1405 and opened in 2002), while Aji Sushi was originally (in 2002 and up until around 2013-2014) Pho John's. Further down beyond Petco and closer to Hobby Lobby is Great Clips.
Hobby Lobby opened at 1903 Texas Avenue South in 2002, moving from
Post Oak Square, while Cicis Pizza at 1905 Texas Avenue South moved from
Culpepper Plaza in 2006.
The next building faces west, with the side closest to Salata having a back entrance to George Bush Drive East. Salata (1907 Texas Avenue) was originally the home of Loupot's, which closed in spring 2012 with the rest of the chain (it became Salata less than two years later). Shoe Carnival (1909 Texas Avenue) and Ross Dress for Less (1911 Texas Avenue) both opened in 2002 as well.
The last building is considerably more interesting. This opened as
Goody's Family Clothing in 2002 and closed in 2008 when the chain went under. After that, it reopened as Big Lots in 2009 (returning to the area as their previous
College Station store closed in 2005), though it didn't take up all the space. The remaining third that Big Lots didn't use became 1915 Texas Avenue, with
Twin Liquors having its grand opening December 15, 2011 (I wrote that down in
Wikimapia).
Big Lots closed in fall 2024 as one of the rounds of closing before its liquidation (reopening under new owner
Variety Wholesalers was not an option for this store), with its renovation and reopening as a
Sprouts Farmers Market in late September 2026.
Technically Bahama Buck's and the adjacent The Shops at Wolf Pen Plaza (home of the first Starbucks in College Station) aren't part of the modern plaza, nor directly replaced Pooh's Park and the Tinsley's building, so I decided to not cover them in this update. (Not too much to write about. Maybe at the
Carbon-izer pages. I hope to add Holleman Drive to the list by the end of 2026.)
UPDATE 07-08-2022: QoL updates including the life of the center, better closing date of Pooh's, new tags
UPDATE 06-12-2025: Various updates and mild rewrite.
UPDATE 11-02-2025: Big Lots closed around late 2024 (probably should've mentioned that in the last update) but as of this writing Sprouts Farmers Market is coming. This is the third time in over a decade they've tried (back in 2012 they were going to move into the dead Linens 'n Things on University Drive East, and later planned a move into the dead World Market down the street, though this wasn't as well publicized).
UPDATE 10-07-2026: A new rewrite was done. It adds some of the smaller tenants, reorganizes it better, and removes The Shops at Wolf Pen Plaza (and with it, the [Starbucks Coffee] label), as well as Bahama Buck's, as well as a new name ("The Shopping Center at Texas Avenue and Holleman Drive East" instead of the awkward "Pooh's Park, Tinsley's, and Others Replaced by a Shopping Center")
1970s, 2000s, Church's Chicken, College Station, Holleman, Loupot's, mini-golf, redevelopment, restaurants, Retail, Starbucks Coffee, texas avenue
