1800 Texas Avenue South

The strip center as of November 2025. The foundation of Harvey Washbanger's/Mazzio's with its flooring can also be seen. Previously, the view of the wall would've been impossible. Photo taken by author.
Briefly mentioned in the Harvey Washbanger's post (written a few months before a fire destroyed the restaurant)1, was the original 1800 Texas Avenue South tenant, Pepper's, an "old fashioned" hamburger restaurant (in vogue at the time as Fuddruckers and similar establishments like Flakey Jake's)2. Owned by the Ken Martin group, Pepper's opened in 1978 (there was another reference to the address a few years earlier, the "B-CS Flea Market" in 1975).

In the late 1980s it was redeveloped as a new strip center (as part of also redeveloping the former Kashim) with most of it occupied by 2-Day Video, a video rental chain based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Around late 1996, Blockbuster Entertainment (buoyed by corporate parent Viacom at the time, a fact that is rarely factored into the company's decline) purchased 2-Day Video and converted it to their name in early 1997.³ Blockbuster eventually jumped to the top of the hill at the old site of https://csroadsandretail.blogspot.com/2011/01/toms-bbq-and-steakhouse.html">Tom's Barbecue & Steakhouse, where it would remain until the chain went bankrupt.

As of 2025 the stores here include, from left to right, Game X Change, CleanEatz, Top Nails, Cricket, CPR Cell Phone Repair, and Rocks Discount Vitamins-n-More. I've lost track of what exactly was what, but going back in Google Maps, CleanEatz was Chill Milkshake and Waffle Bar (opened 2021 but maybe for like a year or two at most), Yogurtland (2010-2019)⁴, and in 2007 was another location of Western Beverages. Top Nails has been there since 2005 (it was Planet Beach Tanning Salon in the early 2000s), Cricket was here since 2007, though originally with a different logo), and the phone repair place was Pro-Cuts (which was an early tenant, operating from 1988 to 2013) but not before becoming Pinot's Palette for a few years. Rock's used to be "Nutrition Central", but not before becoming Just for Hair. There were others too, I remember Texas Avenue Cigars, which had a green sign that resembled the Texas Avenue signs on the stoplights (it later moved to a new location as Cavalier Cigar Company. There was also Hurricane Office Supply & Printing (an early tenant from 1986 but did not last more than a few years) and more than likely a few others I missed.

1. The College Station Fire Department unfortunately was not able to save Harvey Washbanger's, but they DID save the strip center from the fire, there wasn't even smoke damage on the walls.
2. Our area did not have a Flakey Jake's, though there were two in Houston in the mid-1980s for a brief time.
3. Unlike 2-Day Video, Blockbuster had a policy against NC-17 movies, meaning that titles like The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover and Showgirls would've been removed and/or replaced with edited R-rated versions.
4. Also, very briefly, "Swirls" afterward; more of the same. Probably lost the franchise.

What was on Texas Avenue before Super 8?

A nice picture of the original 301 Texas courtesy The Eagle. Note the Red Barn Cafe behind it.

Will I ever run out of things to talk about on Texas Avenue? Not yet! Much like the Fairfield Inn next to it (well, it's Best Western as of this writing), the College Station Super 8 was a 1990s redevelopment of older businesses on that lot. While the Fairfield Inn, er, Best Western, is in Bryan, the Super 8 (301 Texas Avenue South) is in College Station. But before we get to the Super 8 there's what needs to be covered before that.

301 Texas Avenue was originally A-1 Auto Parts when it opened in 1976, a NAPA parts dealership, but closed in the mid-1980s to be replaced with Brazos Valley Small Engine in spring 1986, which then became Aggie Solar Guard in 1989 (renamed to Ag Solar Guard by late 1990) but in 1993 it relocated to 3410 S. Texas Avenue. (More on that another time.)

But of course, before A-1 Auto Parts, one door down was a business originally home to Tastee-Freez. Tastee-Freez was here starting in 1957 to the early 1970s. Tastee-Freez counted about 1,800 units in the 1950s and 1960s but imploded as they couldn't control franchises. (Good luck finding a Tastee-Freez that's not part of a Wienerschnitzel or Original Hamburger Stand). Tastee-Freez (315 Texas Avenue S., but I have seen the address given as 209 originally) soon gave way to Discount Liquor No. 2 around 1971-1972, and by 1974 was home to The Grapevine (see this post). By 1977 The Grapevine had moved for The Senter-Piece (a floral shop). Despite this rapid changeover in tenants, the Tastee-Freez was still on many peoples' mind and the Grapevine mentioned it was in the former building. The Senter-Piece closed in 1981 and by 1983 it had given way to Brazos Valley Pools & Spas which seems to be unrelated to both a 1999 business off Highway 21 and the current (since 2008) Brazos Valley Pools & Spas mentioned when this site covered Barry Pool Company down near the end. A few years after that the pool company, it was campaign offices for Peter Geren's 1986 run for office, then became Discount Bike Company (also known as Discount Bike Repair) which operated from 1987 to 1993. (There isn't much on Discount Bike Company other than one ad at the very end selling Rollerblades). Discount Bike Company was the last tenant here, closing in 1993.

I've never been to the local Super 8 before, so I can't say much on it (looking around on the Internet it does say there are 89 rooms on three floors). It did receive a new logo after 2008 when then-parent company Wyndham Worldwide changed the logo...and sometime around 2024-2025 received red accents on the exterior.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite the recent slow-down in schedule there's more to check out! For example, we updated the Kettle article to account for the demise of Salad and Go, there's more beyond the limits of Brazos County at Numbered Exits and of course don't forget to donate on Ko-fi, we have a goal now!

Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments

We'll have to make do with Street View for this one; again (2011)
One thing that wasn't covered on that old Carbon-izer page which we've been getting our Texas Avenue information from recently was the old Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments, near the corner of East Duncan Street and Texas Avenue (1800 S. Texas Avenue). The first reference comes in 1942 in papers (not much older than that, they weren't built yet in 1935) and some references of expansion come post-war. I'm not sure when they offered apartments (they had 1&2 bedroom apartments) but there were expansions done to the property post-WWII.

There's not a lot of information to go on otherwise. It rebranded as "Texas Oaks Motel & Apartments" in the early 1970s around the time it changed hands from Preston Dishman to Sheeraz Ali Lakhani, and was initially competitive with other complexes, but eventually fell into disrepair. By 2003, the motel and two other aged motels near it (Casa Loma and Holiday Plaza) were considered to be nuisance businesses with a disproportionate amount of police calls to them (22 rooms and 52 calls for police calls for assistance over a six month period).

Here's the 2012 Street View which had a last-minute repaint as well as removing signage that advertised "color cable TV" (wildly outdated). In 2012 everyone who lived there got evicted and it was demolished within a year. Eastep Auto Sales, a used car dealer, replaced it in 2015, moving from across the street.

UPDATE 7-11-2025: Somehow the original name of the motel got missed--the Bryan Courts. Also, Preston Dishman passed away in 1962, so it was either his wife or an intermediary seller that sold the property to Lakhani.

H-E-B Bryan Times Two

The new H-E-B opened before the old one was torn down (Google Earth 2011)
Having covered both the H-E-B Pantry at Holleman and near Townshire, it's time to cover the third and final H-E-B Pantry in town...the North Bryan location. And, because of its same lot, by extension, the H-E-B that replaced it. (It's part of a broader plan to phase out the "City Directory" page on Carbon-izer).¹

While H-E-B built a new building in 1991 at 1905 Old Hearne Road, the address was previously used as "Pots of Pride" (florist) and later New Beginnings (hair salon) until around 1990, with H-E-B Pantry opening October 16, 1991. H-E-B Pantry remained nearly twenty years in the spot², though at some point rebranded to simply "H-E-B" as the company sought to eliminate the Pantry brand. By 2009, with a brand-new H-E-B to open at Tower Point and its two sister Pantry stores replaced with larger versions, work began on a new H-E-B store to replace it, almost immediately behind it.

When H-E-B opened store #644 in mid-2011, the store was three times the one it replaced (around 80,000 square feet vs. 24,000 square feet) but it was smaller and more downmarket than the other H-E-B stores. In addition to a pharmacy, a bakery, and a deli (well, "deli" by H-E-B standards anyway—they slice meat and cheese to order), it featured H-E-B's "Flaming Bird" roasted chicken concept. The larger store replaced several smaller businesses at that corner, including Sharp Propane (1609 N. Texas Avenue), Longhorn Tavern (1900 Highway 21 E.) when it was at that location from 1988 to 2009, and 1908 Highway 21 East, a car dealership, holding Atlas Motors as one of its last tenants (previously several names, including M & M Auto Sales in the mid-2000s) and Douglass Nissan Used Car Center in the late 1990s.

The address of 1601 North Texas Avenue is used for the smaller shops next to the store (attached to the building as a strip mall portion). From the H-E-B toward Brazos Valley Community Church on Highway 21 there's Fade Masters Barber Studio (formerly the spot of 4.0 Cuts, changed hands to current name between 2022 and 2025 but opened sometime in the late 2010s, a space that used to have Papa John's Pizza (it did not have the traditional logo of the chain and ended up closing after two robberies in a single day (the employees all quit), closing in early 2014. A few years later, it reopened but never gained any traction and closed for good), Safari Dental & Orthodontics (since 2011, occupies two separate storefronts), T-Mobile (opened between 2018 and 2021) and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service (at least since 2012).

As for the old H-E-B Pantry building, it was soon demolished for additional parking and an H-E-B Fuel/car wash center.

<sup>1. Archived here. Note that a number of entries are outdated and have newer/updated posts here including Mr. Hamburger, Fat Burger, Fargo's Pit BBQ, Kettle, Planet K, and Long John Silver's...among others.
2. According to the previously referenced BTU article, the store looked almost identical to the 2031 South Texas Avenue store. It was also technically signed as "H-E-B Pantry" rather than "H-E-B Pantry Foods". For more information on H-E-B Pantry Foods, please see this link.</sup>

UPDATE 05-30-2025: This ad for Zip'N shows that there was a Shell/Zip'N at the 1615 N. Texas Avenue address. It appears it was demolished for the H-E-B Pantry (just north of the current parking lot access from Texas Avenue).
UPDATE 06-08-2025: As the removal plan has been consummated the link has been removed.

Texas Hall of Fame and Rudder's Landing

I have no color pictures of the Texas Hall of Fame so here's some 1978 ads instead.
As I mentioned for what is now the post covering Foxhole Lounge, there used to be a whole post called "Stories of the West Loop" which was developed into other posts on this blog. That post also talked about the areas "beyond the border", the places where while they weren't technically far away from home, they were enough out of the way that I never saw them unless I was going on a bigger trip. Texas Hall of Fame, was of course, one of them.

