Plantation Foods (Waco, Texas)

1998 photo from the Waco Tribune Herald (link to where this appears)
The last big update (Version 10.0) to Valley Mills Drive in Waco stripped out a number of entries that weren't on Valley Mills Drive (they were sort of on the road, but it was a different part of the road that wasn't covered) and today one of them is returning (and in true Numbered Exits fashion, expanded).

Today we talk turkey with the initial facility built in 1965 at what was originally 3130 Gholson Road (later 2510 East Lake Shore Drive) by Plantation Foods, a Waco-based turkey processor that was designed to process 750,000 turkeys a year with 150 employees. Over time, Plantation Foods grew, opening a second plant for "prepared food products" to the west (at what is now 2500 E. Lake Shore Drive) sometime in the 1980s. By 1985 it was an $80 million company that made a variety of products, from prepared lunch meat to whole turkeys for the holidays. From a 1989 recall notice, they had also produced under other brand names, with the turkey franks going as "Plantation Turkey Franks", "Nifda Turkey Franks", "Code Turkey Franks", and "Nugget Turkey Franks".

Plantation Foods was gobbled up by Cargill in 1998, at which point Plantation Foods employed 1,850 and were doing 2 million turkeys a year. This ruffled some feathers in the Waco area as Plantation Foods was local for years and affected local businesses that had contracts with Plantation Foods. In 1999, Cargill downscaled the plant by selling the newer facility (at 2500 E. Lake Shore) to Pilgrim's Pride, and that's how things are still today. (Okay, enough with the puns).

Keller's Cactus Jack's (Dallas, Texas)

What luck! Loopnet has a picture of it as Cactus Jack's (the original exterior).
4341 Lemmon Avenue in Dallas was originally built as Del Taco, which operated from 1979 to 1981 (I believe Del Taco pulled out of Dallas first, then Houston...it's a long story), and then became Cactus Jack's, also known as Keller's Cactus Jack's, a local hamburger restaurant that also served beer, hot dogs, and other types of sandwiches including grilled cheese. In 2010 they closed after 28 years to be leased to Carl's Jr. when CKE Restaurants an ambitious plan to add 170 Carl's Jr. restaurants to Texas (that was a lofty number, I don't think they got anywhere close to that and all but a small handful have closed), which opened in late 2010. By spring 2014 it was already gone and replaced with a Taco Bell.

I'm not sure what exactly was the difference between "Cactus Jack's" and "Keller's Cactus Jack's", which tax records show. As this was still owned by Keller prior to 1990, I assume it was differentiate from independent establishments with similar names.

Restaurants of 4527 Lomitas Street (Houston, Texas)

The original 4527 Lomitas Street was this apartment building. (Houston Chronicle, 09/23/1951).
I've updated Carbon-izer.com again. Most of the action in Houston focuses on North Freeway and Gulf Freeway, but Southwest Freeway still received an update.

Among the many restaurants facing Southwest Freeway, we have what is currently a Twin Peaks; however, it doesn't have a Southwest Freeway address and is currently ineligible to be added to that list. Instead, it's Lomitas Drive, a small street functioning as an alley to the nearby restaurants.

4527 Lomitas Street has served as a variety of restaurants (with one exception) over the years. After replacing the circa-1951 apartment building that sat in the lot, the first restaurant to be in the spot was a Cajun restaurant named Gator's (opened 1987), but in 1991 it closed and was replaced by a new location of Pico's Mexican Restaurant (better known as Pico's Mex-Mex). Around 1996-1997 it closed and became Scottsdale's Restaurant in 1998. Scottsdale's retooled in early 2000 as "The Field House Restaurant & Bar" By 2000 Scottsdale's had closed and reopened as The Field House Restaurant & Bar, a more sports bar-style establishment (with some changes, such as discarding the notorious practice of charging for bread...but that only operated for less than two months. El Buen Bife Grill ("Argentine Steak House & Tango Bar") opened in October 2001. This renamed to simply "Argentina Grill" in late 2002 and closing around the end of 2004. Oddly, in the mid-2000s (to the late 2000s) this was Fish Gallery (fish and aquarium supplies—not a restaurant!) before a renovation to Twin Peaks around 2011-2012, which has been here since, and surviving the bankruptcy of parent company FAT Brands, which had acquired it in 2020.

Here's Google Street View, and below are some of the advertisements of the restaurants that called 4527 Lomitas home over the years.

Holiday Inn & Suites Owatanna (Owatanna, Minnesota)

Not the greatest picture. It seems it was supplied by the hotel to Yelp back in 2010 (cropped)
Back a few years ago when we covered the Grand Rios Indoor Water Park Hotel in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I had linked to an article mentioning another Minnesota hotel that was built a waterpark hotel in 1999, not trying to retrofit one onto a struggling hotel as part of an attempted turnaround attempt. What happened to that hotel?

