Steak & Ale / Oxford Street / Yum Yums Texas Style / Seafood Mama's

From Stalworth Online, during its days between Oxford Street and Yum Yums

The late Steak & Ale chain opened at 1710 Briarcrest Drive at some point in the early to mid-1980s before being sold to new ownership in 1987 and renamed as Oxford Street in October 1988 (as Eagle has reposted recently). The restaurant closed in September 2008, and it's unfortunate that I don't have more information on Oxford Street than I currently do, but it was a moderately-priced steakhouse (not to Republic or Christopher's levels) featuring "candlelight dining featuring steaks and seafood in an Old World setting" according to the 2004 Dining Guide.

Oxford didn't stay shut for long, as it was soon replaced with a restaurant called "Yum Yums Texas Style". Already there's problems with that: if it looked like a four-year-old named it, you'd be right. There used to be an article on The Eagle, dated March 2009 titled "Yum Yums owner gets back to roots with eatery", which a lot of the following is derived from (the link is now dead). The restaurant opened with the goal of "upper-end", homemade-style food, but it wasn't to last. The name had problems and unfortunate connotations which were called out in comments, with few defenders. It closed in less than a year. By all accounts from the brief time Yum Yums was on this earth, there were very few things to say. There's a scathing review on Yelp that blasted the food (the employees were nice, but that couldn't save it). One review from YellowPages.com (a "kelsey27") blasted it with "this place is totally DISGUSTING... FOOD SUCKS, STAFF SUCKS" and also the contractor was never paid for work done to renovate the restaurant (this is supported independently by third parties). Interestingly, on the original The Eagle article, there was a comment, and this is unaltered:

I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW RUDE YOU PEOPLE ARE BEING TO A FAMILY THAT IS BRINGING REVENUE AND OPPURTUNITIES TO OUR TOWN! GET OVER YOURSELVES AND GO EAT SOME GOOD FOOD. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW WELL THIS RESTAURANT DOES~

I'm guessing this person was the owner, or at least a close family friend.

Seafood Mama's opened in December 2011, painting the whole building a dark blue color and offering seafood and other items. Never went to Seafood Mama's, as it had very mixed reviews (Yelp's "Greg D." gave it five stars, which may or may not have been faked) but that couldn't be helped, as in late June of 2012, the restaurant was gutted by a fire ([archive]) and it did not reopen. By fall, it was razed. The Seafood Mama's sign still has been up ever since, and as of this writing (July 2020) a Frost Bank is rumored to be built in the spot.

UPDATE 12-13-2021: While the text reflects the last update in July 2020, as of December 2021 the pad has been totally rebuilt with a Frost Bank (opened in July 2021), but construction demolished the sign instead of reusing it. Additionally, it should be noted that Steak and Ale opened in November 1984, meaning its life as a "real" Steak and Ale was extremely short-lived. At least sister store Bennigan's in College Station lived a longer life before it closed in 2008 which did in the remaining Steak and Ale restaurants.

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".

Northgate Chevron

She cleans up nicely. There's even a canvas-covered area on the University side for the taco truck that hangs out here.
When I went to college at A&M in the early 2010s, I always had seen this strange pile of bricks on the corner of where a run-down gas station sat at 301 University and wondered what, if any, grander building was once there. Turns out, there wasn't one. There has always been a gas station structure here since the 1970s or 1980s, and before that, it was a residential house with a yard.

Sometime around the late 1960s or early 1970s, the house was torn down and a Philips 66 gas station was built, but after that things got a bit murky. In the very late 1970s it was enclosed to be a bar. Two of the comments from the older version of this page seem at end with each other: "Around 1979-80 the owner enclosed the old service bays, remodeled and turned it into the Thirsty Turtle" and "I bought the Thirsty Turtle and remodeled it and reopened it as the 12th Man & Co. in 1978. The Thirsty Turtle was indeed a bar. It had a small but loyal clientele. Some of them actually blamed me for closing the Turtle and were somewhat threatening at times. But we got opened and survived until Texas changed the drinking age laws."

Others seem to remember 12th Man & Co. came first. Regardless, sometime during the mid-1980s (likely 1986, which would make sense with the "drinking laws" time frame) the building was torn down for a gas station again, a Citgo with a 7-Eleven (as Citgo and 7-Eleven built stores together in that era). In the spring of 1993, the 7-Eleven name vanished from the area as they were sold to E-Z Mart (by this point, the stores in Houston had also since been sold to National Convenience Stores where they obtained the Stop N Go name).

While I'm sure E-Z Mart still had the Slurpee machines (until they all broke like the rest of the former 7-Eleven stores in town), over time, the E-Z Mart just got more and more run-down, with the nickname "Sleazy Mart" as it continued to deteriorate (though to be fair, it was in very close to proximity to the bars). The earliest reference I could find is from this 2004 posting but who knows how far it really goes back.