Seeing as how most of the College Station-focused FM 2818 posts have been developed in some form or fashion, there needs to be more on Bryan specifically (and while Bryan content has increased in recent years--of the 110 posts from the 1/1/2020 post of O'Reilly Auto Parts Texas Avenue, College Station and 3/1/25's On the Border, nearly a third of them have been in Bryan, and I expect the trend to continue.

Most of what I could say about Texas Hall of Fame, the warehouse-like building that sat here since September 1978 and was another sight off of FM 2818/Harvey Mitchell Parkway when traveling that direction was written by The Eagle in 2003. If you still deign to give The Eagle your money you can see at the top of the page here. But I don't like broken pages and pop-ups, and neither should you, so here are the scans reproduced below.

This page is large. Click to see full size. Johnny Lyon, the sole owner of the club at the time, kept his promise—he kept the Hall alive as long as he lived....but in November 2010, Lyon passed away at the age of 73.

New ownership kept the Hall open for another year but in late December 2011, the Hall cancelled their New Years Eve events and closed permanently. The loss of the area's biggest (and most inclusive—the other dance halls catered exclusively to college students) was a mournful one, and the dance hall did not reopen (nor did a similar project announced in early 2012, the "College Station Hall of Fame", which was to be built somewhere in south College Station).

While the Hall was north of the Villa Maria/Harvey Mitchell Parkway intersection (it was north of where Panda Express is now with the address of 649 N. Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.¹, the whole thing was redeveloped as a strip center called Rudder's Landing, anchored by a new Walmart (Supercenter) which opened in March 2014.

I imagine the opening of the "west side Walmart" really cannibalized the recently-opened Townshire Walmart Neighborhood Market, but even with that the whole development was a bit anemic. Despite some plans with buildings on the north side (where the Texas Hall of Fame actually was), it remained little more than just the Walmart itself and a few smaller stores (most of the stores in the PDF in the smaller building joined in 2014-2015). Notably, Panda Express (639 North Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.) opened December 2014. Chick-fil-A joined in the early 2020s at 1542 West Villa Maria Road.

According to the most recent PDF (archived from here), the second phase of Rudder's Landing will not only incorporate the old Texas Hall of Fame space but Bryan Mobile Truck & Trailer Repair (at 683 North Harvey Mitchell Pkwy., former home of Bryan's Central Freight Lines terminal) would be torn down for Atwoods.

The PDF has several things that aren't there (yet) including the oil change place, Greater Texas Federal Credit Union (hope is dimming for that one as they gave up on their proposed Deacon/FM 2154 location amid rumors of heavy losses), and Dollar Tree. The Rapid Express Car Wash ended up opening as a Club Carwash by the time it opened in 2022², and the Subway in the shopping center moved there sometime around 2014 because of a claim of loss of business at the gas station location due to the Villa Maria/FM 2818 overpass.<sup>3

1. This only was bestowed around 1998-1999, I could find NO records of an address for them prior to this.
2. This was due to a buyout of the chain.
3. This is according to Centex Subway. Due to my experience in dealing with them I don't believe this to be the case as Popeyes continues to operate successfully, and during that timeframe there wasn't a new development that they didn't jump on. Keep in mind that there was ALREADY another Subway inside of the Walmart.</sup>

Past Lives of Harvey Washbanger's

Better days at Mazzio's (1991 ad from the Waco paper). Note the College Station location didn't offer delivery.
Located at 1802 Texas Avenue South, Harvey Washbanger's has only changed out the machines and its logo (the food, however, is less consistent) has been here since 1998.

At this point, 1998 is a long time ago; there's not too many restaurants (or stores for that matter) that have been around for that long. None of the grocery stores that were here in 1998 are here anymore (all closed or relocated) and many other restaurants have come and gone in that period. Like any long-running restaurant, it has a good gimmick. La Tour d'Argent has its "duck cards" since 1890 (now at a number approaching 1.2 million) while The Big Texan Steak Ranch has its "72 ounce steak challenge" (with a bread roll, a baked potato, shrimp cocktail, and a side salad) that has taken on many challengers over the years...while Harvey Washbangers has a laundromat.

Harvey Washbanger's was not the first restaurant here, however (as is often the case). Before even Mazzio's, we need to go back to 1975 with the opening of the Kashim Club, which might have been College Station's first black-owned business by Bennie Smedley. While initially a bar and meeting place, by late 1976 it had lunch every weekday with table service. A 1978 blurb mentioned Kashim featured "sandwiches, mixed drinks, and disco music".

In the early 1980s, Kashim closed and soon gave way to a redevelopment of the lot, which affected adjacent spot 1800 Texas Avenue South (former spot of Pepper's, a hamburger restaurant concept by the Ken Martin group...more on that another time) as well. 1802 Texas Avenue South would remain a restaurant, with Mazzio's Pizza opening in 1987. Mazzio's would bow out by the end of 1997, and in 1998, Harvey Washbanger's opened, a restaurant that featured wings, hamburgers, and other bar food-type items while also a being a full-service laundromat. With a system of lighted indicators visible from the main restaurant area ("Drink 'till your lights go out" was a common joke there), Harvey Washbanger's turned out to be a surprising success and stayed around for a very long time. The menu has changed due to various changes in kitchen management, sometimes big menus, sometimes smaller ones. In 2018, the restaurant celebrated twenty years in business, a feat that few local restaurants could brag. A few years later their logo/signage changed. While it has more distinction than their old one, it's just a backlit sign rather than neon-outlined signage.

UPDATE 03-10-2025: Tragedy has struck. [demolished] added (the latter for Kashim but unfortunately it will be torn down either way) due to extensive damage. Currently the fate of the restaurant is unknown.

