Blinn Bryan Campus featuring Schulman 6

The full Blinn campus as of spring 2010, outlined in red-orange. College Park Center is the brown-roofed building toward the bottom specifically.
Class is back in session for the fall, so what better time to start this first week with a college-oriented post? I've briefly talked about the Blinn Bryan Campus in the past (particularly when it came to the shoddy offerings in the Student Center) but I wanted to give another overview with it. It's been a while since I last set foot in Blinn (not too many good things to say about it) but the first three buildings in the campus were dedicated in January 1997 with the others being filled out a few years afterward. The Taco Bell mentioned in the old thread did indeed operate in the Student Center building (that's the second from the left in the main campus, if you were looking at it from above) from approx. 2000-2003, though from 2010 to 2015 Maui Wowi set up a kiosk as well. The far left building housed the student center before it was bumped to the far building near the "College Park Center" campus...before that it was the administration building (back in the early 2010s)¹...and there was a strip mall before, notably housing DoubleDave's PizzaWorks (approx. 1998-2006)...and overall wasn't much to write home about (I took no pictures there, though I only had my crummy old cellphone camera back then).

The only real thing on campus of note was the "College Park Center" building, which was "connected" to campus by a 200-yard crosswalk through the parking lot. While I can't comment on the current Schulman's Movie Bowl Grille undergoing construction (or rather, lack thereof) at South College Avenue and Villa Maria Road, for decades the Schulman family operated theaters in Bryan. One of these was off East 29th Street. The Skyway Twin Drive-In opened in 1969 but closed around 1981, to be replaced by the Schulman 6 (which operated on a much smaller footprint) and opened January 1982, featuring the following movies: Modern Problems, Reds, Cinderella², Sharky's Machine, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While these movies all appeared later than what is in other cities (a common problem in Bryan-College Station at the time), it appears that at some point Schulman 6 became a second-run movie house, though I can't tell when (another article mentions that Cinemark had some sort of exclusivity contract when it opened, so possibly around 1993). There were interesting parts found in research, like the murder of theater manager Don Cravens Jr. in November 1988 (found dead the next morning)³. In April 1997 it closed and reopened in September as College Park 6 featuring first run movies (the first movies were Deep Impact, Titanic, The Big Hit, Lost in Space, The Odd Couple II, and The Object of My Affection.

I saw a few movies at Schulman 6 (renamed College Park 6 in the late 1990s) before it closed less than five years later.⁴ I don't remember which movies I saw specifically here (as opposed to the Cinemark Hollywood USA theater), though I do remember I saw Dinosaur here.

After it closed, it was purchased by Blinn and renovated into classrooms, with the first classes held in summer 2003. The largest theater was turned into lecture halls (keeping the seats from the 1997 renovation, albeit cleaned and re-installed), with the others also being converted to classrooms. Later on, the projection rooms upstairs were turned into studios for art classes (at some point an elevator installed and some other changes to make it ADA-compliant, but it still felt cramped up there)⁵. For a brief time in the early 2010s a mural was painted outside but that disappeared after a year or two.

1. This is now the college bookstore. The administration moved out to the Tejas Center at some point around the late 2000s.
1. Before the Walt Disney Classics VHS releases (colloquially, the "Black Diamond" collection) and the "Disney Renaissance", Disney re-released its classic animated films (basically up to and including The Jungle Book) in theaters on a semi-regular basis, with Cinderella in particular getting re-released no less than five times.
2. The way the paper phrased it indicated it wasn't immediately obvious that he was murdered, and while it was officially a robbery, the fact that it also involved another man who was Cravens' old lover makes the details a little more sketchy.
3. I tried to find what the last movies shown by the theater were. The newspaper printed the movies for Cinemark but in the last weeks of College Park 6's operation, it just read to "call for showtimes".
4. Records show the elevator was installed in 2010.

Finfeather's 7-Eleven

It wasn't too long before this 2005 picture that the gas station was conveniently located. (source). I fixed it up from Newspapers.com so it looked a little nicer.
One of the posts that was added in 2010 (March 2, 2010; there were originally far more posts from 2010 and 2011 than the current Index would suggest) focused on the north end of Wellborn Road and Finfeather. Today, we're re-visiting that (a post resurrection of sorts—parts of this post are fifteen years old!) by examining a former 7-Eleven at that corner.

