Raising Cane's at 415 MLK Jr. (Austin, Texas)

This is an updated version of what was on Carbon-izer (on a page to be removed in the near future). According to TCAD, this restaurant was built in the year 1965, though newspaper articles indicate a slightly different story, first as Uncle Van's Pancake House (opened circa 1960), which by 1966 was simply Uncle Van's.

In May 1970 it became Roy Rogers, an unusual development as the franchisee was unconnected with Ram-Hart Systems, which failed and brought down a number of other stores. In 1971, a beer and wine permit was even issued for Roy Rogers. Unfortunately, this was not enough to save it and it folded in 1974. In late 1975 Wendy's opened (by this time West 19th Street had been renamed as 415 West Martin Luther King Boulevard). Wendy's remained at this location for several decades afterward.

Going to the present, while the website of Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers (the current tenant) doesn't list store openings anymore (though it opened approx. September 2013), it makes no mention on the store's webpage makes no mention of its most notable feature...a rotating sign. This was carried over from Wendy's (unknown when they installed it), though the sign was physically reduced in size to a simple rectangle instead of the Wendy's-shaped sign.

It appears that the restaurant was extensively renovated from Wendy's (same footprint, even the back) but to what extent is unknown. (See the current restaurant on Google Maps).

Fox Hall Apartments (Houston, Texas)

Fox Hall Apartments was later spared from any right of way demolitions.
Originally appearing on Carbon-izer.com, Fox Hall Apartments at 8222 Kingsbrook Road has no direct access off of Katy Freeway but some of the buildings do abut it.

The history of Fox Hall Apartments is a little fuzzy in the early years. The apartment complex started out as Kingsbrook Apartments, though with only half of the ~300-unit complex Fox Hall would later have, though in 1967 the apartments did add 94 new units. Kingsbrook Apartments also had the address of 8255 Kingsbrook.

One of the first references for Fox Hall Apartments, then known as the Foxhall, comes in 1971. There are indications that Fox Hall Apartments was expanded to their current size during this time under new ownership, hence the new name and new project.

Schulenburg McDonald's (Schulenburg, Texas)

Street View a few years after it closed. The Schulenburg McDonald's operated from 1996 to 2015, and as I said in a recent RetailWatchers post it appears that this restaurant was terribly run, and despite what looks like an update once in its 19-year history closed abruptly, removing McDonald's insignia and the playground but leaving most everything including the interiors untouched.

Check out the Carbon-izer report here.

Circle K Jarrell (Jarrell, Texas)

Vintage Aerial, link below.
This truck stop at 9115 North Interstate 35 has been here since the 1970s, and as of 1983 was a Fina, and during most of its life had a truck stop restaurant inside. In 1990, the truck stop was a self-branded Texas Star (having been branded as such since around the time the Fina picture was taken).

By 2007, Texas Star was still the store, but the gas brand was a Shell, and featured just a Subway inside as far as the restaurant went. Texas Star was purchased by Circle K's parent company in October 2015 and by the next year, the deal had closed and the Circle K name was on the building, ending the 25+ year era of Texas Star. In the following years, the gas station made changes—by March 2021, a new electronic sign was added that also showed the diesel price, and by May of 2022, the Shell branding went away (as well as the Subway inside). It is a rare "Truck Diesel" Circle K gas station, featuring a green bar under the orange part of the Circle K logo. In another time this would've been a Circle K Truxtop. It has a Krispy Krunchy inside as of 2025 (replacing Subway, likely).

There are no longer any outbuildings on the property as seen above, there are a few covered areas for taco trucks and about where the house(?) was there's now "Essential Calibration & Alignment" at 35931 Ronald Reagan Boulevard.

Whole Foods Market on Bellaire Boulevard (Houston, Texas)

This entry was previously found on Carbon-izer (this page, originally--archived here) with updates.