UPDATE 03-26-2025: Harvey Washbanger's has announced it will not reopen.
UPDATE 10-15-2025: Removed Editor's Note about [defunct] and [demolished] since it is no longer accurate to this blog (which is why this one gets [redevelopment], as part of those changes).

Long John Silver's in Bryan

Long John Silver's, before it walked the plank. (September 2024, photo by author).
Bryan's Long John Silver's was closed and demolished in late 2024 following its condemnation, despite some new permits being filed. Based on the fact the signage remains up but empty (no "temporarily closed"), no fencing, and no work on a replacement restaurant (foundation, etc.) I'm going to assume it's done for permanently...but I can't know for sure until it becomes a clearly abandoned lot. If it turns out to be rebuilt, then an update will be added later.

The original plan was to release this post on "International Talk Like a Pirate Day", or rather September 19th, 2024. Sadly, I was out traveling and was not able to actually post it as planned. I'll still keep the pirate-speak (with help from Monkeyness) because it would've stayed up past "TLAPD" anyway. With that being said...

Long John Silver's Seafood Shoppe opened in January 1978 at 3224 S. Texas Avenue (the College Station location came later) 'n the nautical-themed galley operated fer o'er 40 years at that location. By the time these pictures were taken, the buildin' was in rough shape; the signage had nah been touched in decades 'n thar appeared t' be a large hole in the side o' the buildin' which was boarded up. At some point the "Seafood Shoppe" name had been dropped as well.

Aye, like the College Station location thar be drug busts at this galley, with one incident involvin' PCP but the restaurant continued for more than another decade.

"Avast," said county officials sometime in 2024, "the buildin' be in bad shape," 'n indeed a new filin' fer a new building was posted so this location will soon be torn down 'n rebuilt. The drive-through remained open, though.

Here be a few more pictures, including both simultaneously being condemned and open for business. Yar.

UPDATE 01-24-2025: The restaurant is indeed being rebuilt.
UPDATE 06-12-2025: The restaurant opened today (with new signage) and long lines (and creating a minor traffic jam). [2020s] added to post.

Former Bud Ward Volkswagen

From John Ellisor comes this picture of Bud Ward Volkswagen. I think I see the old Holiday Inn in the background.
The pad site where Hancock Whitney bank (at 1912 Texas Avenue South) is today has its own history that's set apart from the large H-E-B store behind it. The water tower that stands guard over the H-E-B replaced a smaller water tower almost directly at the corner of the intersection, where the H-E-B gas station is today.

The first reference I can find to the address is Harry Dishman Mazda (which moved from 603 Texas Avenue) and in 1975 that was sold and became Richard Barton Mazda-Volvo. It became simply Richard Barton Mazda (the Volvo line was terminated around this time) in early 1977 before changing hands to Bud Ward Volkswagen in 1977, which still carried Mazda cars (as well as Subaru). A 1978 article from The Eagle mentions that Ward also added Porsche and Audi lines (but did not stock top-of-the-line Porsche cars) when the facility expanded. In December 1988 Bud Ward sold the dealership to University Toyota of Bryan, which announced it would close their location in Bryan and move. What ended up happening instead was that after the Bud Ward inventory was cleared, University Toyota instead opened University Mitsubishi on the site in mid-1989. This closed in 1992, with Charlie's, a nightclub, announcing opening by year-end. Charlie's failed within a year, and in 1994 the building was torn down for El Chico. In 1994, it opened as what I remember the corner being, El Chico opened in 1994. El Chico is still around in some form and despite a logo and image update, there's only 5 locations left in Texas from what was once dozens.

It was maintained as a pad site when the lot was redeveloped as H-E-B, but closed in late 2005, citing declining popularity and access reasons (by that time, construction on widening Texas Avenue had begun). A few years later, the building and its parking lot was demolished entirely (including the old parking lot) for MidSouth Bank, which was rebranded as Hancock Whitney in late 2019.

UPDATE 10-06-2025: Update with new post title and clarifying existing content.

Former Valero at Holleman and Wellborn

Pore Jud's is Daid (Picture by author, 12/15/20)

The Valero at Holleman and Wellborn was demolished this month. The original convenience store at the station at 1011 Wellborn, dating back to at least 1993 was Jud's Food Stores out of Brenham. The station was built in 1989 as per BCAD but Jud's Food Stores was established in 1990, so depending on when the station opened, it may or may not have had that name. In fact, by the time the station opened, it was Jud's Food Stores #9. The first four stores were located in Brenham, with store 5 being in Seguin (2999 North Highway 123 Bypass) and 6 at 701 East Pierce Street in Luling. (This indicates that stores one through eight were older rebranded stations).

In any case, 1011 Wellborn was originally branded as an Exxon and remained that way for years. It also had a drive-through car wash and when I was younger it was occasionally used by my folks. I believe this was because there was a deal where you could use for free or very cheaply if you purchased gas, but at some point in the late 1990s this was dropped.

In 2000, the station was expanded with U Wash, which opened at the same address (though technically, the address by BCAD's number was 1001 Wellborn) and same ownership. U Wash was a self-serve car wash with several docks and was accessible only through the Exxon's parking lot. More change would come to the station a few years later, when it became a Valero in the mid-2000s (2006?). This Valero came slightly before the local Diamond Shamrock conversions to my memory, and was the first time I saw such a station.

Sometime around the same time of the Valero conversion, the convenience store became "Cross Roads Corner Store Aggieland" (the signage where Jud's was, on the left side of the door, was whited out). From then on, the station didn't see much activity in the station. The station did add Krispy Krunchy fried chicken inside in 2016 but this wasn't well advertised (not even on the outside of the store). However, U Wash was later closed and torn down within a few years of that without much fanfare, signifying (if subtly) that things were coming to an end.

