Waller County Line BBQ (Waller, Texas)

This was taken February 2014 from a car window (picture by me), possibly from a video. Original here. We've covered Buc-ee's at FM 362 over at Carbon-izer as the first (or last address) of Northwest Freeway at 40900 Northwest Freeway.¹ But what of the gas station catty-corner to it at FM 362? It used to be covered back on Carbon-izer, but was removed during one of the page's many updates.

When it comes to the FM 362 intersection, I'd always felt that in going eastbound, the road went too high with sharp dropoffs before adding guardrails at the very top (at least they have shoulders), moreso than other overpasses in this part of 290, with Waller County Line BBQ being off on the right. It's currently an Exxon station, in summer/early fall 2019 it was a Shell station, and from my records, built in December 1997. In 2002 a bar called Trails End was added in a second suite, around 2007 it closed and gave way to Cedar Creek Saloon, a smoky poorly-lit honky-tonk with pool and cheap beer.

1. Northwest Freeway does start at around 10000, as it parallels Hempstead Road, which is a continuation of Washington Avenue, which does head into downtown.

Mo's Irish Pub - Cypress (Cypress, Texas)

Photo by Jorge Medrano, Google Maps (source)
For a time I featured Mo's Irish Pub (14102 Mueschke) on my Northwest Freeway (Outer Belt) page, but I took it out as of Version 9.0, and in the upcoming Version 10.0, won't even feature Mueschke Road anymore.

In any case, Mo's Irish Pub opened in late 2015 as part of a mini "restaurant row" near Mueschke joining Cracker Barrel and Gringo's Mexican Kitchen and closed somewhat unexpectedly in April 2026. I liked driving past it at night...it looked like a tree permanently covered in Christmas lights, which change colors at night (or at least how it appeared on a Friday night in April back in 2016).

Directly attached to the building is 14106 Mueschke. As of November 2024, the tenants here include (from right to left) Chicago Title, Twinkle Nail Bar, Marco's Pizza, and Sherwin-Williams Paint. Back in March 2016, the strip center existed but was completely empty.

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.