Fuzzy's Taco Shop (Former)

This picture was taken in September 2024 by author.
Fuzzy's Taco Shop at 1712 Southwest Parkway, Suite 100 closed permanently after August 11, 2024, a victim of the economy and/or cutbacks from Fuzzy's new ownership of Dine Brands, but let's back up a bit.

Prior to 1993, we had several 7-Eleven stores in town, far more numerous than the converted Stripes stores we do now. A few of these sites have in fact been covered, like the defunct Northgate Chevron or the Citgo at Southwest Parkway and Wellborn, mentioned mostly in passing.

In 1993, Southland Corporation (the original name of 7-Eleven, Inc.) sold off its College Station area locations to E-Z Mart, another convenience store operator. Within a decade or so all those locations changed hands and I don't believe any more operate under that name. (For instance, the location at Villa Maria and Finfeather was now "E-Z For You" even as early as 2005, something I'm sure the alive and well E-Z Mart didn't take kindly to).

Despite that, most of the former Citgo/E-Z Mart sites were in good, visible locations on corners of major roads. There was only one that I knew of that wasn't like that, an odd "parking lot" location off Southwest Parkway and Texas Avenue. No gas canopy, no corner lot. While it's on the oldest Street View I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. (It operated from 1985 to 2008). Fuzzy's Taco Shop opened in 2010, about the time the rest of the strip center got an update. As of 2023 the stores here included Pro Nails & Spa, Wild Side Smoke Shop, and Haircuts by Whitney. The stores that were here included CR Nails (which Pro Nails replaced, here in the early 2010s), Mak's C Store (predated Wild Side, here 2011-2012), a dental office (dating back to the 1990s with different ownership with just a simple "DENTIST" sign, getting a real sign of "Dr. Black Dental Care"; moved in 2013 to Rock Prairie), and Prestige Cleaners (later Aggieland Cleaners, ultimately absorbed into Whitney's space).

Most of the other spaces around here we've covered. To the immediate east is Shipley Do-Nuts, then Arby's, which shares the parking lot with Red Roof Inn, NailSpa, what used to be Kettle, and connecting to that is Days Inn.

Southwest Parkway East Shell

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

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

Holiday Inn on Earl Rudder Freeway

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

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

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

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

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

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

Southwest Village Apartments

Looks pretty structural similar to today, but not so much on the other parts (Advertisement from The Eagle)
I typically do not cover any apartment buildings on this site, the few exceptions being mixed-use structures or other legacy articles.

Today will be one of those rare exceptions, with this 1974 advertisement giving a rare glance into what was a nice apartment complex at one time at 1101 Southwest Parkway, then known as Southwest Village Apartments.

The exteriors themselves look like they did in the 1990s save for different paint jobs, and I assume the original cedar shake roof as shown in the advertisement was changed after a massive apartment complex fire in Houston in 1979 that ended use of them.

The complex became The Colony Apartments sometime between 1989 and 1993, and remained up until the late 2000s (still The Colony as of 2007). In 2013 it was University Park Apartments (despite being nowhere near the street named as such), and around very late 2016/early 2017 became "The Vintage", stylized as "the|Vintage". There's a real disconnect between what is advertised and the actual state of the apartments. It painted the apartments dark gray with splashes of purple or blue trim, did some interior work, and replaced the basketball court (which was built over a creek) with something else.

Based on exteriors alone, it still has a crumbling parking lot and carpeted open-air hallways that are grungy and reek of cigarette smoke, so by all outside looks the Vintage is just another repaint, not a total revitalization of the property (I'll let actual reviews of the interiors and management speak for themselves), and indeed, most of the apartment complexes (which were already showing signs of age in the late 1990s) are in similar conditions. They can try new names (The Grove at Southwood is Brownstone's second name change) and updates but they'll continue to slide downhill until major changes in the corridor are made. It's a bit of a shame since Southwest Parkway really did mean a lot to me growing up, but what can you do?

Aggieland Credit Union, Southwest Parkway East

There used to be a sign outside used to feature an electronic display featuring the time and temperature, but today no longer has the electronic component.

Not too much to say about Aggieland Credit Union here at 201 Southwest Pkwy. East beyond opening in 1997. They used to (maybe they still do, but I haven't been inside for a while now for obvious reasons) have pictures of almost every Aggie Bonfire going back years, though there was never a Bonfire after 1998 due to the 1999 collapse. Pictures in this post by author, 6/20.

Editor's Note: I'm going to try to take a brief break after this to get my thoughts back in order, mostly because I don't want to keep posting filler. While I do have some new posts planned, I'm going to focus on closed-down or otherwise defunct businesses, with more love and attention given to Bryan.

Shipley Do-Nuts, Southwest Parkway

Do-Nut You Forget About Me. (Picture from author, 4/20)


If I had to describe "which road best represents my childhood", it would have to be Southwest Parkway. There was the Citgo there at the corner of Southwest Parkway and Wellborn, before Southwest Crossing was built, a common fuel and convenience stop (more will be discussed when the gas station is added), the Texaco station at Welsh Avenue, those weird townhome-style apartments catty-corner to that (Embassy Townhomes), South Knoll Elementary School (where I went to school, and was once covered on this site, though mostly I described its dark, pre-renovation corridors), and small streets where family friends lived.