In the mid-to-late 1970s Villa Maria Road was extended from Texas Avenue all the way out to FM 2818, creating two stoplights, one at Finfeather and the other at the extension of Wellborn Road from F&B Road. In the days when pre-bankruptcy Southland Corporation was first on the scene with new 7-Eleven stores/Citgo gas stations on the fringes on the development, a store opened up at Finfeather and West Villa Maria Road in 1978 (3300 Finfeather Road). In 1993 it became E-Z Mart due to Southland selling off hundreds of stores across different markets. (In Houston, the stores had already been sold off to National Convenience Stores, aka Stop 'n Go; in Waco, the stores were sold to Circle K; it really depended on the market).

Despite the fact that going to Bryan more often than not meant a visit to the pediatric dentist, I always liked the intersection growing up. Maybe it was because it was unique among the other crossings on Wellborn Road that Wellborn dipped below the railroad grade by up to sixteen feet before they came together again at the light, maybe it was the fact that both signals would go down even if it was only one train on the track (for safety reasons, obviously, even though it wasn't a true "two-track" crossing), maybe it was the fact that one track curved and one didn't.



The intersection as it was c. early 2004. Click to see full resolution.
The underpass construction officially started in late 2004 (though the real construction began in 2005); around this time the convenience store converted to "E-Z For You" (as I mentioned before here). By late 2010 the intersection was complete and the gas station, rather than closing, converted its signage to electronic. I think by that time it also changed over to an Exxon. Sometime between 2016 and 2018 the "fake" E-Z Mart was rebranded as "Just 4 You", a completely different logo but still keeping the old orange-and-green theme. No doubt that the station suffered due to the construction but the apartment communities along Finfeather kept it in business, but if the gas station did poorly following its complete cut-off from Villa Maria, the shop portion facing the Villa Maria side did even worse.

Casey's Wash House was one of the oldest tenants I can find in the space, but it appears to be built at the same time as the main store. Other tenants that have come and go included The Fishman (fish market, 1990s), Omar's Upholstery (early 2000s), and a few barber shops. (It appears that there is a hair salon in the spot as of this writing).

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>

Western National Bank of Bryan

When the bank at Villa Maria and Forestwood opened in 1982, there was not only a full page ad here but a full section of advertisement articles and other stuff. From The Eagle, I just cleaned it up a bit. Western National Bank (not to be confused with others sharing the name—there was another one in Abbeville, Louisiana) was established in 1981 as a bank based out of Bryan, funded by local investors with the office and only branch to be at Forestwood Drive and West Villa Maria Road in Bryan (1001 W. Villa Maria Road), and opening in November 1982. However, by 1987, with banks failing across the state (in part due to the oil crash, in part the S&L crisis), Western, now in deep financial trouble, proposed merging with United Citizens Bank, a local bank operation that was formed after local bank UnitedBank bought the insolvent Citizens Bank of Bryan.

The combined bank would be headquartered at the Western National Bank site, with the site anticipated to be a more happening part of town with the construction of what would be State Highway 47. In October 1987, however, Western National Bank was declared insolvent by the FDIC but quickly reopened a day later as "Villa Maria Bank", a branch of First State Bank of Caldwell (which paid the FDIC $5000 to acquire the accounts) and in November 1987 Villa Maria Bank officially opened after its soft reopening a few weeks prior, just five years after Western National Bank opened. By 1990, First State Bank also had a branch off Harvey Road under its own name (at 701 Harvey Road) and Villa Maria Bank soon changed names to be more like its parent company. While the bank always had a metal roof from day one, at some point during First State Bank's ownership (by 1995), the bank received a small addition to the right side of the building (on the western part).

In 1996, First State Bank was acquired by First American Bank, which used to be called UnitedBank (guess that merger came through after all). Like other First American Bank branches (which we have previously covered) it was converted to Citibank in 2005 after another merger, sold to BB&T in 2014, and converted to Truist after BB&T after they merged in 2022. Except, they didn't, as BB&T closed this branch sometime around 2018. Prior to or during renovations into office space, in late May 2019, a fire burned through the building, creating visible damage on the outside and causing a partial roof collapse. As a result, the building was simply torn down (along with its parking lots) and not replaced.

A "gas station/deli" has been promised per the sign out front but nothing yet, and who knows what that entails (the lot's big enough for a decent gas station, maybe TXB or perhaps we may be lucky and get a QuikTrip...or just a decent fast food co-brand). In any case, one of the things that stuck out to me was how UnitedBank believed that the western part of Bryan would be a bigger thing than it was. Even though State Highway 47 was complete by the late 1990s it still took a long time for that to get anywhere off the ground. Even in much of the 2000s that was still largely open territory and mostly industrial, even when Traditions was starting to build up. (Then again, a lot of the Traditions stuff never really panned out either).

