Showing posts with label TX-21. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TX-21. Show all posts

Thursday, August 27, 2026

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.

Friday, July 10, 2026

Bastrop H-E-B plus! (Bastrop, Texas)

I don't have a picture of H-E-B plus!, this is from Community Impact. Cropped. (Amanda Cutshall)

As of this writing, the Bastrop Highway 71 page will be getting another redo that removes the H-E-B from the list, despite it facing Highway 71 (it has the address of 104 North Hasler Boulevard), and it's worth talking about here.

H-E-B plus! is the de facto supermarket in Bastrop (Albertsons, Kroger, or Randalls was never here) and opened in 2003. The old H-E-B was 50,000 square feet and located directly across from North Hasler. I remember seeing both and thinking that the new H-E-B didn't look much bigger than the old one, but it was a deeper store, with the old store being 50,000 square feet and the new one being 91,000 square feet. In November 2014 it finished an expansion, rebranding it as an H-E-B Plus (at about 119,000 square feet). Ten years later another expansion was announced that would add another 21,000 square feet which would add True Texas BBQ, additional Curbside service, and an expanded tortilla department. BastropTexas.net has pictures of H-E-B when it was brand-new. The clock tower is still there.

Monday, September 8, 2025

The Original Buc-ee's in Bastrop (Bastrop, Texas)

Google Street View images are so janky-looking but it's the best we have at this time. From 2022.

I'm in the midst of re-working the Bastrop page on Carbon-izer.com (you can see Version 6.0 here as it appeared during this writing). Buc-ee's made its appearance at Highway 21 and Highway 71 in May 2012...but it wasn't the first time. While it's true Buc-ee's #28 opened in 2012, Buc-ee's #11 opened in 1998...at the corner of Highway 21 and Highway 71 (where the highways split on the WEST side of town).

Sadly, I don't have any pictures of it when Buc-ee's was in operation, but the Exxon here at 1273 Highway 71 West was what could be termed as a Baby Beaver Buc-ee's and like these earlier stores were extremely small for Buc-ee's standards (4000 square feet) and had a diesel area for 18-wheelers (Buc-ee's forbids 18-wheelers). The Buc-ee's here was short-lived, only operating from 1998 to 2000 before it was sold, though I'm pretty sure it was always an Exxon. As of November 2022 it has a "Cooper's Express" fried chicken program.