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.