Ingles in Farragut (Farragut, Tennessee)

Author's picture, July 2024 This Ingles (around 97k square feet) was built in 2008 to replace a smaller nearby store (35k square feet). The store was great; some good bakery options (half price on donuts after hours) and a bulk section but the center store was rather pricey. Guess you get what you pay for. I took some pictures of things I found interesting, including a convenience store-like counter for the deli, the difference between "Kids Cereal" and "Adult Cereal", and a few others.

The Ingles replaced Farragut Towne Square Cinema 10, which operated from 1993 to 2005. Ingles Market #91 is located at 11847 Kingston Pike in Farragut, Tennessee.

Village Flowery and Wagner Hardware (Houston, Texas)

I couldn't get a good shot of Wagner Hardware. (2013 Street View). I titled this post the way as it was these two businesses on the 6100 block of Kirby that imprinted on me and those two businesses kept those names between 1989 and 2010. The first one, the current River Oaks Plant House which I best remember as Village Flowery (after all, it had that name for about 25 years) goes back to the mid-1960s when Tom Payne Typewriter Co. moved to 6125 Kirby from 6103 Kirby as by 1966 a new restaurant out of California that had begun fast expanding in California and the Southwest was built...Jack in the Box. Sometime around the mid-1980s the restaurant closed (relocating to 5114 Kirby Drive) and by 1989, Village Flowery was operating out of the space. It had common ownership with River Oaks Plant House, a garden center operating at 3401 Westheimer Road. For over the next twenty years the two garden centers operated in their respective parts of town. However, in late 2013, River Oaks Plant House got kicked out of its old location at 3401 Westheimer Road, and as a result, they simply rebranded Village Flowery to River Oaks Plant House (despite not being near River Oaks anymore).

The other building was Wagner Hardware. When it began construction of a building fronting Kirby in May 1948, it already had been a known name moving from the Rice Village area, and after completing the building, continued to operate for the next 60 years. That all started to change in 2009, when it introduced a store-within-a-store for eco-friendly products called "New Living". Not too long after, the store changed hands and the store was remerchandised and rebranded to the "New Living" concept.Most of the hardware lines were dropped for furniture and mattresses in addition to paint, and in 2014, New Living dismantled the old Wagner Hardware sign above the store. Between 2015 and 2017, New Living refocused from "sustainable design and furniture" to simply "organic mattresses". I'm not sure how the transition between New Living and Houston Natural Mattress (the similar replacement tenant) occurred, but it happened between October 2019 and March 2020. They seem to have different phone numbers. (This post is adopted from something on Carbon-izer.com, but removed in a later update. Street View here).

Shoney's on Donelson Pike (Nashville, Tennessee)

Photo by author, 7/24 When it came to "try new restaurants" on my big trip, Shoney's was on that list, and the Shoney's at 546 Donelson Pike was the one I ended up going to.

It was "Flavor Fiesta" that day (or in layman's terms, Taco Tuesday) but I stayed with the traditional stuff, getting only two modest plates, one composing of pork chops, mac-n-cheese (would've preferred potatoes but they were out), vegetables, and a few rolls (I do enjoy bread), the other salad and canned fruit.

The oldest reference I can find is that this Shoney's was here in 1977 and rebuilt at some point in the 1990s for reasons unknown. Also, note the Buick Reatta in the parking lot; there's not too many of those around.

Neat.

Carpet, Texas (Jersey Village, Texas)

"The Super Floor Store" as of c. 2011 With the page on the fast food restaurants restored on Carbon-izer, they weren't the only victims of 290 near Beltway 8. Another building, visible from the freeway easily, was a large green-roofed warehouse known as "Carpet, Texas" when opened in February 2001 at 15815 Northwest Freeway (though the advertisement has its old location at 14900 Hempstead). It closed in 2010 but was soon picked up and reopened by Jack's Carpet with the same bunch of logos below it. Unfortunately, this only lasted a few years before it was closed in 2012 (along with most of the other Jack's Carpet stores, though the Webster store still operates). There's some more pictures on Google Maps Street View (if you can fiddle around to get to the pre-2014 configuration) and on Carbon-izer servers, an older shot when they still did 3D views. (This was adapted from this page on Carbon-izer.com).

Albertsons Texarkana (Texarkana, Arkansas)

This is how the Albertsons appeared in 2013 per Google. I don't have my own picture, it was overcast and I was losing daylight fast. In what was perhaps the strangest state line crossing I have ever encountered, I turned left on State Line Road into Albertsons #611 (that's the store number today and I don't know if it was ever changed) at 3710 N. State Line Avenue, Texarkana, AR 71854. Tax records indicate the 64,793 square foot store was built in 1974 as Skaggs Albertsons and some newspaper archives from Shreveport do in fact indicate this became Skaggs Alpha Beta by the 1980s before its brief time as Jewel-Osco and finally getting renamed as Albertsons in 1992.

Given the fact that the exterior got a facelift sometime around 2015-2016 I'm assuming that's the last time the interior was updated though there seemed to be construction on flooring on my visit. My photos are below.

This is about what H-E-B charges, but does H-E-B have miniature versions?

A clean, bright store.

The flooring's torn up here.

All real soft drink brands as far as the eye can see.

Can't say Sunkist Orange Diet is very common.

No card required but added anyway.

Woodway Drive Exit Central Texas Parkway/Santa Fe Drive (Woodway, Texas)

A & JEH Food Mart before it was closed and demolished. (Google Maps). This is kind of a double dip, as I mentioned in Carbon-izer, many of these entries started out as Wikimapia entries that I added in the 2010s. This article covers the Central Texas Parkway and Santa Fe Drive exit of Woodway Drive (one road, two names on either side) and covers the 6900 through 7800 blocks. The only thing that won't be covered here is 7124 Woodway Drive, now Hillcrest Dental Care. There's a somewhat out of date page on Carbon-izer but at least it has a photo.