In any case, I found in December that the Valero had removed the prices from the sign (though it was not covered in any way), with the gas station store emptied of merchandise, though the power was sill connected, given how the Monster and Coca-Cola coolers were still glowing. The drive-through car wash also had not been gutted yet. The whole thing looked as if it might reopen as something else, or at least be weeks away from being torn down.

Not so much—when I got around to it a few days later, the canopy was gone, the sign was gone, and Jud's wasn't much more than a foundation. (The car wash was still intact but gutted).

The rumor mill states that the corner of Holleman and Wellborn will be the home of a new McDonald's restaurant, moving from the corner of Marion Pugh and George Bush as part of the underpass construction. Unfortunately, this almost certainly means that the new restaurant will be a soulless brown building with silver accents rather than an example of the slightly nicer restaurants McDonald's was building/renovating with in the early 2000s, as the current restaurant is.

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE 04-06-2021: Took out the other Jud's Food Stores mention, as it looks like the numbers were wrong, and they reused #7. Maybe if we ever do Brenham-related stuff, it might be worth a mention. Either way, College Station was the largest market Jud's settled in.
UPDATE 11-30-2021: McDonald's has been confirmed for the site, at least one half of it.
UPDATE 10-2-2023: In or around September 30, 2023, McDonald's opened at the site, replacing the location at George Bush Drive and Marion Pugh.

Burger Mojo, University Drive East

Burger Mojo doesn't have parking lot access from University Drive East, but neither did the previous tenant. (Picture by author. 7/29/20)

Yes, I know it has been a few months since the last update but this site is not yet dead. I actually have been making a few piecemeal updates here and there, and after evaluating the scenario, I will probably still post articles on this site rather than my own site (Carbon-izer), especially as 200+ articles seemed impractical to move. The "new" Bryan-College Station page includes several "street listings" with addresses in order, and hopefully contain some of the "less interesting" addresses that aren't much more than a photo and a brief blurb of information. (There are a number of recent "filler" posts like that on the blog).

Today's subject is 209 University Drive East.

The previous building here was a 1977-built office building that was essentially two connected octagons with a center portion connecting them. There were four suites, and each tenant got a floor of one of the octogons, with the center portion having access to all four (the upper level tenants had staircases, like an apartment building). Here's what the building looked like, with it last tenant, Lovan Animal Care, moving out at the end of end of 2015. (One of the other tenants that was there was "Hypnotik Salon & Tan", this left a year or two prior). This was part of the redevelopment of the block that included (but had nothing to do with) the Embassy Suites next door.

Note that the Google Maps Street View has a stone facade on the first level, that was actually a renovation over the original facade, which was mostly wood (which it was as of 2007).

Plans were to redevelop the site as a strip mall with Marco's Pizza and Dunkin' Donuts back in 2016, but ultimately they moved on, with Marco's Pizza going in near Tarrow, and Dunkin' settling in near Deacon and Wellborn (and as of this writing, is wildly popular, with cars still lining up well after dark). Instead it was developed (and opened in December 2019) as Burger Mojo, a new fast casual hamburger concept by the Eccell Group.

Even in a time where restaurants have really gotten screwed over recently, Burger Mojo has announced a second location, at a former Wendy's restaurant at Holleman and Harvey Mitchell Parkway South (and some big news with that, check it out).

Jimmy Jackson's Enco, 3000 South Texas Avenue

Nothing remains of the first Jimmy Jackson's Exxon but a rather standard Eckerd-turned-CVS. (Photo by author, 3/20)
Built in the 1960s at 3000 South Texas Avenue, "Jackson's Enco" eventually became Jimmy Jackson's Exxon (in the early 1970s, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed to Exxon to unify the Esso and Enco brands), and by the early 1980s, gained a second entrance when Restwood Drive was rebuilt as an extension of Villa Maria Road. The gas station was eventually sold to focus on the College Station location and in 1998, an Eckerd was built at the site and eventually converted (around late 2004) to CVS/pharmacy when parent company J.C. Penney decided to liquidate the chain.

Olive Garden's Original Location

In real life Italy, unlimited breadsticks are not a thing.
Besides marketing its food products in all the area grocery stores, General Mills brought two restaurants to the Bryan-College Station through its General Mills Restaurant Group subsidiary, Red Lobster in 1983 and Olive Garden a decade later. (The other two significant concepts at the time, Good Earth, and China Coast, never made it to the area, though the latter briefly saw Waco and Houston).

Neither my articles on Hastings or H-E-B Pantry mention Olive Garden, which sat at the corner of Texas Avenue and Holleman Drive from 1993 to 2004. The old Olive Garden met its fate when it burned down in a fire, and what was left of the building was declared a total loss.

In January or February 2005, a new Olive Garden opened at University Drive East and Earl Rudder Freeway, and by October 2005, two new buildings rose at the former Olive Garden site, a Chase bank (replacing the 2000 Texas Avenue South address), and a second building (2002 Texas Avenue South) holding Jimmy John's and Men's Wearhouse (Google Street View link). The Jimmy John's closed in late summer 2019 for reasons unknown but by that time, a Jimmy John's was operating at Rock Prairie Crossing and near Texas and University Drive East. Of course, Jimmy John's at the latter location has a somewhat interesting backstory, and that will be covered soon enough...

