Louie Mack's (Lakeland, Florida)

Louie Mack's in its vacant days (Loopnet) Louie Mack's opened in June 2006 at 5700 South Florida Avenue, after months of delays and the restaurant was one of Lakeland's largest (at more than 10,000 square feet) and upscale steakhouses, hoping to compete with Charley's Steak House and Ruth's Chris Steak House, neither of which had Lakeland locations.

Unfortunately, Louie Mack's wasn't a big success. It opened to fairly average reviews and likely had to be retooled several times to be more affordable, ultimately shuttering in 2014 despite (or because of) the efforts of new management.¹ The last month of Louie Mack's saw it closed for a few days for finding live cockroaches in the kitchen.

It would remain vacant for nearly a decade before reopening as Sushi Masa in 2023.

1. The second page of the article can be found here.

Temple Towne Center (Temple, Texas)

Many Staples stores have closed over the years, but this one still remains. (From the PDF linked below). I haven't done a deep dive into this shopping center yet. From what I can piece together it replaced a smaller shopping center anchored by Winn-Dixie around 2001, but no parts of the original center remain. The circa 2021 PDF I have on file features all of the junior anchors that are still there now (except for Bed Bath & Beyond getting replaced with HomeGoods) and McAlister's Deli moving from its strip mall spot to a stand-alone location at 2416 S.W. H.K. Dodgen Loop. This used to be a Fazoli's that was there from 2003 to 2014. Other than that the anchors seem to be pretty consistent. There's, from left to right, Staples, Shoe Carnival, Ross Dress for Less, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Ulta Beauty, Five Below (these two I believe were originally Goody's Family Clothing), Bath & Body Works (moved from the mall, used to be Rue21 Etc.), Petco, smaller stores, and Hobby Lobby.

The problem is that Temple is relatively poorly documented and when more information comes up I'll add it to this post. It probably wouldn't be covered at all if I had not vowed to dismantle this post.

KD's Smokehouse (West, Texas)

KD's Smokehouse was a relatively short-lived. (See article for source).
Originally this was part of the "I-35 in Waco" page, today's post is on KD's Smokehouse, developed around 2007 at 214 Melodie Drive, a two-way road that paralleled the Interstate 35 frontage road about 80 yards from it. The advertisement seen at the top of the page is from the August 2009 issue of Waco Today (as KD's), but it closed around 2011. In November 2013, it was renovated and reopened as Slovacek's Travel Center, an Exxon station much like their flagship plant in Snook, but much nicer and featuring sausage, kolaches, and all the convenience store fixings. There's also a dog park on the premises, though plans to add a 40-foot fire hydrant were dropped at some point. There's an article regarding the opening of Slovacek here. In early 2022, "Slovacek's Etc." was built in the south end of the parking lot. It appears to be some sort of store selling outdoor furniture and goods, though I can't find much more on it.

You can't really tell Melodie Drive is an actual "road" today, there's no curb between it and the gas station. The access road between Melodie Drive and the Interstate's frontage road is Czech Heritage Road (in front of the gas station, the hotel to the north of it is "Czech Inn Road").

UPDATE 08-31-2026: Renamed "KD's Smokehouse" from "Melodie Drive". The rest of the post has been moved back to Carbon-izer.

Lowe's at the North Loop (Houston, Texas)

Lowe's and its adjacent businesses in an early 2020s aerial.
When I originally published this post, I talked about the Lowe's and adjacent CVS being part of a bigger North Loop disassembly project. What I didn't mention at the time because I found out fairly late in research was that Lowe's was not the first thing on the site.

On June 23, 1963, Normandy Apartments officially opened at 2820 Ella Boulevard. An article describes them as having 118 units (44 1BR, 74 2BR) across twelve two-story brick buildings. A few pictures and advertisements from 1963 (Houston Chronicle) are shown below.

Across a drainage ditch was an apartment complex built a few years later, the smaller 2700 Ella Boulevard Apartments (which featured 90 units).

In the mid-1960s 2700 Ella was renamed as Heights Field before around 1974 when both apartments came under common ownership, with Normandy Apartments becoming "One Normandy Place" and Heights Field becoming "Two Normandy Place". There's not many references after that other than notice of land some sales and stories of illegal dumping when some units of Two Normandy Place had a way of taking out the trash by simply hurling it into the drainage ditch that separated the two properties. Both apartment complexes were still there in 1995 and there's a reference to a window smashed in 1998 at 2700 Ella. I assume the Lowe's came in soon after. ixtures like cabinets and the sinks, and these were carried over to the apartment complex.

When Lowe's (1521 N. Loop West) it redeveloped the entire site, including some single-family homes on West 28th Street. The ditch is still there, buried under the parking lot (the white-patched section of the parking lot that appeared in 2017 relates to that). A Murphy Express (1527 N. Loop West) was built in the parking lot around 2010-2011, shortly before the Shell (which never connected to the Lowe's parking lot, as it predated it) was redeveloped as a CVS (the CVS does connect to the parking lot).

UPDATE 07-09-2026: Major update to account for the new apartment complexes and downplays CVS (to be covered in the new North Loop page).

South First Square (Austin, Texas)

From this PDF
I don't have a lot of information on this one today. The grocery store at 611 West Ben White Boulevard was A&P when it first opened in 1966. The grocery store later changed hands to locally-based Foodland, which sold in 1996 to Cutrer's City Market, which by 2007 was simply City Market. From what I can find City Market sold to Arlan's Market, which closed this location shortly after, reopening in 2013 as Mi Rancho Meat Market. In late 2015 or early 2016 it was rebadged as the current name. Sharing the address and building is a restaurant called Bamboo Garden, this was Godfather's Pizza in the 1980s, and I'm not sure of the building out front. It looks like it was originally a restaurant.

While it's not connected to the shopping center anymore (poles were inserted into the concrete), the 7-Eleven (601 W. Ben White) has been here since the 1986 (though it likely originally had Citgo as a gas brand).

King Arthur's Castle (Grapevine, Texas)

1985 ad, source.
I'd like to thank Anonymous in Houston for cluing me into this one, a unique gas station with expanded food offerings (salads, barbecue, baked potatoes...but no fried chicken) that opened in 1985 and operated into the early 2000s and torn down soon after. The address of this place was 920 E. Northwest Highway, which is used by a Starbucks opened in 2007; however, the Starbucks occupied the plot of land just west of King Arthur's Castle.

As you can see below in this Google Earth aerial from 2001 the gas station had a turret on top of it as well as some other small signs in front of it; however, I'm not sure what, if any gas brand it offered.