Further down the road was Parkway Baptist Church and Bee Creek Park, where seasonally Adamson's Lagoon (which I also used to have a post on) would be a great spot to take the family. It's not nearly as good now, I haven't been to it for years (my siblings grew up and left home), but it did decline objectively, with the floating snake and frog eventually being chained to the pool floor (if they're even still there—and I do remember the incident as to WHY they're chained), the crowds increasing (with the price), and the removal of the diving board.

Parkway Baptist Church was where my Boy Scout troop was located (I never became an Eagle Scout) and, it's hard to notice from the street, but a few houses down you can see that there's a duplex with one side of the house having slightly different brick than the other. The reason for this is because around 2000 there was no fence from Southwest Parkway and it was used as a front yard (there's a small alley off Welsh). However, one night a drunk driver careened off of the road and crashed through the side of the house, killing a young girl in her sleep. I don't have the news story with me but that's how I remember it happening. As I passed the area pretty frequently I could see where the front of the house was boarded up, and although it happened gradually over the next 12 years, eventually all the houses between the church and Welsh had fences built along Southwest Parkway.

Finally, there was Parkway Square, featuring Kroger (of course), but also Baskin-Robbins, a video rental store, and a McDonald's that was often visited. I know I've covered Arby's and what I mostly remembered as a vacant building but there was one place I haven't covered yet, haven't even mentioned it as of this writing except for a throwaway line on the Post Oak Square article. That would be Shipley Do-Nuts, located at 1716 Southwest Parkway, originally built in 1984.

The "do-nut" shop is best known before its most recent facade update around 2017-2018, with its appearance which removed the message board as well as changed the main signage piece. The new remodel also removed the tiny marquee lightbulbs around the signage, which used to light up and dance around the sign. I don't know the specific reason they stopped, whether it being too expensive to maintain, machinery got broken down, or ordinances preventing it. (Probably both).

UPDATE 03-12-2022: As of this writing, I'm working on a full Southwest Parkway page on Carbon-izer.com, so check that out soon. One thing that I failed to mention in the original 2020 article is that a car apparently took drive-through a bit too literally and crashed through the front of it, so the brick in the center front is not original. It happened sometime in the 2000s and was the ol' "confused the gas pedal for the brake" problem. I also failed to mention the shop was opened in 1988.

Southwest Parkway Wendy's

Picture from August 2019
Despite my ambitions, the new "Return to Texas Avenue" series isn't going too well, partly since I already made many of the more interesting posts years ago, leaving a collection of odds and ends including photos from over five years ago. This is in contrast to the start of the Harvey Road series, in which all the photos were taken at the same time and in close succession, giving about half a dozen new posts clustered together with a bit of a story behind them.

The Wendy's on 202 Southwest Parkway East was built in 1984 after the previous Wendy's in town was opened (3216 Texas Avenue South in Bryan, which was built in 1978 but closed for the last 15 years or so) and I don't think this location ever had a salad bar, though I could be wrong. I don't remember one ever being there, and I don't think I ever (if rarely) ate here after a newer location opened much closer by to where I lived.

Additionally, the sign has the newer logo (which is not on the restaurant itself) partially due to the fact that a storm wrecked the old sign with the signage being replaced with the newer one.

Future attention on the blog will be paid to posts currently off the Index, which will return in updated forms.

Arby's Southwest Parkway

This picture was taken back in 2013.
Arby's sole College Station location (and Bryan, too, though they briefly had one of their own) was built in 1982 at 1800 Southwest Parkway with a new addition around 1999 that added a large, modern facade (I remember being very impressed with the remodeled restaurant, but I don't think the restaurant seating was enlarged). Arby's has stayed put even with major closures which did a number on the Houston area, some looking like this or even newer, and this store has not received the newer logo yet (thankfully). I don't recall what the old restaurant looked like, but I'm pretty sure it was closer to this one in San Marcos (since demolished and replaced with a Raising Cane's), except with a more brown-ish colored roof.

UPDATE 03-12-2022: A few fixes. Tax data says it opened in 1982, but BCAD says 1984. I'll change it to 1982 as that tends to be a bit more reliable.

Park Place Plaza

The most activity here in a long time. These and others are the author's photos from 2014.
2501 Texas Avenue South

Appearing shortly after Parkway Square and built in 1986 catty-corner to that shopping center, the center appeared to be the counterpart to the shopping center in many ways. While Parkway Square had its Kroger, Park Place Plaza had its Winn-Dixie Marketplace. While Parkway Square had McDonald's, Park Place had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Both had stores that faced Texas Avenue, and both had stores that faced Southwest Parkway.

The center is divided into four sections. Section A is the side that faces toward Southwest Parkway. Section B is the former grocery store anchor. C begins east of the former grocery store anchor and toward the back. D is the section of the stores in a separate building not attached to the grocery store anchor that face toward the parking lot (direction towards campus), but not all suite numbers are available.

Here's a map (from Holland Retail Advisors that shows the shopping center as it was in 2014.