Amico Nave Ristorante

This one and the other photos were taken by author, February '24.
I had to pull the details of this one from my FM 1179 page, but this one came up for a post as the restaurant announced closing with the last day being February 24, 2024. So, with that in mind, we'll take another look at it.

Amico Nave Ristorante at 203 East Villa Maria Road was built in the late 1970s as a restaurant called "Pizza Planet" (many years before Toy Story, of course) and this lasted from 1979 to 1984. Because of spotty records, it later served (briefly) as Kelly-Moore Paint Company (according to taxpayer records) and a restaurant called Buffalo Joe's as late as 1994, but has been a beauty salon from 1996 to the very early 2010s (Shapers Hair Productions, though might've gone under a different name in the late 1990s). In spring 2013, it reopened as Amico Nave from the same owners (Wade and Mary Beckman) of Shipwreck Grill across the street. In its early years Amico Nave did very well: in summer 2013, when restaurants usually have slow business, the parking lot was packed out nightly. But I suppose all things have to come to an end. Enjoy the photos and check out the post for Shipwreck Grill.

Uh-oh, hours changed! Who could have seen this coming?

While the concrete base is old, this is one of the few new light fixtures for Amico Nave.

The building is visibly older. Currently, plans are in the works to renovate the building to look more like a ship and move Shipwreck Grill into the space.

UPDATE 09-04-2024: Exterior and interior updates to Amico Nave have been completed, with the new Shipwreck Grill opening sometime a few days ago as of this post. ([defunct] removed)

Jack in the Box, Texas Avenue, Bryan

The Box is back after an extensive rebuild.

The sister store to the College Station Jack in the Box further down Texas Avenue, 2906 South Texas Avenue's Jack in the Box was built in 1977 (#675), before the chain's dramatic makeover that dropped the "clown head" speakers and started to push a more "adult", upscale menu.

While the picture at the aforementioned post looks like this one before rebuilding around early 2019 (picture taken in March 2020), the picture here is the one that the College Station one also looks like now. As of this writing, the most recent Google Street View shows the old Jack in the Box building.

The construction also ditched the entrance off of Villa Maria for a new one to Maloney, but it's a moot point since medians installed since 2016 on Villa Maria make access difficult anyway.

UPDATE 01-27-2022: As part of putting this on Facebook in 2022 about a year and a half after the post was made and put in the queue, Google Street View has been updated here.

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.

Former Taco Villa

Let's taco 'bout this building.
Between 7 Brew and Villa Maria Cleaners sits this small insurance office. The building opened as a Taco Villa restaurant in June 1977, a chain based out of Odessa, Texas. In January 1985, it was purchased by W.R. Grace & Company (which owned other restaurants and non-chemical operations at the time) and merged its subsidiary Creative Food 'N Fun Inc., into Taco Villa, Inc.. Creative Food 'N Fun¹ was a franchisee of Del Taco, based out of California; however, beyond the West Coast, Creative Food 'N Fun had the rest of the nation to develop Del Taco restaurants and had by this time, over 40 Del Taco locations in the Houston area.

The link above (as of this writing) implies that Grace wanted to change Del Taco to Taco Villa in its entirety, but that doesn't seem to be quite correct as in Bryan, Taco Villa was converted over to the Del Taco format in summer 1985, as did a Taco Villa in Temple (though a Del Taco in Houston became a Taco Villa). I believe one issue complicating this was that they weren't just the franchisee for Del Taco, they also franchised Del Taco and Taco Villa within that territory.

The demise of Del Taco/Taco Villa in the Houston area (and here) started around 1986 when Del Taco Inc. (of California) purchased Taco Villa and 120 stores from Taco Villa Inc., which meant Taco Villa Inc. no longer had any Taco Villa stores to call its own...or at least would've been the case if they got the financing. Still, W.R. Grace was losing its taste for restaurants. In the late 1980s, the Del Taco and Taco Villa restaurants began to close. (Applebee's was sold in 1988). Taco Villa moved from Atlanta to Dallas in 1989 and renamed to Del Taco Restaurants Inc. (where most of the non-West Coast Del Taco restaurants were). But by this time, many of the Houston stores had closed, with Del Taco in Bryan closed in September 1988.²

In 1990, it became portrait studio Quick as a Flash (probably the first facade update happened around this time), joining its College Station location (which also was located in an old fast food building), and like the College Station location moved from a mall...the Quick as a Flash here moved from Manor East Mall across the street. In 1999, they were purchased by Ritz Camera and starting selling cameras (but unlike the Post Oak Mall Ritz Camera location, offered portrait services. It was still branded as Ritz Camera in 2003 but seems to have discontinued the name by 2006 by the time it closed.

