Fuego's First Waco Location (Woodway, Texas)

Fuego's big announcement in the Waco papers! (source)
As I continue to re-do the City pages in association with Carbon-izer, we come to 9110 Jordan Lane, one of the commercial buildings on the old Woodway High School site (demolished around 2004, but spent a long time almost entirely empty save for Walgreens). To this day only about 60% of the space has been reclaimed.

9110 Jordan Lane was built as a privately owned 24 hour emergency room (Premier ER & Urgent Care) which was all the rage during that time (though Waco's first), but also included a leasable space, which was originally a location of Fuego Tortilla Grill, a Mexican-inspired eatery serving a menu of almost exclusively tacos, all with varied ingredients.

I used to love Fuego Tortilla Grill as the first location was in College Station (it's not like I hate it now, it's just prices have risen and the quality/selection has decreased, isn't that always the case...maybe I've been to the College Station once after COVID...and once at the San Marcos location) and in January 2015, their first location in Waco (third location overall) opened.

Waco would soon get a second location at 1524 South Jack Kultgen Expressway by the end of the year and both Fuego restaurants operated for about a year before the Woodway location closed in August 2016 to focus on the other Waco location (which was better located). In September 2017, Fuego's vacant space was replaced with Brown House Cafe.

Jewel-Osco in Kenosha (Kenosha, Wisconsin)

Taking a break from the exports from Carbon-izer, this is a quick article about the January 1996 opening of Jewel-Osco in Kenosha, Wisconsin at 7014 Green Bay Road (it's part of a bigger shopping center). It was their first store in Wisconsin after some small, outdated stores left the state decades earlier. Soon after, the company would continue into Milwaukee by purchasing Cub Foods stores.

The new store boasted their bakery producing unique products like kringle (if it's anything like O&H Danish Bakery, whose products are available nationally at Trader Joe's stores every December, then it must have been great) and some regional items available.

Sadly, the store didn't last...while it sailed through Albertsons' troubles, soon after getting the Milwaukee stores as part of the company's break-up, new owner SuperValu closed the Milwaukee/Wisconsin stores (speculated to be part of a pre-arranged agreement with independents in the area), back in 2007. As of this writing, Hobby Lobby occupies half the space today with Jewel-Osco gone once more.

Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen (Waco, Texas)

Just one more from Carbon-izer's Other Waco Roads and we're done with it. Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen at 4208 Franklin Avenue opened around January 2005 as Cheddar's Casual Cafe with a major reconfiguration of Franklin Avenue that got rid of the frontage roads, added a new lane in each direction, and a new road to access Precision Drive, a signaled road called Cheddar's Drive, named after the restaurant.

It appears the restaurant was rebranded in 2016 but had remodeled a few years earlier.

QuikTrip Waco (Waco, Texas)

Newspaper article from 2021.
We're coming to an end to covering Carbon-izer's "Other Waco Roads" with QuikTrip on 2350 S. New Road, of which I've attached an article from 2019. It should be noted that the final product that opened in July 2021 connected to the parking lot of Hooters (which has since closed, see Carbon-izer), not the Carl's Jr. restaurant, as there's still unbuilt parking lot connections). While Hooters closed a few years later, by the time QuikTrip opened, the Carl's Jr. which expected to benefit was closed (nothing to do with QuikTrip, they were closing a bunch of Carl's Jr. restaurants by this time).

UPDATE 01-18-2026: Some minor updates.
UPDATE 06-30-2026: As the Waco I-35 page has returned, the discussion of Hooters is no longer necessary.

The Original Olive Garden of Temple (Temple, Texas)

Apologies for being gone so long. I'd like to add another Carbon-izer import prompted by an email from Myron M. of Temple. The restaurant covered today is 1902 SW H K Dodgen Loop. It opened as an Olive Garden around 1991 and closed in 2002 (it eventually reopened with a new Temple location several years later).

Courtesy Portal to Texas History Online Its replacement, Yank Sing Chinese Restaurant, opened soon after. Yank Sing added a covered drive-up in order to closely resemble its Killeen location at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway (a former Luby's where 23 people were killed in a 1993 shooting) but the Temple location shuttered around 2019 (the last Yelp review was January 2019). Since then, it has been divided into two suites both with restaurants, Masfajitas in suite A (open 2022) Mario's Seafood in suite B (open 2023). They share common ownership (it's possible they share kitchen facilities).

The Home Depot in Waco (Waco, Texas)

Courtesy Newspapers.com As part of mopping up the existing "Other Waco Roads" page, today we're covering Waco's first Home Depot store at 5605 W. Waco Drive. The Home Depot opened in March 2000. The property was cut out from Central Freight Lines to the north, and access is from Centerpoint Drive, which was signalized around 2000 (also providing better access to what was at the time Mervyn's and Toys R Us).