Starting from the 6900 block going west (on the north side) is mostly industrial usage. We have Darr Equipment Co. (6917 Woodway Drive), which does heavy machinery (inc. CAT) rentals. In the late 1980s to the mid-2000s it was Texas Kenworth but at some point changed hands to CAT. Officially, this was around 2012, but the Darr name has been on the building at least since 2008.

Next up is 6931 Woodway Drive. From 2005 to at least through 2019, the front half of this building was occupied by Med-Equip, a medical equipment store. Med-Equip moved to a new location later (and had moved from a smaller location before), and as of 2024 is Atlas Spas & Swim Spas. United Rentals is at 6935 Woodway Drive, 7003 and 7005 Woodway are three warehouses converted into medical offices (Londonderry Plaza), 7007 Woodway Drive is Motel 6 (tax records indicate this was a Ramada Inn originally--2000 to no later than 2007, then it was a Travelodge from c. 2007 to around 2011-2012.) In 2019, it became "Woodway Inn" but it has since reverted to Motel 6. Interestingly, I seem to remember one of the hotels on the south side, either 6624 Woodway (or possibly even 6908 Woodway) being known as "Woodway Inn & Suites" briefly. Sunbelt Rentals is at 7011 Woodway Drive. In 1999, NationsRent of Texas built here, and in 2006 it was acquired by Sunbelt Rentals, which rebranded it by fall 2007 with its distinctive green-colored building and construction equipment rentals. The Chevron at 7325 Woodway was a Texaco in the mid-1990s to around 2003 when it was converted to Shell. The Shell mysteriously closed up for a few years in 2013 and re-opened again for a few more years until becoming a Chevron in 2015. The actual station dates back to 1973.

Capital Title of Texas is at 7401 Woodway, I remember following the drama of this one in its last days. This house-like office building replaced a 1950s-era gas station (1956), living most of its life as Mobil (though briefly received BP brands as late as 2007), but in its sunset years had become "A & JEH Food Mart", a convenience store that no longer sold gas. A & JEH was completely demolished sometime in late 2013, with a new foundation poured by October 2014. The A & JEH branding (on a sign distinctly shaped like a Mobil sign) remained up even into late 2014, and the tenant it would have for the latter half of the 2010s and up until 2022 (when it had closed) was Interim HealthCare of Waco, a hospice agency. (I don't know the full history of the station, but in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the convenience store here was TETCO, a brand that by the early 2010s would be acquired by 7-Eleven.

7407 Woodway Drive, advertised as "Furniture Center and Casual Shop", with two distinct buildings and shops, "Furniture Center" legally has the address of 7405 Woodway, but both stores have been operating together as one entity since at least 1990.

The bank at the northeast corner of Woodway and Santa Fe Drive (101 Santa Fe Drive) is Cadence Bank. It was built in 2001 as "Texas First State Bank" (with the "Texas First" is emphasized as the brand name). In late 2019, Texas First State Bank was merged with BancorpSouth and eventually rebranded as BancorpSouth Bank shortly before it got rebranded again when BancorpSouth Bank purchased Cadence Bancorporation and took the Cadence Bank name.

Going a bit further along is 7609 Woodway, housing Document Solutions, Sunquest Hospitality, Sunrise Construction, Kainos Technlogies, and Spritz Hair Studio, then Tuff Shed (of Waco) located at 7705 Woodway, and finally Regent Care Center of Woodway (7801 Woodway Drive, built 2001).

Going eastbound on the southside, there's banks and restaurants predominantly. There used to be almost no restaurants on this strip (even in the mid-2010s) but that has clearly been changing. First up is 7608 Woodway Drive. This used to be Davis Coffee Company, a local Waco wholesale coffee company that has been around since at least the 1950s (probably not at this location). Around the mid-to-late 2010s it quietly closed, and in 2019, the building was renovated to include Slow Rise Slice House (a pizza restaurant), Common Grounds (a branch of a coffeehouse near Baylor), and Native Sons Coffee Roasters (local coffee roasting company). Next up is Air Control (7604 Woodway, HVAC repair), First Guaranty Bank (Synergy Bank when it was built in 2015, it assumed its current name after a few years), The First National Bank of Central Texas (7500 Woodway Drive), Texas Retina Associates (203 Archway Drive, built early 2020s), Starbucks (193 Archway Drive—opened May 2024, though I'm not sure if it occupies all of the building or not), GENCO Federal Credit Union (105 Archway), and finally 101 Archway Drive, an address that is shared between a Hat Creek Burger Company location that opened in 2018 and Christian Brothers Automotive.

Besides the former RibCrib and another medical building located in its parking lot (221 Jewell Drive, Allergy and Asthma Care of Waco) is the Regal Jewel Stadium 16 & ScreenX. The theater opened in 1997 and also known as Regal Jewel Stadium 16. It appears to have been built as Hollywood Theaters (the facade was kept until the end), which was bought by Wallace Theater in 1999 and subsequently bought by Regal Entertainment in 2013, before it closed in July 2023.

Burger-N-Wok (Valley Mills, Texas)

Own work from March 2014; I'm happy at how well this turned out. This former Dairy Queen (had a little ice cream cone on the signage, unusual for these parts) existed at least since 1980 but closed in 2008 for reasons unknown (the next closest one is in Clifton). In 2009, "Burger-N-Wok" opened, a restaurant with a varied menu (Chinese food, hamburgers, nachos). The restaurant is located at 602 Avenue C, Valley Mills, TX 76689.