Click for full size.
The largest tenant was a Winn-Dixie Marketplace supermarket at 45,500 square foot, comparable to the nearby Kroger. WDM was the company's attempt to build bigger, more modern stores for the 1980s, but unfortunately, the company had expanded too far and built too few Marketplace (or larger) stores, contributing to the chain's Texas pull-out in 2002 and bankruptcy in 2005, and the chain continues to retreat. The College Station store closed well before that. As Victoria-based Lack's Furniture opened in February 1997, Winn-Dixie closed in 1996 (the Bryan store continued to operate until 2002). It closed in late 2010 along with the rest of the locations (interestingly, an unrelated furniture chain closer to the border called Lacks Valley Stores ended up buying the domain name, and later, some of the old locations). The sign hung around (literally) for a little while longer but in 2014 the space was finally filled with two new tenants. The left side, keeping the address, became College Depot (which moved from Parkway Square), but after the spring 2017 season, College Depot went out of business. Legacy Ace Hardware & Gifts opened in August 2018, which replaced The Bear Mountain closer to Barnes & Noble. The store (operated by the same owners of Bear Mountain) includes a Bear Mountain outdoors store inside the hardware store. Here's a picture of the co-branded former anchor from May 2014 when College Depot moved in.

Next to Planet Fitness is Lupa's Coffee. This was a Quizno's that lasted far longer than it should have (2012 closing after a long deterioration). It reopened briefly as "Big Johnson Deli", which some local press for the suggestive name, but it closed within a year or two afterwards. I believe Quizno's Subs (as it was known originally before the apostrophe was dropped) replaced a Schlotzsky's Deli (as it was also known as back then).

Linh's Nails is next to it at C101, this used to be Premiere Dance Academy in the early 2010s, then A+ Foot Massage at C102 (listed as available in 2014), then Weight Watchers (also listed as available), then Laila's Beauty Studio (replacing Young Life), then Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach (not "Aggie PC" as the chart says, this was here prior to 2014, and takes up C105 and C106). Going toward the back, there's Lit Cafe Hookah Lounge & Smoke Shop (C107), Studio Noir (C108). Studio Noir used to be the home of Gun Corps, a consignment store that specialized in guns. It closed after year end 2016 but there was a catch: their inventory was still locked up, and those guns were all collateral for loans and the bank seized everything during the bankruptcy. Many customers ended up getting their firearms back through the system but some customers ended up getting stiffed. Previously it was a short-lived restaurant called Aloha BBQ Hut. C109 is/was Gabrielle Baby & Maternity (old listings, can't verify). C110 is Vapegeek, C111 is Fusion Peru restaurant, and C112 is Sour Apple Repair. There's 555 Grill at D104 (formerly the home of Cali Chic Salon as of 2014, USA Nails before that), then at D105, the current home of Kumon Math & Reading Center (formerly the home of 4.0 & Go), then Ohana Korean Grill. This used to be a Spice Bowl, an Indian restaurant that predated Taz. I had heard it wasn't very good (this is supported by Yelp).

Prospector's Grill & Saloon (more nightclub than restaurant) opened in the spring of 2014 with a custom wooden facade (this used to be another restaurant called Kebab & Curry). After about a year, it closed when the owners stopped paying rent and skipped town, and it stood vacant for another two years before it was reopened as Rockies Night Club, their third location (originally in the mall, later in the former Weingarten in Bryan). In August 2018, a 16-hour standoff damaged the nightclub when law enforcement was forced to drive a vehicle into the restaurant, and although the nightclub reopened, it ended up closing for good in May 2019. A Hertz auto rental facility anchors the far south end (opened 2014).

I'm going to largely neglect the north side stores on Southwest Parkway, but since at least the late 1980s there was a Little Caesars here, which held fond memories for me through all of its renovations and continued to be the "go-to" pizza spot for my family until the Rock Prairie Road location opened around 2013. Originally, Little Caesars had blonde, 80s looking, wood paneling on the walls, this was removed in a 2000s renovation and replaced with black and white tiles. Eventually, a further renovation changed that, including removing a doorway to the kitchen with a traditional entrance to make the restaurant feel more open. There was also a gumball machine, and for many years had a promotion where if you got a black (grape) gumball, you'd get a free small pizza. I know I won at least once. It was great fun, but probably a bit of a money-loser and it was eventually discontinued (another discontinued item--I last saw the Baby Pan!Pan! around 2005, and even then, the packaging was dated). Prices went up and down for the Hot N Ready, sometimes $5, sometimes $6. Next door to that was a martial arts studio that closed in the early 2000s, became a sketchy video/DVD store for a few years, and then became a martial arts studio again (Academy of Modern Martial Arts). What's even more interesting is I've had people tell me that this was another video store before the first martial arts studio, called Paramount Theatre. An expansion to include music resulted in the larger space the martial arts studio has now. (Questions if the author ever practiced tae kwon do here in the mid-2000s will go without comment).

Lupa's Coffee can be seen, this filled the old Big Johnson Deli/Quizno's. I read that this used to be a Schlotzsky's Deli back in the 1990s before they moved to near Wal-Mart.
Prospector's Grill & Saloon with its new custom facade.
A Planet Fitness and College Depot now fill the former Lacks/Winn-Dixie.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken in the parking lot moved in the mid-1980s as well from Dominik Drive and renovated in the mid-2000s (exterior and interior).

UPDATE 08-10-2024: I know I haven't touched this in a while (last update June 2019) but a few notes. In October 2020, Lupa's Coffee was closed and converted to a new location of Gogh Gogh Coffee Company but it closed its location in February 2024.

Additionally, Winn-Dixie closed in fall 1995 (not 1996), along with a small handful of stores in the Texas Division.

