Winn-Dixie on 29th Street

Winn-Dixie with prominent "Marketplace" signage, unknown date. Courtesy Michael Gomez (used with permission) Twenty years ago today (February 21, 2005), Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. declared bankruptcy. When I started writing this post back in January, it appeared to be heading toward an ignominious end under parent company Aldi. Earlier this month, though, C&S Wholesale Grocers purchased 170 stores (including Harveys, as well as some associated liquor stores) with the associated trademarks from Aldi Süd. Still, with 170 stores spread across five states and C&S's incredibly bad track record at "rescuing" chains (one reason why the courts X'd their purchase of Albertsons/Kroger cast-offs), the future still looks quite dim.

In better days, however, Winn-Dixie had locations spread across much of the Southeastern United States (with about 1,000 stores in 1999) and that included two locations in the area, and was part of several other major regional and national chains for what was a very small market in the early 1990s, with the chain, along with AppleTree, Randalls, Albertsons, Kroger, and H-E-B Pantry participating. (One article I have when the College Station location closed mentioned it was probably the most grocery store square footage to capita market in the country).

Despite the closure of the relatively short-lived College Station store and spending much of the 1990s sandwiched halfway between AppleTree and Randall's (later Albertsons), it still operated until the chain departed Texas for good in 2002.

Opened in May 1985, the 45,000 square feet store offered the typical supermarket features of the time including a "New York-style delicatessen and bakery". The paper also mentioned a "prestige meat" department, that was what Winn-Dixie called its meat department in those days and I imagine the inside of the Bryan store looked much the same way. This anchored the new Carter Creek Shopping Center.

Unfortunately, by the late 1990s, Winn-Dixie's problems were apparent through the company. Already by 1996, with their competition locally (Kroger, Albertsons, AppleTree, and H-E-B Pantry) having two or more stores compared to Winn-Dixie's one, no stores in any of the major Texas cities except for Dallas-Fort Worth (and at least in 5th place behind Kroger, Tom Thumb, Albertsons, and Minyard) and Waco-Temple-Killeen, Winn-Dixie seemed to finally catch a break in 1999 as they hammered out a deal with Kroger where they would offload the entire Texas Division to Kroger for an undisclosed price (rumored to be $350M), pending FTC approval.

This would allow Kroger entrance to Oklahoma (where it had no stores and still doesn't), Waco-Temple-Killeen, a few smaller markets, and give Kroger four local stores by the end of the 2000, with their new Rock Prairie "Signature" store, their existing College Station store, and their existing Bryan store. Unfortunately for both parties, the FTC did not approve (even though it was trivial compared to the later Albertsons/Kroger merger later attempted (which still failed) with the deal now dead, Kroger walked away. Instead, in 2002, Winn-Dixie simply shut down the division. Brookshire picked up a small number of stores, Kroger picked up even less, but the majority of the stores simply closed.

That of course left Carter Creek Shopping Center without an anchor tenant. The store's address, 4001 E. 29th Street, was shared with the whole shopping center, so it's hard to find much information on other tenants and gain a clear picture of what was going on. Personally, I don't remember much of the center and I don't think it was ever well-populated, but from 2001 to 2012 a location of Tuesday Morning was located here, before it relocated to Post Oak Square. There were a few others (Career Apparel, Amish Furniture for Generations). By early 2004, Workforce Solutions had moved into the former Winn-Dixie (new address--3991 E. 29th Street) and other government offices moved in soon after.

There were/are other tenants in the shopping center as well. There are two buildings near the light at Carter Creek Parkway, one of which holds Pride Cleaners (Pride 1 Hr. Cleaners until the late 2000s/early 2010s). There was a Dollar General at suite 102 from 1993 to 2007, a DoubleDave's Pizzaworks from 1986 to 1997 (one of the early locations), and a restaurant, Wokamole Healthy Cuisine has somehow hung on for ten years at suite 106 (opened late 2014). The restaurant originally opened as a hybrid Chinese/Mexican restaurant (it replaced another Mexican restaurant called El Gallito de Jalisco, and the spot had been mostly restaurants going back years) though within a year the Mexican menu was dropped entirely.

Varsity Grillhouse

I was in a bit of a rush so I only got one picture of the restaurant and it isn't a great one (photo by author, 2/25)
A few years ago after burning out in 2021, I decided that starting with this post everything moving forward would be "buildings that are demolished or otherwise closed, had tenant changeover, had some significant change themselves, or are part of a larger story" and not merely historic. Since then everything has held to that (I figured there might be an exception or two but thus far everything has held).

The downside of a self-governed policy tends to encourage making a post of recently-deceased businesses rather than looking at a long storied history (one of the things I like the least about Columbia Closings, but it also seems to bring in the crowds).

What was a bit confusing about Varsity Grillhouse (and probably contributing to its demise) was that it was a sports-themed restaurant, but not a sports bar*. Here's the restaurant's menu courtesy Archive.org.

The restaurant came and went so fast (late April 2024 to early February 2025) that the most recent Street View of 2509 Earl Rudder Freeway. Not the shortest-lived restaurant in the area by a long shot but rarely do you see a new-build go under like that.

The restaurant was part of a new development of the old Westinghouse building and surrounding property. That's a post I've been tinkering on for a while now (pretty sure I started it five years ago) but that's still going to be a future post, someday...

* archived from this link

Former T.G.I. Friday's

A harbinger of things to come chain-wide. (source)
My first and better choice for today was unfortunately cancelled due to lack of photos but this is similar enough, plus it's themetically on point (sports bar that would probably air the Super Bowl). It's TGI Friday's, which opened late 2005 when the chain was hitting its peak (600 U.S. restaurants in 2008, now dropped to just 125 domestically).

The College Station T.G.I. Friday's at 940 University Drive East opened late 2005 and closed in May 2013. It appears the franchisee, LBD 2001 Inc., shut down the previous year and was taken over by corporate; however, the College Station location wasn't one of the ones they moved forward with. It was replaced with Willie's Grill & Icehouse in 2014.

Editor's Note: I know I've been churning a lot of posts lately, but a lot of these are stuff I've written previously. (I dare say that a good number of new posts you see now were started/partially written a few years ago). Part of the problem with the current posts is that some of these posts just aren't that thematically exciting. Looking at some of my output from 2011-2013, although most of them have been rewritten from their original drafts (and more than a few got permanently removed), it's noticeably different than the later output, it's very different than 2014 on, especially when I ran out of ideas of stuff that I really wanted to cover.

Past Lives of Harvey Washbanger's

Better days at Mazzio's. 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.

Editor's Note: I've been going through and reworking the [defunct] and [demolished] tags. [demolished] indicates that the subject of the building was torn down at some point even if it something has been rebuilt and is a permanent addition, [defunct] indicates that the space is currently unused for anything.