WinCo Foods of Denton (Denton, Texas)

Photo by author, July 2026
One of the things I did on my most trip (2026) was visit new supermarkets that I previously hadn't been to (new chains, not new locations). While I won't be able to do a blow-by-blow of every stop I made on this trip (though I do have some photos and other things to share), I would like to share this WinCo Foods in Denton, Texas, which I visited July 14, 2026. WinCo Foods opened store #140 July 28, 2016 at 2645 West University Drive, meaning I visited just a few weeks shy of its 10th anniversary.

As for WinCo Foods, it was a rather empty-looking warehouse store (more Home Depot-like than H-E-B or Walmart) and its aisles came across like a cross between H-E-B and Aldi, but it had a great bulk section with chocolate-covered coffee beans for far less than what Central Market or Trader Joe's had. (No dried citrus fruits, though...that would've been the real treat...)

Mainland City Centre (Texas City, TX)

Inside of the mall, 2008 (photo by author) with extra exposure added As the new update of Carbon-izer goes live sometime tonight, bringing with it a host of new content, here's some older content with a bit of a catch...the newest version of this goes live at around midnight, so within 24 hours of this post (though no one catches these posts right as they go up, so you'll probably be all right).

In any case, today's post is on Mainland City Centre (10000 Emmett F. Lowry Expressway), discussed a bit in the Carbon-izer entry for the Mall of the Mainland, the mall that operated from 1993 to 2014 and has my 2008 pictures.

1800 Walnut Street (Bastrop, Texas)

From Casa Chapala's official website (see below)
As the new version of Carbon-izer premiers in a few days, and with it will be a handful of new entries covering Houston, Caldwell, and Austin, but there were a few removed, namely 1800 Walnut Street in Bastrop, facing Highway 95/21 and not far from a Buc-ee's built around the same time. It was developed with two tenants—a meat market (one story) and a Mexican restaurant (two stories) though neither one appear to connect to each other or have common ownership. Jalisco Meat Market (opened late 2012) is part of a chain of Mexican restaurants found in this area, and like any other Mexican meat market, small, sells meat, produce, some baked items, and a taqueria, including nopales (cactus) as an option for breakfast tacos. (At least that's what some early reviews indicated. I'm not 100% sure on that now.)

The other side of the building is a two story Mexican restaurant. The two-story La Hacienda Restaurant & Bar opened in fall 2013 (after a long delay for some reason) and closed in December 2017, being replaced with Casa Chapala Mexican Restaurant.

West's Original 7-Eleven (West, Texas)

The West News, 3/31/1977, courtesy Portal to Texas History Online
A bit of a bonus post as I'm planning a revamp to my existing coverage in West, Texas but 700 West Oak Street was a 7-Eleven when it opened in March 1977 (the opening ad is above...a full line of fresh produce?!) with a gas station, but in 1988 it was sold to Circle K, which in turn became Skinny's/Fina in 1999. It shut down in the early 2010s after I-35 ate the gas canopy area (and roadside sign), so it never became Alon (and if it did, it was extremely brief). It was abandoned in 2013 and became JoAnn's Bridal in 2014, though it relocated within a decade, and within a few years of that the building was completely demolished. By that time, there was a modern 7-Eleven catty-corner, but it bears little resemblance to the 7-Eleven that opened here in the late 1970s.

Former Albertsons #4021 (Victoria, Texas)

Picture by author, 2016
I first wrote about the Victoria Albertsons (1309 E. Red River Street) back in 2016 on Safeway and Albertsons in Texas Blog. Now that I have some better resources, it was indeed planned and built as a Skaggs Albertsons, though by the time it actually opened in August 1977, it was just a regular Albertsons¹ and closed in October 2002, the last South Texas store (if you don't count Kerrville and New Braunfels) to close.

In January 2008, after renovating the building, StarTek moved in as a call center, but only operated until January 2010; it never did max out the 600 employees it intended to have, and closed with 269 employees. Capgemini moved in soon after, but it came and went. By the end of 2012, it was empty once more.

It was at this point I came across the building in July 2016, repainted but empty. Below are additional pictures from July 2016.

In January 2017, Grifols Biomat USA Plasma Center opened in part of the building. The following year, BCFS Education Services opened Victoria County Red River Head Start, an early childcare program, but with the address of 2102 North Laurent Street (the west side of the building). From 2019 to 2022, Victoria-based OfficeSystems also occupied space on the Laurent Street side.

From what I can piece together, today (August 2026), both OfficeSystems is gone (moved out in 2024 to their own offices), BCFS Head Start Victoria moved to the front of the building and using the Red River address, and Christian private school V1 Academy using the Laurent address.

1. The store number was 4021 at closing, but Albertsons did change a bunch of store numbers around 1997 as part of reorganizing the San Antonio/Houston divisions, so I'm not 100% positive this was ALWAYS 4021. I'm still doing research on that sort of thing.

Holiday Inn Family Suites - Lake Buena Vista (Lake Buena Vista, Florida)

From the hotel's original website.
Back in 2021, I added the somewhat awkwardly named "The Nickelodeon Hotel—when it was just a Holiday Inn" to Carbon-izer, addressing the flaws of a Defunctland video on the subject (during its time as the Nickelodeon hotel) while showing off more of the original hotel.¹ As of this writing, the article is in need of an update, but I wanted to post it to Numbered Exits as part of a revamp to Carbon-izer.

In any case, the property at 18000 International Drive (the last address of Orlando's International Drive)² opened in 1999 as "Holiday Inn Family Suites - Lake Buena Vista" and after dropping the Nickelodeon branding (which by 2016, had dropped all references to Holiday Inn, having lapsed the naming agreement with Holiday Inn. Afterward, it became the "Holiday Inn Resort Orlando Suites - Waterpark" (the Holiday Inn Resort brand created as a replacement to replace the older Holiday Inn SunSpree brand, though few SunSpree hotels made the transition).

I believe that the address was 14500 Continental Gateway through the Nick days.
The current hotel offers Lakeside Cafe (the breakfast buffet), Antonio's Pizzeria, Burger Theory & Pool Bar (near the pool), Hershey's Ice Cream, Red Panda & Sombrero's (rice bowls and Mexican food), and Hideaway Bar & Grill (full service).

1. I'm not sure what Defunctland does these days, I have to assume the high subscriber count translates into Patreon dollars, and that has to be a significant amount...but given how few videos are being put out that means getting thousands of dollars a month for doing literally nothing. It's unfortunate, but life's just not fair.
2. While I have previously covered another International Drive business with hopefully more to come, this segment of International Drive does not connect to the Orlando road. There is a short gap between Florida 535 and World Center Drive.

Sawmill Square Mall (Laurel, Mississippi)

A bit of a bummer they didn't light up the neon for the "Cowboy Maloney's" part, but at least its still open.
This is a bit of a bonus post since it's outside of our schedule, but I wanted to properly integrate a post on Sawmill Square Mall onto this website, particularly because that while Corn Dog 7 has long maintained a presence in the mall, they only recently opened a new Corn Dog 7 (the first and only stand-alone store) in June 2025 to the north of the mall. While this is exciting news for Corn Dog 7, it doesn't bode well for the location inside the mall, or the mall itself. Catch up more details on what I wrote for Sawmill Square Mall on Carbon-izer.com after I visited it in July 2024.