Pelican's Wharf / Pasghetti's / Royers' College Station Café / NailSpa

The former restaurant today. Notice the cedar trees, and the Kettle sign. The large "Manor House" sign was above that.

Today, 2500 Texas Avenue South is only a nail salon, but an aerial shows that this building predated the entire shopping center across the street as well as many other buildings along that stretch. It opened in 1977 as Pelican's Wharf, an upscale-leaning steak-and-seafood eatery with restaurants in other Texas cities (the last location, in Victoria, closed in 2010) not unlike a nicer chain restaurant (but still cheap enough so that college students could afford to eat there). Another detail I picked up from TexAgs, was that although it was waitservice, there was no set waiter/waitress assigned to a table and they shared their tips.

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Pasghetti's was the second restaurant in the space, though it's not clear when Pelican's Wharf closed and Pasghetti's opened. From my records it was probably common ownership where the owner flipped it over to Pasghetti's (a build-your-own-pasta bowl place), as Pelican's Wharf was here into the early 1990s. The problem is when the changeover happened, though it's estimated around 1995-1996. According to a comment I had at one time on this blog, one could build a sauce-and-pasta bowl presumably with a drink and a breadstick) for around $4.95. Refills were a dollar. (For comparison, at the time, one of my favorite places to eat in 2012, the Commons food court featured a stand where you could essentially get the same thing for about $6.50-$7 (though no refills).

Contemporary view from Google Maps Street View, Texas Avenue side

In 1997, "Royers' College Station Café" opened here. Often erroneously written and recorded as "Royder's", it was a spin-off of Royers' Round Top Cafe, an eatery with pies and unique menu offerings has gotten the attention of food TV shows and other sources of press for its food, décor, and the fact that Round Top, Texas was (in 1998) less than 100 people. Of course, in a brief time in the late 1990s, you didn't have to go southwest of Brenham to eat here, as there was a sister store right here, in College Station.

By 1999, it was gone and it remained that way for several years before NailSpa moved in, which I believe was 2003, though I can't find first-hand sources for such. It's a shame a vintage restaurant has to be used this way on a prominent corner, but it is what it is.

UPDATE 06-02-2021: The sixth update for this page did a mild rewrite for this article including adding better opening/closing dates. Also it added [southwest parkway] to the labels.
UPDATE 08-12-2024: Corrected typo and attempted to reconcile the Pelican's Wharf/Pasghetti's changeover.
UPDATE 09-13-2024: Newspaper evidence shows that Pelican's Wharf closed in 1995 for Pasghetti's opening later in the year. It looks like Pasghetti's didn't make it to the end of 1996, however.

Southwest Crossing

The sun angle was bad, plus it was taken on my old cell phone camera (circa 2011-2012)
Southwest Crossing was built in the mid-2000s, I believe it was late 2005 or early 2006 when it was completed. As far as a 15-year-old center goes, tenant turnover is surprisingly low, so here's what we got so far, starting from the side closest toward the university (from the left, should you be looking at it head on) and ordered in terms of addresses. You can see a PDF here (archived from here) of the center. Note that they call it "Southwest Crossing at Bee Creek", though the creek behind it is not Bee Creek, though it does drain into it.

The first thing to see is the stand-alone Layne's Chicken Fingers (which I don't have a photo of), the second Layne's ever and their first expansion. Still branded as "Layne's of College Station" as it was known when it opened in November 2006, and was far more modern than their Eastgate store. This has the address of 1301 Wellborn Road. When it opened and for many years before the franchisee bought the parent company, it offered nothing but chicken fingers, Texas toast, fries, and small containers of potato salad and sauce. The cups didn't even have Layne's branding. With the purchase of the stores by the franchised version, they now offer milkshakes and additional sauce varieties.

Behind that was originally C.C. Creations at 1311 Wellborn, and the first big tenant to open, moving from their warehouse center on Holleman. Interestingly, in 2013, they moved out, consolidating with the Trophies location (Harvey Mitchell Pkwy. and Southwood) into the former Red Oak Sportswear building (very close to where they were before). Later on, this became a fly-by-night tutoring operation (one-on-one, not a group "here's how to pass the tests" type) called Aggieland Tutoring. Around 2017, part of the space became Texas State Optical (now MyEyeDr), and another part briefly became Vivint Smart Home. A section still remains vacant and is rumored to become a restaurant (a drive-through was installed but never used).

