TX Burger

This isn't my picture, unfortunately, it's theirs—source I've been sitting on this post for a long time, and one of the reasons was that I didn't have a picture of my own. However, there's nothing really special about it, something where I have to take a picture because it's going to change soon. (There is something I did for a future post; that will have to wait).

One of the things I did a while back was dedicate a lot of resources to the "open source" Wikimapia, and while I've described the reasons why I don't deal with it anymore has been described here (March 31, 2022) and I have to admit that much of this post is going to be adapted from what I wrote on Wikimapia, which I worked a lot on before I moved focus back to this blog. The building at 14895 FM 2154 has seen several incarnations come and go before its current incarnation as TX Burger, which re-did the facade and paved the parking lot.

Starting chronologically, the first tenant here when the building was constructed in 2004 was Junek's Barbecue, which moved out from the gas station just north of it. Junek's folded sometime around 2011 or early 2012.

After Junek's folded, for several years, the building was tenanted by a series of restaurants, none of which lasted a year. The second restaurant here was Outlaw Jack's Brew N Chew which featured hamburgers, barbecue, and fried seafood. It opened early 2013, closed, reopened a few months later, and then closed again. The third, Country Cafe, opened up in 2014, but was gone by January 2015. There was "Chubby's Meat Wagon" (late April or early May 2015 but closed September...as it lasted three months I know almost nothing about it) as the fourth restaurant.

The fifth restaurant here was Cajuns Bayou Grille. It opened February 2016, giving the exterior new paint and enlarging the parking area, but closed just five months later, partially because of new City of College Station ordinances that prohibited the expansion of the restaurant without additional improvements. This is the only restaurant in the spot that I actually ate at, getting some crawfish and having enough for some leftovers (though properly re-heating crawfish is something I have yet to master).

Finally, the sixth restaurant opened in July 2017, a branch of Madisonville-based TX Burger (formerly Texas Burger until around 2010 or 2011 when the chain rebranded, possibly to avoid confusion with a Midland-Odessa chain of the same name). TX Burger did a significant re-do of the front facade and paved the parking lot for the first time, and as a result it has been here since.

Editor's Note: Want to go beyond the limits of Bryan-College Station? Visit my new blog, Numbered Exits, featuring Waco, Dallas, and even out of state spots.

Former Hooters

The front of the building faces the freeway, so it's hard to get a good shot.
I wanted to follow the "try to make a post for every day you didn't have a post for" rule in hopes that I could run Facebook as a "on this day..." post but that also means due to the original summer-heavy posting schedule I couldn't add anything for like two months if I wanted to do something in July.

In any case, today's post is about the defunct Hooters. Hooters had a long interest since at least the mid-to-late 2000s to build. Originally it was rumored that a spot on Texas Avenue was the place to build but ultimately built a location at 960 North Earl Rudder Freeway right next to Imperial Chinese & Sushi. It opened in July 2018 and for a while did okay.

Plans had been in the work to add a Hooters to the area since the mid-to-late 2000s but one finally reached the area in July 2018. It no doubt suffered from Twin Peaks opening down the road (at 768 North Earl Rudder Freeway) but nonetheless continued until June 2024, closed in a purge of around forty underperforming locations, joining the ranks of several other restaurants closed in the summer including Fargo's Pit BBQ, Casa Olé in the mall (closing over forty years), and Mo's Irish Pub at Century Square.

It was soon after this announcement that I dropped by and grabbed a few pictures (so pictures were taken June 2024). Fellow blogger Columbia Closings also lost their Hooters restaurant and documented it, so it's only natural I need to do the same.

Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering why I'm wearing a Super Mario t-shirt...

A cardboard cutout remained in the restaurant.

Inside the covered patio area.

Normandy Square

April 2024 picture by author. Ever since November 2021 I've adopted a new policy that all new posts going forward would "be demolished or otherwise closed, had tenant changeover, had some significant change themselves, or are part of a larger story." I wanted to model it a bit closer on Columbia Closings. Columbia Closings, however, does occasionally cover defunct apartment complexes and while many crumbling College Station apartments and duplexes still stand, Normandy Square (b. 1965) on 501 Nagle (with addresses up to 509 Nagle) seems to be not long for this world. Their Facebook page (archive) indicates that they were operational for the 2022-2023 season. However, in April 2024, the apartments were boarded up.

Given the transient nature of Facebook, I've attached a few of the pictures from said Facebook page that show the interior of it, as well as a publicity shot from better days. (Note the lack of a big apartment building behind it). There aren't many Google reviews of the complex but they don't seem good.

While it's Northgate, I do like the architecture. It's an improvement from most of the 1970s apartments that crowd Southwest Parkway.

The Current J. Cody's

Picture by author, 02-2024
As I've already somewhat covered Tom's Barbecue both on their College Station location (where you can see a picture of the Bryan location) and their pre-1985 original location (which started out as Barbecue Barn), there's not too much I can say about their 1985-2001 Bryan location at 3610 South College Avenue. They opened a location here in 1985 (built new) and following the closure of the restaurant in April 2001, reopened later in the year as different business J. Cody's Steaks & BBQ and despite its longevity (it has been located in the same place longer than Tom's had), there's not too much to say about it objectively.