Notes-N-Quotes

Remember back in the good old days of 2013 when University Drive wasn't a completely awful road to drive through? 

 

For years, 701 University was the home of Notes-N-Quotes, from 1992 to around 2015 when it shut down the University Drive storefront. Technically, the old website has a link to where you can still buy the flagship product⁠—classroom notes packets⁠—but the phone number is for Paradigm Books out of Austin.

Prior to Notes-N-Quotes it was a gas station, with it being listed in a 1989 directory as Dean's Exxon, and a 1959 newspaper article (the gas station was built in 1956) mentions it was a Humble originally, a name later retired for the Enco name (and eventually Exxon). The gas station likely closed when the road was rebuilt the last time (an etching near the curb gave an Aggie's graduating year as 1988, barely visible on Google Maps Street View, and only an old one). The driveways were cut off likely during this time.

In the picture above (taken by the author), you can see the Jin's/Lippman building pre-fire and the auxiliary bank building.

Since Notes-N-Quotes closed, it has been mostly vacant, only serving occasionally as apartment leasing. By November 2019, it did reopen as a coffee shop, Carport Coffee, or "Carport: A Coffee Shop".

UPDATE 12-31-2020: Removed "Editor's Note" at the start as part of routine cleaning.

Ol' J.W.'s Country Store (East 29th Street)

More accurately, Ol' J.W. don't mess with Superman's lawyers.
This one was a bit harder to track down the history of, since the gas station did not seem to have a phone number and thus the phone directories were useless. It opened in November 1983 with a Philips 66 gas station (as per the Eagle ad above) and eventually became a Diamond Shamrock (along with the Highway 6/Boonville store mentioned), then a Valero (with "Corner Store", as Valero had rebranded all convenience stores to be), then Circle K (but still with Valero). The Hwy. 21/19th Street location later became a Fina and now serves as a small restaurant. As of this writing, the East 29th gas station today still shows as a Corner Store on Google Maps.

UPDATE 05-28-2023: Google Maps Street View has shown the "modern" Circle K/Valero station at 4609 E. 29th Street for a while now. You can see use the time slider feature to see the old Corner Store, though.

Church's Chicken, College Station

Picture is from August 2019.
This restaurant operated as a Wienerschnitzel from 1993 to 2002 (in any case, the older Bryan location still is open. In 2003, it reopened as Church's Chicken and closed in or around October 2021, and like the Wienerschnitzel, Church's Chicken (or rather, "Church's Texas Chicken" as it's known now) still operates a location near downtown Bryan.

As of May 2024, interior demolition is going on (though it never did remove the building's signage).

UPDATE 05-13-2024: Post rewritten.

Former Aggie Cleaners on College Main

Courtesy Project HOLD, mid-1990s
As always, one of the goal of the current "new posts" is to dismantle the older posts that combined various properties. In this post, we're revisiting Northgate to cover 111 College Main, which was previously covered back in 2014. In my day at A&M it was "Gatsby's on Main", with a sign that said "Since 2004". By 2014, this was mildly impressive, which they celebrated with having drinks at 2004 prices. (I did not participate in that, that's just what I remember). But, Gatsby's did end up closing, with a replacement bar, The Dragonfly, opening in May 2018 (Gatsby's closing is unavailable). Aggie Cleaners was in the space prior to Gatsby's, from as early as 1980 to as late as 1998.

Rename in March 2020 to eliminate "address posts".