Well, we know that this waterpark was far more modest than the more elaborate (outdoor) one in the Lake Buena Vista area (even before the partnership with Nickelodeon). It's also very isolated, between a Cabela's (now Bass Pro Shops) and a mostly-failed outlet mall.

Up until 2019 this remained a Holiday Inn & Suites with the waterpark (yes, before COVID) when it closed for a reason I'm not sure of (see article here). Within short order the hotel became Motel 6 and at the time I wrote the post on (I assume the waterpark never opened after COVID) and at the time I wrote about the Brooklyn Park hotel, it was closed. From what I remember reading of some of the reviews was that the waterpark may have been open in some capacity, but not to its full extent.

HotelPlanner.com currently has a description of the hotel when it was a Holiday Inn.

The Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Owatonna home of the Great Serengeti Indoor Water Park! Come experience the adventure! Our award winning hotel, located just 40 minutes south of Mpls/St Paul and next to Cabela's, features 130 guest rooms and suites, including Kidsuites. We offer amenities for business or pleasure. The Great Serengeti Indoor Water Park features the exciting Kilimanjaro Tube Slide, Python Body Slide, The Relaxing Lazy Zambezi River, Zero Depth Entry activity pool, Water Basketball and relaxing waterfall spa. Our African Serengeti themed water park is decorated with trees, life-size giraffe, hippopotamus kids slide, spraying elephant and a mischievous monkey. The park features Café Zanzibar, our pool side café for snacks, drinks and even dinner. The Lion's Den features a large selection of the latest video games, as well as interactive games for adults and children of all ages. For the business traveler our guest rooms feature a spacious work desk, we offer complimentary high speed wireless internet, and a business center. Our Meeting/Banquet facility features 5 meeting rooms with multiple room combinations for up to 400 people. Events at the Holiday Inn Owatonna feature personalized menu planning with a wide range of food and beverage selections available. We have banquet and meeting specialists, as well as support service, on staff to assist with your event. For shopping, we're located adjacent to Cabela's – MN 2nd largest tourist attraction, and the Medford Outlet Mall is only 2 minutes away featuring several new stores, including Old Navy.

In June 2025 it reopened as DoubleTree by Hilton Owatonna with the waterpark apparently scheduled to reopen in January, from reading elsewhere. Unfortunately, if you go to their website (as of this writing), there's a message that "The swimming pool will be closed January 16, 2026 - September 30, 2026 for maintenance purposes. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Well, I guess that's that. Here's the scan of my 2002 Six Continents directory for this particular hotel (located at 2365 43rd Street NW, Owatonna, Minnesota) during better times.

Cavender's Boot City (San Marcos, Texas)

Picture by author, December 2022
The new update to Carbon-izer is just a few days away, and a huge part of it will be the city directories, with featured updates for Houston in particular with dozens of new entries. But for the Austin area ones, there's not nearly that number. A while back, I redid a page for Austin and Interstate 35 and in the process, cut out the San Marcos entries, including Cavender's Boot City.

While this particular store is an outlot of the Tanger Outlets outlet mall (and here since 2000) the Cavender's Boot City has an even more colorful sign that the Houston 290 one (when that sign has worked, and it's been a bit flaky as of late). I'm not sure on the blue hat but it's definitely one of my favorites and these are cool signs. The picture, even when zoomed in, doesn't do it justice. (4331 S. Interstate 35, San Marcos). Hopefully I'll cover Tanger Outlets a bit more in the future...

Former Super Saver Wholesale Warehouse Club of Memphis (Memphis, Tennessee)

Picture from Loopnet, as a Garden Ridge.
I came across this in Eastern Memphis, it's an At Home (rebranded Garden Ridge) now but sure doesn't look like it started out as such. Indeed it did not. While the Loopnet link above says the building was built in 1972, it actually opened in October 1986 as Super Saver Wholesale Warehouse Club, a new chain launched by Alton Howard after Howard's BranDiscount liquidated (still based out of Monroe, Louisiana). In Memphis, this opened in October 1986, but sadly was short-lived, as the chain was sold to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1987, and in summer 1987 it closed for a new Sam's Wholesale Club, which in turn moved out in 1994 after a failed attempt to own the building instead of just leasing it. Instead it was leased to Garden Ridge, which moved in around 1995 and became At Home in the mid-2010s.

Former Walk-On's (Waco, Texas)

From Loopnet, see link below.
As of this writing (6/25, though will change in about...five days from now), I've got this listed on the Loop 340 page, but today's subject is on 5601 Crosslake Parkway, developed as part of "Legends Crossing", a development of mostly restaurants surrounding what is now the Baylor Scott & White Hospital.

This opened as Walk-On's Bistreaux & Bar (as it was formally known back then) in July 2018 and operated for a few months shy of seven years, closing in May 2025.

As it's a vacant building and on the market, I got a picture from Loopnet in case they decide to take them down in the future. (They also have some pictures of the empty restaurant).