The next building, 1411 Wellborn, has four spaces. The first one (Ste. 100) was originally (2006-2007) The Beverage Oasis, a liquor store, then Haix Stores, a shoe store that operated from summer 2009 to 2013 (the signage remained up for a while after that). Tacobar replaced it in fall 2016 and closed in late 2021 in preparation of moving to 404 Jane Street. Nick the Greek opened in suite 100 in February 2023 to replace Tacobar. It is the first Nick the Greek location in Texas (and the gyros are excellent). Suite 200 was originally New York Subs (1411 Wellborn Ste. 200) which opened in 2007 (reported as "New York NY Fresh Deli" but the signage was New York Subs). I can't confirm or deny it was the same restaurant at 301 College Main. In early 2009 it was rebranded as Sub Culture (legally overnight, likely because the master franchising company out of Arizona went under) and finally closed in 2011. In early 2012 it became "Harold's Hot Dogs & Ice Cream", a local outfit serving hot dogs and ice cream. Harold's itself was also a rename from the displaced Maggie Moo's from Rock Prairie Crossing. Harold's also expanded the menu to hot dogs but it closed in June 2014. (While some bemoaned the loss of its oatmeal cookie ice cream, promises to add a fryer to add french fries went unfulfilled...how could you serve hot dogs but not fries?). In spring 2015, it reopened as another Kolache Rolf's location but closed permanently in 2018. It is currently planned to be a location of Mochinut, which will sell mochi donuts and Korean corn dogs. The next tenant (Ste. 300) opened in January 2006 as University Book Store, one of the first tenants to land in the center. It only lasted a few months before the chain went under and ended up being a leasing office for the Woodlands of College Station apartment complex for several years. It ended up being Anytime Fitness, then Aerofit Express (closing before the chain was sold), and finally Marethouse Fitness, a locally-owned fitness center that had signage up during COVIDmania but later opened by late 2020/early 2021. Suite 500 (no 400) The Beach Tanning Salon (Ste. 400) was one of the original tenants opened in 2006, but it closed by the end of 2014. Later it became the similar Tiki Tan, but it closed in the summer of 2019.

The last building has two tenants with the address of 105 Southwest Parkway, holding a C&J Barbecue (third location) and Hungry Howie's Pizza, the latter being the first College Station-Bryan location in town. Both opened in 2006. The Hungry Howie's is still the only HH's Pizza in the county, as a second location in town closed after a few years). Here's two more pictures from 2012 of the center building.




Two more things that weren't covered in the original post is Copper Creek Condos behind the shopping center at 301 Southwest Parkway (built in 2016). Predating the center (but listed as "pad site available", so it's up for redevelopment) is a Citgo. The Citgo was built with a 7-Eleven in 1986. In the early 1990s the market was sold to E-Z Mart, which began to shed stores later. Since around 2002 it has been a Zip'N, though as a brand name is kind of meaningless.

UPDATE 02-15-2024: Everything has been updated in a major rewrite, from the fate of Layne's to the legacy Citgo. A new PDF was added, too.
UPDATE 04-21-2024: After their first opening got canned, Mochinut opened for the first time on March 27, 2024. I was their first customer.
UPDATE 08-14-2024: Suite 500 was later Palm Beach Tan (as of 2022), in August 2024 Half-Baked Goodness, a cookie shop, opened in the space.

Parkway Square

The Kroger's facade was once dated but at least looked okay as compared to this disaster.
This was one of the first posts on the blog, and has of course gone through numerous updates and rewrites (a rather extensive one in 2013 with updates in 2014). The post originally started out with a post back on the HAIF many years ago when I was young and relatively naïve. Parkway Square holds a good bit of nostalgia for me (of course) and by this point, most of the buildings around it have been covered, something not even conceived when the post was originally made: Red Line Burgers across the street, Fort Shiloh, Manor House Inn, and Shipley Do-Nuts.


Construction on Parkway Square seems to have taken a long time, it opened in 1982 (from what I've heard from DrFood, and confirmed by KBTX, but I also wonder if this is one of those "self-confirming things" where KBTX just "researched" it here) but construction was announced in 1979. Part of the problem must have the drainage, as the parking lot is built out of numerous concrete "squares" sitting on top of a drainage area. In 2016, the center was updated, giving the Kroger a repaint to make it look miles nicer after an unfortunate stucco disaster, as well as giving a new roadside sign, replacing its dated early 1980s signage with something that is bland but at least modern. This lasted a matter of months.


Aerial of shopping center being built, from Project HOLD
Growing up in the 1990s in College Station was a time when there was a wide variety of supermarkets, where there was an H-E-B Pantry, two Albertsons stores, a Kroger, an AppleTree, and prior to around 1997, a Winn-Dixie and a Randalls. Of course, none of that mattered if you only went to two. For me, those were the H-E-B Pantry at Holleman and Texas Avenue (now a DSW) and the Kroger.

H-E-B Pantry of course was nice and homey, but it was Kroger that was the cooler, better one (even if it was older), and that was the anchor that was always there at Parkway Square, so I'd like to share a few words about it. It was a classic "Greenhouse" Kroger with "bauhaus" lettering if I recall correctly (there are lots of Flickr pictures related to that and what they mean), there was a red stripe running the perimeter of the store, the deli/bakery area (it was a small, combined department, and still is) had some seating near the entrance to the video department (more on that later), and the entrances and exits were very small and simple. One door in, one door out, operating by spring-loaded carpets. This was at the far right end of the store (that is, if you were looking at it from Texas Avenue). They had large arrows on them.

But enough on Kroger for now, we'll discuss that red stripe and all in a second. To maintain compatibility with the Texas Avenue directory I made, I'll have to start from the Firestone at the corner, which I'm not sure is actually part of the shopping center.

2400 - Firestone is on the corner at Brentwood and Texas Avenue. It renovated sometime in the mid-2000s or so, but about the time it happened, we had quit going there (it was once the "go-to" spot for car fixes for my family--until a management change). It appears it is the original tenant, as it was listed in the 1984 phone book.