Shortly after, RadioShack moved from Sul-Mar Center at Briarcrest and Villa Maria (which was about to go through a major renovation) to the location. RadioShack Corporation declared bankruptcy in 2015 and most of the corporate-owned stores closed. The corporate stores that weren't closed were converted to Sprint/RadioShack co-branded stores under new company General Wireless. Unfortunately, the partnership with Sprint dissolved with the bankruptcy of General Wireless two years later, closing the Sprint/RadioShack stores (including this one). The closure of this meant that RadioShack officially exited the Bryan-College Station market. As of 2020, the closest brick-and-mortar RadioShack store was in Brenham (which is a franchised store) but numbers continued to dwindle that as of September 2025 that number is now just around half a dozen. After a few years of sitting vacant, Fred Loya Insurance moved in by February 2021, which is still there today.

UPDATE 09-30-2025: Major rewrite and more accurate dates including the Del Taco conversion and what happened to the company (2021 update integrated).

All pictures here are by the author, March 2020.

1. As a sidenote, Creative Food 'N Fun also owned Applebee's during this time, though in 1986 only had a dozen locations.
2. The story of Del Taco/Taco Villa ended a few years later. W.R. Grace & Company attempted to sell Del Taco to Taco Tico but in 1992 shut down the company, selling the remaining restaurants to Taco Bell in Atlanta (except for a few mall locations) and the rights to the non-West Coast areas back to Del Taco. Meanwhile, the demise of Taco Villa in Odessa was not for long as the rights were purchased back in the dissolution of Del Taco Restaurants Inc..

China Wok Express

This may be the start of a series of posts near Villa Maria Road and Texas Avenue, but I can't make any promises. (Picture by author, March 2020)

No fooling...today's post is on April 1st, and it's a brand new one. This building, 612 Villa Maria Road, was built in 1979 and first served as a Tinsley's Chicken 'n Rolls (and originally 512 Villa Maria Road West), a restaurant previously covered on this site. It served as Church's Chicken from 1985 to 1989 after Tinsley's sold out, and Cobblestone Quality Shoe Repair between 1992 and 1995. It returned to food service (and fried chicken) when it served as a Golden Fried Chicken (later Golden Chick) between 1996 and 2000. Sometime in the 2000s (possibly as early as 2002, which Brazos CAD seems to indicate), it became China Wok Express. I thought it was around 2005...notice the the building has a blue roof instead of the current gold-colored roof (which ironically, came after Golden Chick closed). The circle where the China Wok Express logo is used to be where Golden Chick's mascot used to roost...I'm guessing that when it returned to restaurant use from whatever it was previously, Golden Chick did some significant renovations.

View from the southwest. Not sure if I've ever seen that neon on top light up.
As you may know, the government warnings for COVID-19 have put the economy into a tailspin, with restaurants only offering carry-out or delivery, but China Wok Express is not among them, closing entirely and promising to return April 8th. However, the menu board, as you can see below, is so faded that one can barely see the letters, and one of the columns has a big hole knocked through it. I'm not in the neighborhood very often, so I'll have to see if China Wok Express will reopen or if this is their swan song.

Allegedly due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, China Wok Express is now closed, with promises it will reopen April 8th, but it's doubtful as the menu board (and general maintenance) are clearly in a state of visible decline.

The menu board is so faded it's almost completely illegible.
By the way, the article linked above (mentioning the former blue roof) is the old Villa Maria/Texas Avenue article that has been updated with revised information and new photos.

UPDATE 03-24-2021: More precise dates for Golden Chick. China Wok Express DID reopen.
UPDATE 04-08-2022: Update with additional tenants, which should patch the holes.
UPDATE 09-08-2023: In summer 2023 the restaurant closed and by September was being torn down, to be replaced with 7 Brew. [defunct] added to post.
UPDATE 02-20-2024: 7 Brew (Seven Brew Coffee), a drive-through coffee shop, opened 1/2024.