The ad is from the mid-1990s, before it introduced its newer logo (dropping "The" and adding what appeared to be a bunch of grapes to the logo) around 1999 (replaced in 2014 but still seen on many restaurants).

UPDATE 10-05-2025: In 2021, Pizza Hut replaced Jimmy John's.

Hullabaloo Hall and the Three Dorms Before It

The world was shut down in April 2020.
It has a long time since I added any campus TAMU buildings to this site, the last official one being added was...Scoates Hall, back in December 2014.

I used to work at Texas A&M University briefly in 2017, and I had ideas to add a number of new entries focused on TAMU buildings after the last post was done and the blog went on hiatus for one and a half years, longer than any gap in its history. As a result, those were basically cancelled, and the one post I actually had been working on, "At Home" on the Boriskie Ranch appeared nearly two years after it was supposed to. (I had also planned a big rewrite of The Commons)

This particular post was supposed to be added back in late 2014 as "Defunct Dorm Roundup" and even was to include information on Law Hall, Puryear Hall, Cain Hall (which had not yet been demolished by that point, but was no longer dorms), and Hotard Hall. Perhaps more on those another day (especially Cain Hall!)

Crocker Hall, Moore Hall, and McInnis Hall were all separate buildings but all immediately adjacent to each other and formed a "U" shape (with the open part of the U facing west, and featuring a small dorm lounge building), and from the side closest to University, it was Crocker, McInnis, and Moore. All three dorms, much like FHK, Walton/Schuhmacher Hall, the Corps dorms, and the Commons dorms, had a dorm culture in each dorm, and shared amongst other dorms. (It's weird. Observation or Internet threads only gives you a taste).

Crocker Hall was built in 1942, looking like this. McInnis was a "balcony"-style dorm built in 1964 (FHK complex is another "balcony" dorm, but culturally different), and Moore Hall was more like Crocker Hall and also built in 1942.

In 2010, the announcement came that the dorms would be replaced with a larger dorm (first on campus since the 1980s) and after the spring 2011 semester, demolition commenced. By October of that year, the dorms, the nearby "dorm lounge", and a basketball court between them and Walton Hall were gone, replaced with a big hole in the ground.

Not too long after, it was revealed the new dorm to replace it would be called Hullabaloo Hall, despite the fact that Texas A&M Galveston had already had a dorm of that same name. When Hullabaloo Hall (the one in College Station) opened in fall 2013 (at 306 University Drive), it included a new stoplight at Boyett and University, and replacing three other driveways (which were no longer as useful due to medians added on University). Dulie Bell was demolished after fall 2013 to provide more parking space for Hullabaloo Hall, and a new basketball court and a new sand volleyball court at the site of the Special Services Building.

While it doesn't have the requisite "swimming pool for wild parties", Hullabaloo Hall had other features similar to off-campus dorms (including "study rooms", etc.) and two retail tenants, a Starbucks, and a convenience store. When Hullabaloo Hall first opened, it featured a location of Rattlers' inside, but the contract ended within a year (now it's just "Aggie Express" or whatever Chartwells calls its convenience stores these days).

Former Red Line Burgers

This car wash is built on the remains of a small hamburger restaurant that despite making an impression on me, didn't even last a decade.
Before continuing on the Harvey Road series (which will be restarted next week), there's a quick stop on Texas Avenue that I've wanted to cover. One of the "College Station of the 1990s" features that I do remember was a small hamburger restaurant across from Parkway Square (which, by the way, is the most popular page on this blog)...Red Line Burgers at 2401 Texas Avenue.

The restaurant has long been a mystery, since I only remember it being boarded up before being wrecked for Shammy Express Car Wash in the early 2000s (which around 2014 renovated into Drew's Car Wash), you can see the pre-Drew's on Google Street View.

Only did a December 2014 visit to the Dallas area spark my memory as I realized a small hamburger stand was almost the exact one I'd seen in my memories. Sadly, the aforementioned Red Line is now a memory itself, having been closed the following year and demolished for a 7-Eleven, but it did last long enough to make it to a Yelp review.

Further looks into the restaurant that predated Shammy/Drew's showed that Red Line built the College Station store around 1993, and was based out of San Antonio. Even by the early 1990s, they were having some trouble keeping stores, this Corpus Christi Caller Times article about a food truck taking the name has a photo of a closed Red Line in Corpus Christi in the early 1990s.

The picture in this post is taken by the author, October 2019.

UPDATE 04-25-2021: New title, mostly.
UPDATE 08-13-2021: This was Dogs & Such (#2) from approximately 1997 to 1999. Explains why I don't remember the neon hamburger on top...

Rudy's Barbecue on Harvey Road

Always a popular choice, even on Sunday morning. (Picture by author, October 2019)
Rudy's Barbecue has long been a favorite restaurant of many, from the fatty brisket to its long picnic-style tables with red and white tablecloths and rolls of paper towels. While it has been here a good part of my childhood and all of my adult life, it was not always here. The restaurant at 504 Harvey wasn't even always Rudy's, nor was it even in the same building, it did replace a previous building on the site.

Demolished buildings are often difficult to find information for but in 1982 a plat was filed for "The Christmas Store". Apparently, the full name of the store was called "Cashion Cane: The Christmas Store" but "Christmas Store" is what shows up in my listings. There was talk on TexAgs that the store moved to University Drive sometime later, and indeed, there was "Cashion-Cane" at 404 University Drive East in 1989.

The lettering glows red at night. (Picture by author, October 2019)

Seems that the Christmas Store was originally on a smaller lot until a few years later when it expanded to the west, taking over an adjacent lot that had "Spin 'N Grocery". By 1989, however, 504 Harvey was the home of Sneakers, a bar and nightclub with a sand volleyball court.