2402D - The combined 2402 space (all tenants) is taken by "China King Buffet". This used to be Old Country Buffet, which I never liked, even before I stopped liking (and started hating) Golden Corral. I think it closed circa 2004, along with others in the state. It later became China King Buffet by the mid-2000s, which I remember eating at once. It was bland, and seemed overly large for the space, but I don't remember getting sick from it, which is probably why it has still stayed in business without any name changes (it did "renovate" once though). It remains open as of July 2016, though the recent renovation took away its distinctive "peak" shaped storefront from the OCB days. I might have a picture somewhere, I should add that in a future update. I actually think this was originally a Chinese restaurant originally...there was originally one "B B's Chinese Restaurant" in the early 1980s, though sharing the address of Firestone (which did exist at the time and was new) instead of its modern address, 2402-D.

2404 - RAC Rent-a-Center has been here for the last several years. It absorbed old space from other retailers, like Paradise Scuba, which was located at 2404C prior to moving to the old Putt-Putt site in 2008. At 2404B, there was Champion Firearms, which moved out around 2003 when the new center with Hobby Lobby and Ross Dress for Less was built.

2406A - Resale & More is here and has been here since at least around 2009. I don't remember what was here before it.

2406B - Jackson Hewitt moved here after 2008, it used to be closer to the Southwest Parkway side, but it has since moved on. (I don't know exactly when, probably late 2010s).

2406D - USA Nails I believe has been here for a long time, possibly changing its name from another nail salon.

2408 - The original 2408 (please ignore the typo on the official PDF) was a TG&Y Family Center.

It was a larger version of the TG&Y five-and-tens (basically, a discount store, which almost every five-and-ten did). It's worth noting that the parent company of TG&Y sold out in October 1985 (same time as this ad), so I'm guessing TG&Y didn't last much longer here.


After the closure of TG&Y, it (eventually) became Gold's Gym and Amber's, an arts & crafts store based out of Dallas. The Amber's opened in 1988 when it moved from Post Oak Square, and after Amber's closed (it closed a few years after most of the other stores in the chain, lasting well into 1996), it became MJDesigns before they too went bankrupt, at which point it became Stein Mart. After Gold's moved in the early 2000s, it became King Dollar (opened 2003) and Harbor Freight Tools (opened 2004). For years, Harbor Freight took 2408A, King Dollar next door took 2408D, and Stein Mart took 2408B.

Stein Mart unfortunately went bankrupt in 2020 and closed all of its stores.

2410 - Initially a location of "Chuck-E-Cheese Pizza Time Theatre" (as the chain was called), which was gone by 1989, with the area not getting another Chuck E. Cheese until the year 2005. That means, of course, that growing up, I never got to have any birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese because it didn't exist in my town, but that also means I was spared any childhood trauma from the animatronics.

After that it became one of the more intriguing concepts in the history of Kroger supermarkets that I've never seen anywhere else...an attached video store called Family Center Video, though admittedly the set-up was pretty useless. Because of the differences in elevation between Kroger and the video store, about three feet, there were stairs and a ramp (it may or may not have been ADA compliant, at least by today's standards), but the ramp was usually gated off, meant for those with disabilities and not for those with big shopping carts. I don't think I saw ANYONE actually transfer between the Kroger store and the video store, especially considering that it wasn't near any checkouts or entryways inside the Kroger. It probably would've been cheaper to demolish it and drop it to Kroger's level, which would let it be used for food and drug space, and perhaps ultimately save the store (see below).

FCV disappeared pretty quickly after the arrival of Hastings (probably closing 1999), and the space sat empty until Half Price Books moved in around the early 2000s (2003/2004), and that was after the Kroger moved in. If you walked in HP Books near (ironically) the video section, you could notice a slight depression when you walked near the wall. In the original (carpeted) video store, there was a counter near that, in the far left end, plus a big metal "cage" in the middle of the FVC. This was where the kid's videos were, including Pink Panther shorts, Barney, and Bananas in Pajamas. The video store closed in the late 1990s (1998, 1999), perhaps because of the fact that you couldn't buy groceries at the video side, or vice versa, but the restrooms were kept into the Half Price Books era, and may still be there. The Half Price Books replaced it circa 2003/2004, and was there up until 2011. In 2012, it became "College Depot", which sells A&M branded stuff (always a popular choice) and items for dorms (a good idea, actually), and despite being a bit pricey, it ended up moving up to a slightly larger place when it took to half of the old Winn-Dixie/Lacks in mid-2014, and 2410 remained vacant until January 2020 when Uptown Cheapskate moved in.

This is looking straight through to the old entrance from the Kroger. Prior to the video store's closure, there was a small area with seating.

2412 - The biggest tenant of the plaza, Kroger, was just a bit over 46k square feet, which is far smaller than the H-E-B, though it was larger than the Pantry. In July 2016, it was announced that the Kroger would be closing forever in August. Seeing how it's the largest and one of the longest-lasting tenants in the center, let's talk about it a bit.

The history of how this Kroger came to be is a bit murky, as it was a former "Greenhouse" store (image links for those who have no idea what that means) but was also known as "Kroger Family Center" through most of its life and had a store number (997) usually assigned to those were full-fledged Kroger Family Center stores, like the one in Bryan was .

Originally a red stripe ran the perimeter of the store, which I loved as a kid. Notice in the hack job of a renovation they did, they didn't even bother getting identical tiles.

One more thing I remember was that the milk area contained a lower ceiling and was tucked in a little corner of the store, forced down that way by the beer aisle (which, by the way, was once rumored to have sold more kegs than any other supermarket in the nation). Little plastic mock-ups of milk (and an orange juice) displayed prices. I've never seen anything like it since.

