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.

Billy Blues and Trail Dust (Houston, Texas)

This is spinning off from Carbon-izer.com and focuses on Richmond Avenue, the section west of Loop 610 which in the 1980s and 1990s was one of the city's hotspots with trendy bars and restaurants. Some of the sites I've previously covered on other sites, including the former Chick-fil-A/Marie Callender's (formerly an apartment complex), 6213 Richmond (formerly home to Ruth's Chris Steak House), and the Rusty Scupper (6367 Richmond). Today we're looking at two restaurants built in the 1990s (the ads are from the Houston Chronicle).

Opening in 1993! The first one we'll cover is 6025 Richmond Avenue, which goes back to 1993 with the opening of "Billy Blue's Barbecue, Bar & Grill", with an unusual feature, the SmokeSax, a 70-foot tall saxophone made of old car parts. Billy Blue's closed in January 2001 and became Cabo's Mix-Mex Grill until 2004. Cabo's still had the distinct sculpture outside, and in 2009, The Horn Bar & Grill opened, taking advantage of the horn, which restored and repainted the saxophone blue (it was originally red). In the last few months of 2012 it became "Club 40", and in early 2013, it was replaced with Diablo Loco. Diablo Loco, a sports bar, had the saxophone moved to the Orange Show at 2401 Munger Street. Diablo Loco closed around 2022, with the current tenant, RockHouse Southern Kitchen, opening in March 2023.

He's holding a tie. Next up is 6101 Richmond Avenue. The sign for the last tenant here, Wild West, is still up but the parking lot is fenced off with the main building demolished. This opened as Trail Dust Steakhouse in late 1994 (a few other Trail Dust restaurants opened around this time under the same ownership, one in the Dallas area at 2300 East Lamar Blvd. opened around the same time). Him cutting off the tie was one of the restaurant's gimmicks, according to Purpledevil of the HAIF (who has sadly been MIA since 2017), "they'd cut off your tie and nail it to the wall if you wore one inside"...but hopefully with permission!

It closed just over three years later and in the fall of 1998 became Wild West, a country-western club, which moved to that location. It shuttered permanently in July 2020 and was demolished soon after. You can see Street View of the area here.

Former Huddle House (Lockhart, Texas)

From Loopnet Another import from Carbon-izer, this opened as Huddle House (#747), operating from 2011 to 2016 (operating 24/7!). In 2018 it was Kaze Grill House, though this only lasted about six months. This was later replaced by Pho Hong, but it closed by 2022. Soon after it was reopened as HTeaO.

Sunoco Franklin (Waco, Texas)

Rough-looking buildings. (Google Street View). This is a 7-Eleven which I've been to a few times, gotten a plate of Tex-Mex for lunch (surprisingly decent) and located at 2500 Franklin Avenue. As of March 2013, the block had contained some rough-looking buildings, including Edwards Machine & Tool Company (2504 Franklin), Diamond M Automotive Group (2512 Franklin), and Inmon Motorcycle Sales & Service (2500 Franklin Avenue), before they all came down for a Stripes.

According to a Tweet Stripes had put out, the store opened in January 2014 as a self-branded Stripes. With the purchase of Stripes' parent Susser Stores by Sunoco, the gas brand was changed to Sunoco less than a year after the store's opening. Between 2021 and 2022 Stripes was rebranded as 7-Eleven after Sunoco divested their convenience stores.

Since the store's opening it has had a Laredo Taco Company inside. (This post was originally from Carbon-izer).

The Original Olive Garden of Temple (Temple, Texas)

Apologies for being gone so long. I'd like to add another Carbon-izer import prompted by an email from Myron M. of Temple. The restaurant covered today is 1902 SW H K Dodgen Loop. It opened as an Olive Garden around 1991 and closed in 2002 (it eventually reopened with a new Temple location several years later).

Courtesy Portal to Texas History Online Its replacement, Yank Sing Chinese Restaurant, opened soon after. Yank Sing added a covered drive-up in order to closely resemble its Killeen location at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway (a former Luby's where 23 people were killed in a 1993 shooting) but the Temple location shuttered around 2019 (the last Yelp review was January 2019). Since then, it has been divided into two suites both with restaurants, Masfajitas in suite A (open 2022) Mario's Seafood in suite B (open 2023). They share common ownership (it's possible they share kitchen facilities).

Greenspoint Mall (Houston, Texas)

The mall sprawled out with six department stores. (2010) Opening in August 1976 and closing in August 2024, Greenspoint Mall has been discussed several places, not the least of which has been the Carbon-izer page which goes over the history and features a map of when it opened, as well as other links. Until the year 1998, Greenspoint Mall, despite a deteriorating reputation, was one of the largest malls (if not the largest) in the area with six department stores—Sears, Foley's, Dillard's, JCPenney, Mervyn's, and Montgomery Ward. Within a decade the mall would look very different...

Highland 10 (Austin, Texas)

Google Earth Street View 2019 Straight from Carbon-izer.com comes Galaxy Theatres Austin at 6700 Middle Fiskville Road. On the other side of the Burlington/former Wal-Mart is this movie theater, has been open since 1988 (except for a short period in 2000-2001). The 2005 picture of the theater at Cinematreasures is out of date; it's simply branded as "Galaxy Theatres" these days. (It's 2005 based on the movies showing.) If you visit the "Photos" page on Cinematreasures you can also see a picture of it at night in 2006 (sadly, it looks far less colorful today), where it was one of the relatively few theaters that showed Idiocracy.

For a long time I had believed it was just another movie theater I read about but never actually been to, a recent discovery of a ticket stub from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace proved otherwise (and to think, that was in its original form). I still don't remember it, though.

There are also tenants built around the cinema with the same address, like Taj Palace (closed late 2021), which has been here since 1990 (though jumped spaces within the center).