The Whole Foods Market at 4004 Bellaire Boulevard has an interesting history. The first recorded tenant for this address was Henke & Pillot (#17) back in 1949. In 1961, Henke & Pillot closed the store down (big changes were coming for Henke & Pillot—by the end of the 1960s they would take on their corporate parent's name...Kroger!). In 1963, it opened as FedMart, which by this time had dropped the membership requirement from its foundings back in California. The Bellaire FedMart was different from the Mykawa and Wirt stores in the early days. It had different times of operation (opening and closing earlier in the day), smaller (and had less advertised items available), and lacked a rail spur, which the other two had. The store closed around 1979 (FedMart would leave Houston and go out of business within a few years after that). In 1980, "The Grocery Store", a locally-owned discount supermarket opened in the space. The store was a bare-bones discount grocer, it didn't accept checks, had no perishables, and bag-your-own groceries and survived most of the 1980s. (Houston Historic Retail later covered The Grocery Store in more detail). Ye Seekers (also known as Seekers) opened in 1991 (1992?). This full-service natural foods store featured a meat department, deli, bulk foods, cosmetics, beer & wine, seafood, bakery, and even a restaurant. Around 1998 it closed, and in 2000, it was absorbed, along with a defunct exercise gym and a Discovery Zone, into a Whole Foods Market, which also adapted the marquee of Bellaire Theater (in the same strip center) as part of the supermarket's signage. This was the most significant change 4004 Bellaire had ever seen, with its outdated loading facilities also rebuilt.

Google Street View can be found here.

Piccadilly (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

Picture by author, July 2024
Located at 5474 Essen Lane, according to newspaper articles, the Baton Rouge Essen Lane Piccadilly originally opened March 1983 and in 2002 completed a inside-and-out renovation after a brief closure¹, although my picture doesn't do it justice, if you look at Google Maps, between 2008 and 2011 it looks slightly different (awnings different, as well as a different logo, when it was still the full "Piccadilly Cafeteria").

I'd never eaten at Piccadilly (Cafeteria) before I went there in July 2024. They closed their last location in Texas in 2014 at the Almeda Mall (still locked as if it could reopen the next day--though it could use a vacuuming), so if I wanted to get Piccadilly on my trip it would have to be Louisiana. Maybe I just made a mistake with the fried fish but I think I still prefer Luby's as far as the fish went.

1. "Scoop du jour", September 5, 2002, The Advocate.

High Point Church (Arlington, Texas)

High Point in better days (c. 2011). This is virtually unchanged from what Johnson & Johnson had.
This was once planned for a full page on Carbon-izer and was stalled for some time due to various issues. Eventually I was able to fix it up for a post here on Numbered Exits. There was a time when Johnson & Johnson (the pharmaceutical giant), in the before times, was not just a successful but admired company, with their front-facing consumer healthcare and OTC medicine brands. As FundingUniverse mentions, this included "the Johnson's baby care line, the Neutrogena skin and hair care line, Tylenol and Motrin pain relievers, o.b. and Stayfree feminine hygiene products, the Reach oral care line, Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages, Imodium A-D diarrhea treatment, Mylanta gastrointestinal products, and Pepcid AC acid controller". Now things have deteriorated to the point where all those consumer product lines got spun off as a new company altogether and didn't keep the name. From what I can tell Surgikos, a longtime division of Johnson & Johnson that produced medical supplies (gloves, medical bandages, etc.), was the original owner of the now-demolished facility at 2500 East Arbrook Boulevard.

They had a number of facilities in Texas with the Arlington facility built sometime between 1970 and 1978, despite this article (and its second page, found here) mentioning it opened in the 1960s. This is because aerial photos show the plant not existing prior to the 1970s (though it may have relocated).

In December 1989, Surgikos became Johnson & Johnson Medical when the parent company reorganized Johnson & Johnson Patient Care Inc. into the company. This added some 20 jobs, though they had laid off over 100 a few months before...but in 2000 just a decade later the entire facility was closed as Johnson & Johnson did more consolidations.

In 2002, it was purchased and reopened as High Point Church under pastor Gary Simons. This is important because news article tell of another church (Highpoint Church) with a campus closed in Arlington, Tennessee over the improprieties of their pastor Andy Savage. In the case of this High Point Church, no scandal, but they did get foreclosed on by their lenders and closed in 2014. It was wrecked a few years later for warehouses, the only remnants being a large pond and drainage area.