The floorplan resembled, except for the aforementioned entrance to the video store, the "Superstore" design in terms of floorplan (and some other people on this page back that up).


The Kroger was unofficially known as the "Kroger Family Center" even into the 2000s, even though they never had the Family Center merchandise mix, it was planned to be so, even gaining the store number that the Family Center stores had instead of the common early 1980s Greenhouse stores. I don't believe it was ever a Family Center, as it was built as a definite Greenhouse.

This is where the original exits were. You had to go straight and then left out through tiny doors.
Produce bags had nutrition facts printed on them (of fruits and vegetables), they had sample cookies, which were better than the store-bought pre-packaged stuff and did make shopping at Kroger a pleasure in my growing up years, and the bottom of the cart was spacious enough that even a 9-year-old kid could fit in there. Well, around 2001 or so, it renovated (very cheaply) to a then-contemporary décor package and rebuilt the facade so that there could be offices above the old "greenhouse" area, and pretty much meant that everything about the Kroger that was cool was gone, and it became just as dated as before and still not nearly as nice as the Kroger Signature to the south or the new H-E-B to the north.

Were these tiles even touched? Gross!

Most of my visits to Kroger post-renovation have been for convenience. I remember being mildly impressed post-renovation in early 2002, when my brother took me there to buy some dry ice, but it got dated and dirty VERY quickly, and most of my subsequent visits have been disappointments. It wasn't anything like the Rock Prairie Kroger or the H-E-B. The produce was sub-par (with a "little too ripe" smell), the international foods section was a disappointment (they put taco seasoning in this department), and generally everywhere else was slightly smelly and generally disappointing. When KBTX announced the closure in 2016, I was a bit surprised that it would come this soon but also had a twinge of sadness, as this was, after all, my childhood's Kroger (in August 2016 it closed permanently). For a brief time, the empty Kroger would come to look pretty rough, with graffiti on the windows, but it re-opened around June 2018 as another "TruFit Athletic Clubs".


2414 - To the left of the Kroger growing up was Roly Poly Rolled Sandwiches, which was in the Parkway Square of my youth (even if it opened in 1999, as I later found out, and not 1997). It lasted into the early 2000s with the sign and interior décor remaining up until the mid-2000s). I always thought it was a one-off, but it was actually a full franchise concept. Roly Poly sat vacant for a while, then it became "Next Level Sports" circa 2008-2009 (mostly tennis), and after that BVMMA (Brazos Valley Mixed Martial Arts). I believe it's vacant again, after BVMMA moved to the mall a few years back.

2414A - Texas State Optical has been here for as long as I can remember, probably even as far back as 1996. I would have to pull out my directory scan to confirm that though. It too has closed up by 2018, though.

2414B - Based on what I could find, it looks like TSO has absorbed this space, but originally this was The Cork Liquor Store (mid-1990s at least) and became Whiskey Charlie's in 2009 following a purchase of the local stores. Liquor stores usually did good business next to supermarkets as Texas law prohibits hard liquors and spirits on grocery store shelves, and every supermarket in town has a nearby liquor store that supplies the "harder stuff" you can't get at the store. For the College Station H-E-B, it's Spec's (even though it's a stoplight down), for the Tejas Center H-E-B it's Libations, for the Tower Point H-E-B, it's Whiskey Charlie's #3, and both College Station Albertsons had Western Beverages nearby, as does the Bryan Kroger. The Rock Prairie Kroger likewise has a nearby Spec's (formerly JJ's). The closure of Whiskey Charlie's in about 2012-2013 should've been a red flag that the Kroger wasn't going to make it.

2416A - Like China King, this space (a restaurant) takes up the 2416 space as well. Honey-B Ham & Deli (not to be confused with "Honeybaked Ham", a chain) was here for a long time. In late June 2009 it closed and was replaced with Taz (though not immediately), an Indian restaurant/buffet. I finally ate there in 2015 (and the first time I had goat in well over a decade). It was fine, and might share more when the restaurant eventually closes.

2416B - Advance America Cash Advance is next, and that used to be a Christian bookstore in the late 1990s and early 2000s, though results are turning up for a Pack & Mail. Maybe it was Smoothie King that the bookstore was in. Advance America mentions that this opened in 2003. Sounds right.

2416C - Smoothie King was here in the early to mid 2000s before moving to near the College Station H-E-B. Later on, it became My Party Palace (I believe around 2007-ish, since the chain was founded in 2005). It was part of a chain out of the Austin area to do princess-themed party planning for young girls, but it ran headlong into the recession, and all eight other locations closed. The College Station location was the last to close, closing in December 2014. In 2020, it reopened as Le Macaron French Pastries.

2418 - On the corner sat the Baskin-Robbins. It faced both the main parking lot and Southwest Parkway and had doors to both. Opened in 1988 and featuring "thirty-one-derful flavors", this was my favorite ice cream parlor for years. I had fond memories of this place. Anyway, Baskin-Robbins became "KaleidoScoops" around 1999 (though I swear it was a year or so later), the "32 Degrees: The Ice Cream Club", then just "32 Degrees" until it closed entirely, which was maybe 2004-2006 (by this time Cold Stone had opened up). Later on this was replaced with Corner Cuts, as it was the corner and they did do haircuts...but later they changed names to Classic Cuts (in spring 2016) before closing a few years later. The space is now Aggieland Supplements, which I believe opened 2019.