The Captain's Half Shell Oyster Bar / The Boat / Shipwreck Grill

I don't have a contemporary picture on file, but that shouldn't be too hard to find. Ad from The Eagle, October 1985.
Starting as The Captain's Half Shell Oyster Bar in 1985, which appears to have had other locations and likely as well a spin off of the extant Captain Benny's of Houston, today this 206 East Villa Maria Road is the home of Shipwreck Grill since fall 2009, owned by Wade and Mary Beckman.

The Captain's Half Shell Oyster Bar operated here from 1985 to 2002, and following that was another seafood restaurant, "The Boat", from 2002 to 2006. (Despite the name of Sam's Seafood on the tax record, it was not related to Houston-based Sam's Boat). After that, it sat abandoned for a few years, though according to tax records, just prior to Shipwreck changed hands to become "Melting Pot African-Caribbean Cuisine" (though this may have operated as a home-based catering service briefly). From 2013 to 2024, a second restaurant operated across the street, Amico Nave Ristorante. In March 2024, while the corpse of Amico Nave was still warm, the owners of Shipwreck Grill announced they would renovate the former Amico Nave into the new location of Shipwreck Grill, causing them to "abandon ship".

UPDATE 03-06-2024: Rewrite of existing post for Amico Nave addition.
UPDATE 09-04-2024: Shipwreck Grill has sailed away from this spot, having moved to the former Amico Nave at 203 East Villa Maria Road. ([defunct] added)

Brazos Blue Ribbon Bakery in Bryan

This is a beautiful full-color ad of the Brazos Blue Ribbon Bakery at Villa Maria and Briarcrest (1136 East Villa Maria Road to be exact) from a late 1980s Texas Aggies football program. Although Brazos Blue Ribbon Bakery dates back to 1988, it wasn't the first business in the 1984-built building, a recently unearthed Eagle article mentions it was originally the home of Green Light Auto Parts (and also mentions that the business was originally supposed to focus on industrial production, with long-range plans to be moved to Bryan Business Park).

In 1998, BBRB moved to Dominik Drive in College Station where it would become the genesis for Blue Baker, and this location became a Must Be Heaven in 2000, which survives today. I was never impressed with MBH (Must Be Purgatory, perhaps) but I admire its willingness to stick out in a difficult location. Even though Must Be Heaven still occupies the space, that smaller sign is gone, it's now just a rusty metal frame.

UPDATE 08-12-2021: Appended new date and link for BBRB. Also in spring 2021 they split with Brenham's Must Be Heaven and renamed the restaurants as Sweet Relish Café.

West Villa Maria Shell

The station following "renovations" in 2013. Picture by author.

I snapped a few pictures of this gas station recently (as of 2013). First off, it's old, from 1982, with one of the earliest references with the food mart (at 1439 West Villa Maria Road) being Nash's Food Store in 1984, and by 1989 it was a Zip'N, which it remained until around 2006-2007 when it just became "Villa Express" (which is there in the pre-renovation picture, albeit quite faded). There was a minor upgrade in 2003-2005 as well, where it kept the Shell station designation but upgraded logos to keep the brand.

Also originally, it did not have access to 2818 at all, the west "exit" to the gas station just went onto a power line right of way, which was unpaved and just dumped you on back on Villa Maria. The snow cone/smoothie shack was there as long as I can remember, and the gas station has two other spaces, including 1437 and 1435. From archives, 1437 was Beetle's BBQ (though occupied 1435 as well), and I've hear people tell me that there was a "music/drum shop" at one time as well. In the picture below, you can see Xtreme Hitz, which is at 1435 and according to Facebook, opened March 2012 (but I never saw them going to summer classes at Blinn that summer), so maybe they opened in October. They appear to carry hip-hop related clothing and clubwear. In any case, I don't remember anything in my travels about a clothing store co-habitating with a gas station (mostly banks, restaurants, and aforementioned dry cleaners).

Early 2013 car shot. Because it was taken out the car window, it reflected my shirt. Oops.

For years, the Shell has had for years a billboard near the Exxon at La Brisa announcing the prices. Over the years, I've sadly watched the prices climb (and the sign fade, get repainted, and fade again until vanishing for good).

After a few years running under the "new" facade, the gas station closed up shop for good by 2018. However, the Shell signage still towering over the station. In 2019, it slowly started changing over to a Citgo station and reopened.

UPDATE 03-31-2021: Minor updates. I should mention the new convenience store is "Pit Stop".

