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.

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).

Lakehills Cinema 4 (Austin, Texas)

Opening ad from 1978, this is different from the CinemaTreasures copy (higher resolution and higher contrast).
I'm dismantling "Other Roads in South Austin" to focus on South Lamar and US-290 West, so among those that are getting sliced include 2428 West Ben White Boulevard, the late Lakehills Cinema 4. It operated from 1978 to 1999 under a variety of owners and in 2005 became the new location of Strait Music Company in 2005, but in May 2023, Strait Music Company "South" relocated to 3201 Bee Caves Road Ste. 140. After this, the building was heavily tagged and demolished soon after.

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.

Jim's at Oak Hill (Austin, Texas)

Jim's captured next to the former Albertsons. Own work, April 2010. (From a cell phone camera.)
I originally wrote about this in Safeway and Albertsons in Texas Blog. It is not just completely outdated, it's also wrong in several areas. I did later put more accurate information up on Carbon-izer.com but let's correct the record.

While the original version of this post did correctly talk about the origins of Albertsons (it was originally a Tom Thumb, not Skaggs) and that Jim's was always a Jim's, not purchased from Shoney's, the current version of this post pares down the post to talk about Jim's (information on Albertsons is now a Carbon-izer exclusive), located at 7101 State Highway West.

While I've never been to Jim's but it seems that Austin Chronicle was not kind to it, even in 1982 ("Don't let the smiling cowboy fool you"), the year this Jim's opened at 7101 West Highway 71. This location gets at least a 4.5 on Google Maps, so maybe it was always better than whatever urban location they frequented. Do check out the extended road list above, the 7100 Highway 290 location the former Albertsons has is an extension of South Lamar Boulevard and its numbering system.

UPDATE 06-27-2026: Reworked post and renamed to "Jim's at Oak Hill". Some tags are removed.