By the time I got to A&M, the E-Z Mart name had disappeared, having sold their stores to other owners around the mid-2000s (I seem to remember the Citgo at Southwest Parkway and Wellborn became Zip'N around 2004, but don't quote me on that). The store had been renamed to "Aggie Food Mart" but A&M's lawyers don't want private businesses using "Aggie" or "A&M" for anything anymore, so it was just removed. The canopy was literally falling apart, the pumps didn't really work properly, and there was a trash-filled alley in the back where a faded mural was (now painted over), but I imagine that it was probably meant to be used for additional retail adjoining the 7-Eleven. Today that space (space is valuable in Northgate) is just wasted.

Sad thing is, ALL the gas pumps had looked like that.
The Boyett stoplight installed in summer 2012 made the intersection a more prominent "entrance" to Northgate (compared to the east side of Northgate, where large attractive campus buildings co-mingle with fast foods and the Rise at Northgate) just made the eyesore intersection more obvious, sharing it with the ruined Campus Theater across the street.

Sometime around 2016, things started to change. The Citgo branding completely disappeared and the gas station went unbranded for a time as it morphed into a Chevron, and finally, came the "Gig'Em Food Mart" name, complete with a shiny new Chevron canopy and pumps (interestingly, this came right at the time as the Southgate Chevron lost its branding), but I haven't been inside since they redid it since I have no idea if it's just window-dressing or the inside was done as well.

UPDATE 01-13-2023: This post was last updated in April 2020 but as of late 2022 the gas station has permanently closed for redevelopment of the lot.

Blackwater Draw Brewing Company, College Station

I liked Blackwater Draw's food, despite its shortcomings.

Back in the days prior to the 1950s, professors lived in houses on campus, from the place of the modern-day Memorial Student Center and parts south. Most of these buildings were not demolished, however--they were literally partially disassembled and placed in other parts of town. The house on 303 Boyett at Church Avenue is one of them. Of course, a lot of them still have been demolished, but the one at Church and Boyett hasn't. I'm not sure of the house's history since being moved off-campus, but it has served as restaurants in recent years.

By the early 2000s, it was "Satchel's BBQ & Steaks". According to Restaurant Row, it was "a casual family style restaurant with a rustic ambiance, a fireplace, cozy booths and knickknacks placed throughout. The cuisine is traditional American fare with beef, turkey, pork, chicken, steaks, and seafood entrées. The bar serves domestic and imported beers, wines and mixed drinks. They offer a kid's menu, take out and catering."


From LoopNet, back when it was Fredriko's
By 2005, Fredriko's moved here from the old Fajita Rita's (I ate there once—it was forgettable). It closed in 2009. By 2011 (roughly) the building was "DC, Inc.": the headquarters for Dixie Chicken and other related restaurants (Dry Bean Saloon, Dudd's, Chicken Oil Co.), but by 2013 it moved again (former location of Alfred T. Hornback's) and started to renovate as restaurant space again: the Blackwater Draw Brewing Company, a brewpub owned by the same owners as O'Bannon's. Given the generally positive response to brewpubs I visited in Michigan, I had high hopes but was tempered by the lousy reputation of Northgate (Chimy's, I remember, was a huge disappointment). Reviews looked great though, and upon trying it (in November 2013, if I recall) I found the food to be very good, a decent value (more expensive than a typical campus lunch option) with good beer. One downside was limited burger toppings without an extra charge (even things like tomato). The menu was a bit limited as was the seating. I always wished that they expand and open a larger location, taking the example of The Chimes in Baton Rouge, a popular bar/restaurant near campus, which ended up opening a larger, two-story location called The Chimes East away from campus with a ton of parking (for a restaurant, that is).

In December 2015, they did open a second location in downtown Bryan, but it was only to focus on beer production, and did not serve food. The Northgate location ended up closing in May 2018 due to rising rents in the Northgate area, replaced with another restaurant by fall, "The Spot on Northgate" which was more of the same in terms of Northgate food variety (burgers, beer).

During the Dixie Chicken Inc. days, a banner outside said "Come And Drink It" in the form of "Come And Take It" of Texas Revolution lore.

UPDATE 03-26-2022: Following the last update in 2019, it appears that Satchel's operated from 1998 to 2004 and may have been officially recorded in tax documents as "Savannahs", and also the first restaurant in the spot. Fredriko's was here from 2005 to 2009.
UPDATE 05-10-2024: Updated with new information including Fredriko's moving from Texas Avenue.
UPDATE 08-17-2024: It appears Satchel's changed its name to Savannah's Catering in mid-2004, which was clearly short-lived. It at least accounts for that discrepancy.