By 1998, Sneakers was closed and planning for a new restaurant began. Opening in 2000, Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q replaced the Sneakers building and parking lot. Due to its origins, it often has a small convenience store section and I seem to remember there being a small counter to that effect inside the restaurant, but I could be wrong (even if it existed, it was very small). In the case of College Station's location, Country Store was never even on the signage, as unlike other Rudy's, it lacked a gas station.

UPDATE 02-14-2024: Changed opening date from "sometime around 2001" to "2000".

Former A&M Presbyterian Church

The road doesn't go much further than this. (Picture by author, 2014).

For many years, 301 Church Avenue was the home of a church, in this case, A&M Presbyterian Church, with the oldest reference to the address in 1959. In 1999, it was renamed Covenant Presbytarian Church following a merger with Trinity Presbyterian Church (founded in 1996 but with no permanent home) and moved out in 2000 to a new campus on Rock Prairie Road (though according to their website the first service at the new church was in April 2001, indicating that they might've also been in temporary locations in that time).

"The Tradition at Northgate" (301 Church Avenue) began construction in 2000 with the parking garage construction in 2001. It likely opened in about 2002, as that's when most of Second Street closed off and became a pedestrian promenade, the remaining part of it turning directly into the Northgate Parking Garage. Notably, there was supposed to be a retail food court at the bottom with lease space—this never opened but I do remember reading it had a dining hall just for residents but this seems to be renovated out of existence as the apartment complex became "Twelve North" sometime in the early 2020s (or very late 2010s). UPDATE 02/23/2025: Some more information. Because of its length I've gone ahead and updated and reworked the entire post, renaming it from "The Tradition at Northgate" to "Former A&M Presbyterian Church".

Café Eccell's Former Domain

Taken by me, on the last day Café Eccell was legally operating on the city's lease, January 14th, 2014

A few years ago, I showed you the former Luby's, which as of this writing isn't updated yet (when it is, I'll do a quick update on this page to remove that disclaimer), which is where Eccell is located today.

For a number of years, though, Café Eccell was located at the corner of Church Avenue and Wellborn, 101 Church Avenue. The building of Café Eccell, as plain and kind of ugly as it was, used to house the city's first city hall and jail back in the 1940s (built 1947). The city hall moved out in 1970 when a new building was built, and I'm not sure of what it was used for later (the police station was also in Northgate during those days, though not that building). The city held onto the lease and in 1989, it reopened as a restaurant, Café Eccell, which featured a classier, "adult" atmosphere and food that the rest of Northgate lacked, and still tends to lack today.

The first incarnation of Café Eccell closed permanently in March 2014 a few months after its lease ran out (why the city never locked them out is unknown). The restaurant opened in 1989, and after changing of hands to the Dallis family completely around 1991, the restaurant continued for many years. The food was also plagued by inconsistency in its latter days as well as the drama involving the Dallis brothers (a.k.a. Eccell Group), the developers, and the community as a whole.

A few months later the building was wrecked for The Domain at Northgate apartment building, which is only four stories, occupies the whole block, and includes retail opportunities, though only one is currently open (4.0 Cuts Barber Salon, opened spring 2016). The building itself was ready in time for the fall 2015 move-in season, and for a time had a leasing office in the former Cycles Etc. on University Drive. A second tenant, Dat Dog, opened in September 2018. It was an odd choice, considering the chain had no other locations outside of New Orleans, not even in Baton Rouge. The restaurant closed in October 2019, citing parking issues.

Of course, the Domain was not the first development to try to redevelop CE, it was to house "Gameday Centers College Station" circa 2004, a large multi-story tower (about 7-8 stories). Gameday Centers was largely doomed to begin with: the company was building luxury condos for big-money donors to stay in on game weekends, but the asking price of $500,000 a condo was too much* (it would be a better value to buy a house in the Traditions subdivision, which is what many have done), negotiations with the city broke down, and rather than a first phase done by August 2007 and completion by December 2008*, it was canned. The center would've had 10,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space and had even signed a 10-year lease with Café Eccell as part of the agreement*.

*Unfortunately, since this page was originally published, one of the links I had for this page has gone dead and I have been unable to relocate it, as the Batt link is dead and Archive.org does not have it. Likewise the links for the other links seem to be lost.

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 but it 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.

Goodbye to 711 University, So Long to the BB&T...

Since I didn't get a picture of the bank before it became a big hole in the ground, we'll have to do with this, a picture from Google.

Today this is yet another student housing residential tower, known as Aspire College Station with 16 stories (including parking levels) and 800 beds but when I originally added this article in 2016 (here's the old page before I reworked it) it was the recently-demolished BB&T bank (hence the pun title). The chronology of the main bank building goes as such:

1962: College Station State Bank relocates to this building from a previous location.
1963: The name is changed to University National Bank.
1990: After a long run as University National Bank, it is acquired by Don Adam to become First American Bank (officially acquired that year)
2005: Citigroup acquires the bank chain, rebranded to Citibank
2014: BB&T purchases 41 Citibank branches including this one and rebrands them.
2016: BB&T relocates to The Rise at Northgate; building torn down, thus beginning and ending its life with relocation.

There was a second adjacent space (707 University Drive) which was a two-story office building with a small footprint. My records show this was used for non-bank space as early as 1974 (with the Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co.) and my 1989 phone book mentions "The Personal Computer Store" (with the ad mentioning it was "since 1984"). This became MicroAge by 1993, and starting in 1999 moved out to their current home (now known as Avinext) on East University Drive. I don't think anything has occupied the space since.