2418B - Then there's Gomez Shoe Repair (originally Cobblestone Quality Shoe Repair, I vaguely remember when they changed the name, but I forgot when). I can't find a 2418A either, probably because where 2418A would be is just a wall. Despite what the leasing plan says, I'm pretty sure that whatever was before Advance America (possibly dating back to the first tenant) used the space there and walled it off.

2418C - This has been more or less vacant for a while, between late 2009 (when they signed the lease) and 2011 (when they were locked out), this was Moosegus. I believe this used to be the original Subway (see Subway's entry further down). In the previous version of this, I claimed they never opened. I was wrong, they did! It was a skateboard/wakeboard/snowboard store. The immediate problem with that it was for a market that didn't exist. At the time it opened (late 2009/early 2010), the skateboard park there on Rock Prairie didn't exist, BearX off Deacon didn't exist, and snowboarding? Well...you know the answer.

It is now the home of Liberty Tattoo, which it has been since at least summer 2018.

2418D2 - This was Farmers Insurance, which I think was the old Jackson Hewitt. The latter was intact in 2008, and had opened several years prior to that, but by 2008 the sign was rather faded. It later reopened as Lara & Associates Insurance.

2418D - This Subway store the first Subway in the state of Texas, sort of. By sort of, I mean, it was originally on this side of the shopping center but at some point in the mid-2000s (after a logo change but before 2007), it switched from just a few spaces down. It's store #628 (the others have numbers in the thousands), and although it switched slots in the shopping center, the first Subway in Texas is in the shopping center on Southwest Parkway. I learned that when applying for a job at a local Subway (as Centex Subway did a group interview...and my old early 1980s phone books later confirmed) and although I ultimately didn't get the job, it was still a really neat piece of information. I seem to remember a store called "Beepers" (or at least the facade being called such) being around here until around 2000.

2418E - This was the former Buck's Pizza, closed circa 2010. They left the menu board intact, which you can see below. Never ate at Buck's all that much, but they had okay pizza rolls when I did have it. (For what it's worth, Buck's was here in 1998). As of 2016, it reopened as "Twisted Noodle Cafe" (guess they got rid of the pizza equipment), which I have yet to eat at.

2418F - For many years, this was FabricCare Cleaners. It had a drive-through window, but it moved in the mid-2000s, and became Tobacco Junction, which utilized the drive-through but closed after less than a few years. The awning was removed it stayed vacant for several years. It is now Daiquiri Barn, which has done even better since it opened (in 2018-2019?) due to state law changes on drive-through liquor sales.




2420 - Based on the fact that McDonald's ads in the October 1985 paper list the only two stores at the time (University Drive and Villa Maria, both of which were torn down and rebuilt about a decade ago), but a 1984 phone book did show this store being built and open, suggesting that it was opened around the same time of the Kroger shopping center after all). It had an extremely cramped and strange ramp orientation regarding the drive-through, so when the McDonald's was completely rebuilt around 2005-2006, the playground was removed to alleviate this situation. The playground was the worst: it wasn't much more than a wooden structure resembling a spaceship. You climbed up, looked out...and that was all. My brother claimed it replaced a much cooler and better playground. When it was rebuilt, there wasn't a playground at all, just a couple of Nintendo GameCubes with things like Mario Kart. Within a year or so, the controllers (they had been fixed in with metal) were so dirty and worn out. The control stick, for instance, looked like it had been chewed off.

The sign is fairly unique as well--it was originally a full McDonald's sign, but it was destroyed by a windstorm circa 2009-2010. It either had gotten grandfathered in from new sign ordinances and couldn't rebuild, or maybe McDonald's was just cheap--but they removed the damaged golden arches entirely and replaced the "McDonald's Restaurant" sign with a new simple "M"...and it wasn't even a real sign, it was just fabric that stretched over the sign skeleton (though it has held up for a number of years). In 2018, the restaurant was renovated to be another casualty of McDonald's quest to get rid of mansard roof restaurants, even newer ones. (It doesn't look like the picture anymore).

Note the fake owls mounted on the roof to scare off birds that roost on the stoplights at certain times of the year.

This photo makes the area surrounding it seem leafy and green. Not entirely trickery, a large tree was once adjacent to the McDonald's, torn down for widening of Texas Avenue. The butchered sign is in the background.

2422 - This was originally home to the Kroger fuel center (built in 2005 and torn down after the Kroger closed). After remaining empty as a repaved concrete patch for a few years, the concrete was torn out for a new Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurant, the first new Popeyes restaurant in the area since the one at Graham Road closed nearly a decade ago.

So that's my story of one of the most nostalgic -to me- shopping centers in this area, as this stretch tended to be my stomping grounds growing up. I hope you enjoyed it. This post featured extensive updates in 2013, 2014, July of 2015 and July of 2016. In April 2019 some new additions were made. In August 2020, another wide-scale update of the page was done.

UPDATE 02-04-2021: Made another update to account for a new Popeyes, as well as adding Advance America's opening, and Le Macaron. A few other changes were made.
UPDATE 04-22-2021: A rewrite of the post-TG&Y tenants was done, including the mention of MJDesigns, more info on Amber's, and more accurate dates on King Dollar and Harbor Freight Tools. Removed tag [2000s].