The Lost Buildings of Villa Maria Road and Texas Avenue

The Walgreens replaced a corner of several businesses before. (Picture from 3/30/20)

Most of the things that were torn down in my youth were usually buildings that were not particularly large or old buildings from decades before. Rarely was something that came and went in my youth, particularly a building that was less than a decade old being torn down. It did happen, however.

For a brief time between 1999 and 2005, there was a Texaco station ("Aggieland Texaco"), which became a Shell station a few years later, following an agreement with the merger of Chevron and Texaco which would see the Texaco brand almost vanish from Texas itself. This happened with a number of stations around town. 2907 Texas Avenue was the address based on pre-2005 "restaurant report cards" and 2909 based on tax documents. There were also some other stores in the strip, but I wasn't able to find out what they were, nor do I know what the Texaco station replaced.

From The Eagle, though I remember that they had another aerial with the buildings still intact.

One of the things I do know was that many of the newer Shell stations (including this one) had started offering Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which were shipped in from the Houston locations at the time. Of course, Krispy Kreme donuts aren't all that after they turn cold, and the novelty probably lasted for a year at most before they were removed (the Houston stores closed soon after). It also had brown brick on the outside.

The buildings as they appeared in 2004

I was relieved that when they took out the block, the Golden Chick (blue roof in the picture above, and outside the red outline above) was not torn down, but by that time it was already closed.

Articles at the time mention a furniture store also biting the dust, but (and I assume it's the house-like building, possibly converted, on the Dellwood side) I wasn't able to find any information on it.

Soundwaves (2919 Texas Avenue) was the blue-roofed building: based on what I could find, it moved to Post Oak Mall after demolition before disappearing for good, but it was not part of Soundwaves of Houston, even before it was torn down (Soundwaves existed at that spot as far back as 1980). Other residual information says that Soundwaves did home theater installation, but in 1980, it did car audio installation. I read somewhere that the building was a head shop back in the '70s, but that's for another time (when Carnegie reopens, perhaps).

The building toward the back was China Garden (2901 South Texas Avenue), which had two levels, though the Chinese buffet had closed prior to being demolished. According to MyBCS, the rumor was the woman who owned it committed suicide, but I don't put a lot of stock in that (being a rumor and all). It was previously a Mr. Gatti's location before it closed at an unknown date.

This other new building has a Dellwood address. (Picture from 3/30/20)

What replaced it was a Walgreens and a smaller building that was mostly vacant for years following, with a UPS store coming in first, then Little Caesars about five years later (opened in fall 2010), then a Boost Mobile a few years after that. Even though I did miss the Shell/Texaco station out of nostalgia (and it would be nice to have a modern gas station on that side of the road), the stores that replaced it had more usefulness. The building(s) that the Texaco replaced I also don't have information on. Remember, if you know something I don't, feel free to contact this site at admin@carbon-izer.com.

UPDATE 03-26-2021: New address and more accurate dates found! Also Golden Chick had closed by that time. (The post had previously received a new title and update 4/1/20)
UPDATE 04-20-2025: From 1947 to 1956, the address of 2919 Texas Avenue was for McCormick Sign Company (manufactured neon signs) before being destroyed by arson/vandalism, then replaced by a restaurant called "Dairy Kream" starting in the late 1950s, before becoming a real Dairy Queen franchisee by 1971. The Dairy Queen moved catty-corner in the 1970s where it still exists today, and became El Caribe in 1977, which despite being described as a Caribbean restaurant, was a Venezuelan restaurant, serving more authentic food (arroz con pollo, yucca, plantains, etc.), a far cry from the "Mexican" (Tex-Mex) food that was commonly available in the area. Within a matter of months, the owners closed the restaurant and converted the restaurant to retail, Fantasy World, featuring an eclectic assortment of imported foods, head shop items (mentioned in original post), clothing, incense, and music. Soundwaves opened around 1979.

Additionally, it seems some of the Dellwood businesses are wrong. The UPS Store opened in 2006 (same as the Longmire store), Little Caesars opened in 2011, and Boost Mobile opened sometime around 2017-2018. ([Dairy Queen] added as a post tag).
UPDATE 04-23-2025: I almost forgot—Mr. Gatti's opened in December 1977, sometime around 1986 it became The Pizza Pub, and after closing, in 1987 it reopened as Pizza Inn (the College Station location had closed by that time). This only lasted a few years. China Garden opened in 1991. ([Mr. Gatti's] added).