Thursday, November 21, 2024

Chevron / Quiznos (Channelview, Texas)

Google Street View from the mid-2010s. Note that the Wendy's sign is much larger.
The gas station at 411 Sheldon Road was built as a Chevron/Quizno's circa 2007 (replacing an older gas station on the site) but the Quizno's failed within two years. For several years afterward, the co-brand side simply read "Sub", it now advertises NYC Burgers, a small shop set up in the former space. It has no dedicated entrance. (The convenience store is currently King Fuels).

UPDATE 05-10-2025: With the East Freeway page staying on Carbon-izer thanks to a new page, this page has been updated to no longer mention Wendy's, Captain D's, or Scottish Inn. The picture has also been changed, as has the title—it was previously "Sheldon Road and East Freeway (Channelview, Texas)"

Saturday, November 16, 2024

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.

Thursday, November 14, 2024

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.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

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.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Cannoli Joe's (Sunset Valley, Texas)

Wolfe Nursery once stretched throughout Texas until its collapse in the late 1990s (check out the piece I wrote on Houston Historic Retail) but the one that opened at 4715 S. Lamar Blvd. (aka 4715 Highway 290 West) in Sunset Valley was one of the last stores to close, saved from the collapse of their old parent company Sunset Nurseries but not much beyond that.
"Wolfe's GardenLand" was a result of a merger from another garden center, though the Houston stores from the merger had dropped the moniker by then. - from the Austin-American Statesman
I now realize this was the last Wolfe Nursery store I ever saw open (my local store closed five years prior—which was a long time ago for a kid) and like the local store it was redeveloped as a completely different building. In College Station, that store had been gutted and expanded as Cavender's Boot City, but in Austin it remained vacant for a few years before it too was gutted and renovated as something completely different, reopening 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.

UPDATE 08-24-2025: Expanded article with information on Wolfe Nursery, the building's previous tenant.

Saturday, November 9, 2024

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.