Slim Chickens Waco (Waco, Texas)

Actually one more from the Waco Other Roads page, Slim Chickens at 5804 Bosque Boulevard.

Chili's opened in 1992 following remediation of the site from a Gulf station (hat tip to Sicem365) and closed in April 2016 after a new location opened at the University High School site. After that, it briefly became Bella Luna Italian Bistro (from 2018 to 2019) before being demolished and reopening as Slim Chickens in June 2021.

Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen (Waco, Texas)

Just one more from Carbon-izer's Other Waco Roads and we're done with it. Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen at 4208 Franklin Avenue opened around January 2005 as Cheddar's Casual Cafe with a major reconfiguration of Franklin Avenue that got rid of the frontage roads, added a new lane in each direction, and a new road to access Precision Drive, a signaled road called Cheddar's Drive, named after the restaurant.

It appears the restaurant was rebranded in 2016 but had remodeled a few years earlier.

Enclave at the Stadium (Waco, Texas)

1600 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

In 1970, Pecan Gardens Apartments were built at 1601 Spring Street, though eventually the apartments went Section 8 and by the early 1990s were renamed The Villas of Lake Brazos. It was even shut down at one point in the early 1990s due to crime problems. Around 2007 the apartments were purchased, renovated, and renamed as "Lakewood Villas Apartment Community" but low occupancy and a double murder in 2011 caused the apartments to be foreclosed on, and ended up causing it to be relinquished from its Section 8 status. The apartments were evicted again, renovated and reopened as The Hype in time for fall 2014 at Baylor. By early 2016, the apartments had changed names to The Enclave at the Stadium and assumed its current address.

Imported from the Other Waco Roads page on Carbon-izer.com.

Cannoli Joe's (Sunset Valley, Texas)

I'm experimenting with no-picture posts, with this one being on 4715 S. Lamar Blvd., which opened as Cannoli Joe's Italian Feast in 2007, a large Italian restaurant with extensive theming and menu options (actually a buffet) but it closed in January 2013 and in 2014 was gutted inside and out for smaller stores and restaurants (the Italian village-themed exterior disappeared). By 2016 these included Cane Rosso, Texas Cow Tipping Creamery (former home to the short-lived St. Philip and accompanying bakery), Stouthaus Coffee Pub, RE/MAX Posh Properties (by 2018), The Funky Brunch (by 2018, later home to Casper Fermentables by 2024), Salon by Milk & Honey, and WellMed (in an expansion that doubled the size of the building). There are probably other tenants I'm forgetting but that's what the comment section is for.

This entry is expanded from Carbon-izer.com's South Austin page.

QuikTrip Waco (Waco, Texas)

We're coming to an end to covering Carbon-izer's "Other Waco Roads" with QuikTrip on 2350 S. New Road, of which I've attached an article from 2019. It should be noted that the final product that opened in July 2021 connected to the parking lot of Hooters, not the Carl's Jr. restaurant. There's still a missing portion of parking lot that they haven't built out yet. (See the main map). Coincidentally, by the time QuikTrip opened, the Carl's Jr. which expected to benefit was closed. The Hooters opened in January 2006 but closed in the chain's big purge in June 2024. I photographed the local Hooters in Bryan at Brazos Buildings & Businesses.

Days Inn & Suites - Galleria (Houston, Texas)

Above is a 2002 Days Inn Directory listing for one of their motels at 3333 Fountain View Drive in Houston, Texas. The motel was built and opened in 1997 as Gallery Inn but by the early 2000s was a Days Inn. I don't know when the motel changed names to its current name, Grand Villa Inn, other than being sometime between January 2021 and June 2022) it disconnected from the Days Inn chain. It features 40 units on two floors. Shortly after the rebranding it was repainted (white with dark blue trim) and enclosed with a big fence around the property for security reasons.

The directory listing above is a little misleading, the diner icon means there's restaurants nearby (which for all but rural locations would qualify), same as tennis and golf facilities. It does have an exercise room and a coin laundry (that's the camera-looking thing).

Olive Garden and Red Lobster at Richland Mall (Waco, Texas)

Another import from the the existing "Other Waco Roads" page at Carbon-izer (as of this writing the Internet Archive is partially down so don't expect that link at press time) comes two restaurants at Richland Mall...the Red Lobster at 5925 West Waco Drive and the Olive Garden at 5921 W. Waco Drive. More accurately, the Red Lobster started out as a China Coast, and both restaurants were owned by General Mills Restaurants Inc., the restaurant division of conglomerate General Mills. In 1995, General Mills Restaurants was spun off and renamed as Darden Restaurants and one of their first goals was to close the struggling China Coast chain. A few years later it was reopened as another concept of theirs, Red Lobster, which moved from 4900 Bosque Boulevard as that place was to be redeveloped for a new H-E-B. Despite Darden divesting Red Lobster in 2014 and its eventual bankruptcy filing, both restaurants still occupy pad spaces in front of Richland Mall.

You can see both restaurants here in Street View. I'll leave you with an article about the groundbreaking of both.