Because of the relative underuse of the space, 711 University was also where food trucks congregated (or near the now-defunct Notes-N-Quotes next door). Since I graduated back in 2014, I can't list all the more recent food trucks and trailers there, though here are a few I remember:

Wafology - Seen spring 2014, this was a waffle food truck which had chicken and waffles and a few others. The waffles weren't great, they were more of the standard "using pancake batter in a waffle iron" that I've seen everywhere except for home cooking. I think it returned for fall 2014. It is now known as MESS Waffles, but it doesn't even involve a food truck anymore, they opened a permanent location at Century Square.

Vittles - This was seen summer 2014. It was a trailer operated by Gumby's serving sno-cones, pizza rolls, and chicken legs (the latter two obviously prepared off-site).

Chef Tai's Mobile Bistro - Moved inside campus due to a contract.

Southern Comfort Road Trip - The old Village Foods food truck which in fall 2013, was the new home of Hebert's Cajun Food dishes. Their already-borderline prices had gone up, but it still felt like it was putting the universe one step closer to being back in balance. Sadly it didn't last.

Mr. Chinese Burger - I wanted to like it, but the burgers I had tended to be cold..and they were shut down by the health department at least once.They sold pulled pork on chewy steamed buns.

When the tower was built a few years later, BB&T moved back in and by 2019 it had Fajita Pete's, Which Wich, and All Phone Toys, the last one occupying a small suite facing Church Avenue. Unfortunately, both Fajita Pete's and Which Wich have closed, with Fajita Pete's closing in 2021 and Which Wich closing in late 2023. (Also during this time, BB&T rebranded to Truist, following a merger with SunTrust out of Atlanta). On April 20, 2024, Waco viral hit Roni's Mac Bar opened in Suite 200 (the former Which Wich...and Roni's reused much of their fixtures). It is the first branch location and the first not to be connected to a food hall, which the original is.

UPDATE 04-21-2024: Full rewrite was done.
UPDATE 04-24-2024: Should've also mentioned Korean chicken chain bb.q Chicken opened in fall 2023 to replace Fajita Pete's.
UPDATE 10-10-2025: At some point in the last 14 months it renamed to Ion College Station. I haven't made any changes to the main part of the post but I did update the tags a bit.

Pooh's Park, Tinsley's, and Others Replaced by a Shopping Center

View of the center today

Once again, we come back to one of our blog, this time to roll a few smaller posts into a bigger one. As the picture above shows, the area at Holleman and Texas Avenue is now a large (kind of low end) shopping center. In addition to covering all the changes that went on there (which I have yet to do), I can combine a few older posts into this one. So, first, we have Pooh's Park at 1907 Texas Avenue South.

There's far more to Pooh's Park (no, not related to the "Winnie" one) I can get into today, because it's a popular topic on local nostalgia threads: if you want to learn more, you can head over to Facebook to talk or browse through old photos (and they include newspaper articles!)

I never got to experience Pooh's Park myself, but from what I've seen and read, it was like Chuck E. Cheese, Putt-Putt, and a skating rink (roller, not ice) all wrapped into one. It opened in 1972 and was where the shopping center where Hobby Lobby, Big Lots, and Ross are now. A 1984 phone book has a different ad that does mention things like a water slide (408 feet) and a different address (at some point, they changed to 105 Holleman Drive East, though based on what you can see from Google Earth, and backed up by a picture of Texas Avenue from a local history book I don't have a copy of with me) is that Pooh's Park was accessed primarily through Texas Avenue, not Holleman.

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 (including a theft of a "blue furry robot" ultimately just the sign remained up by the early 2000s.

Google Earth 1995, with modern streets overlaid

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. Next to Pooh's Park was Tinsley's Chicken 'n Rolls.

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 with much fanfare (in a former KFC and now Hartz Chicken Buffet), Tinsley's is current a dead chain once more.

Anyway, by the early 2000s, the space was almost entirely vacant (I believe Clay Oven had been demolished) with little else on the property except the old Pooh's Park sign, which had remained up. While the new shopping center (opened in 2002) had rather downscale tenants, most of them were new. There was Hobby Lobby, which moved from Post Oak Square, locating at 1903 Texas Avenue South. Others included a branch of Loupot's (1907 Texas Ave. S.), Shoe Carnival (1909 Texas Ave. S.), Ross Dress for Less (1911 Texas Ave. S.), and Goody's Family Clothing (1913 Texas Avenue South). Petco and a few smaller stores shared the 1901 address, and in 2006, CiCi's Pizza moved in from Culpepper Plaza, taking the 1905 Texas Avenue address. Goody's would close in early 2009 as the chain went under, but it was replaced with a few new stores, Big Lots (returning back to the market, as by that time, their old location at the former Kmart had been closed for several years) and a Twin Liquors (which, despite slightly nicer décor, seemed like a smaller, inferior competitor to Spec's). Loupot's also closed in spring 2012 and reopened as a Salata in less than two years.

Another shopping strip was built around the same time as the rest (but named The Shops at Wolf Pen Plaza) with Starbucks Coffee, a Sprint store (which initially had the older logo, then eventually was rebranded to T-Mobile following the merger), and Champion Firearms (moved from the Kroger shopping center). The Starbucks can be seen in its early days here from Starbucks Everywhere. It shows the ratty little building next door, the trees along Texas Avenue that got wrecked when it was widened, Goody's, and the patio of Starbucks before it was expanded. A comfortable reminder of days gone by, really.

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).