Big's Meat Market (Buda, Texas)

Big's Meat Market sent out a postcard with their menu and other items. I previously mentioned this in a directly imported post but I wanted to revisit this former Arby's, first discussed at Carbon-izer.com, this former Arby's at 270 Old San Antonio Road opened in late 2008 and in mid-2022 it was purchased by Texas Sausage Company and shut down, quickly reopening as Big's Meat Market, on July 1, 2022. Based on the article previously linked there wasn't much of a gap between purchase of the building and the opening of Big's Meat Market. Big's Meat Market permanently closed in late March 2023 following a "sudden and unexpected loss in staffing" (no doubt some sort of drama involving employees leaving en masse). It reopened as El Pollo Rico by the end of the year.

Google Maps Link

Randalls in Killeen (Killeen, Texas)

Picture from Loopnet in the Hastings days (likely taken in the mid-2000s).
Today, it's the home of Texas Thrift but I'd like to take time to talk about what was previously written on Carbon-izer a while ago. Located on 2200 E. Veterans Memorial Blvd. (formerly US-190 Business), Safeway #751 opened in 1977 and was converted to 1989 to AppleTree before closing in early 1994. It was part of the group of AppleTree stores that Randalls Food Markets purchased the previous year and after a few weeks of cleanup and repainting, reopened as Randalls (489). By the end of January 1997, the store was shuttered, and Hastings opened within months (Hastings didn't even use all the space, the unused portion went to Family Dollar). This continued until Hastings closed around 2017.

The story of Randalls here is notable because it was the ONLY Randalls store in the entire Waco-Temple-Killeen area and a good hour away from Austin. It wasn't like Lufkin or College Station where a showy but ultimately unsustainable store was built, it was simply a bad acquisition in a lousy space.

Due to its history as Hastings, I doubt any part of Randalls is recognizable inside today. UPDATE 01-18-2026: Picture added. [Hastings] added.

El Rey Cuban & Mexican Cuisine (Houston, Texas)

Picture from Google by Antonio Helm, cropped (taken approx. 2019)
Much how this page once held a bunch of addresses for Research Boulevard and was pared down to one entry, this page was originally a page for North Loop entries (the full Carbon-izer link is not available at press time) pared down to one entry (to prevent full page removal). In this particular case, the page has been focused to 233 North Loop West, El Rey Cuban & Mexican Cuisine at 233 North Loop West. Opened in early 2017 and moved from its old location at 34th Street and 34th Street, this sells tacos and tortas, as well as a few other items.

UPDATE 07-09-2026:: Converted page into only being on El Rey.

Northwest Mall (Houston, Texas)

It's not a good picture of the mall but it's mine. (3/2008). I've always discussed the late Northwest Mall (located at 9500 Hempstead Road) as deserving better coverage on Carbon-izer, as I only had some pictures and thoughts from 2013 here. By the time I first really started paying attention to Northwest Mall (rather unimpressive, as JCPenney had been gone for years, and only Foley's was left) it was deep in decline. The Foley's would become Macy's in 2006 and close down in 2008 following Hurricane Ike damage (probably an easy way out since the 2003 opening of the Galleria's Foley's rendered it irrelevant). The sign still hung on the building for several years afterward even as it was clear that Macy's would not reopen it. The new home of Thompson's Antique Center of Texas (9950 Hempstead Road) at the former JCPenney opened in early 2012 and closed in 2022, after the mall itself had been shut for several years.

While Carbon-izer is still in need of a new Northwest Mall page, you can at least see this map I saved from back in 2008 when the mall still had Macy's and lots of other tenants.

Closer to the eastern corner of the mall was a small strip center that faced the mall area and was accessible from the parking lot (though was nearly invisible from the highway). Googling helped find these, but it appears that not all of them were actually active (must have switched addresses). A * means that I've confirmed they were active or recently departed at the time the center was evicted (all had the address of Hempstead Road). You can see some pictures of this strip mall and 9550 Hempstead Road at this page (same place with the Taco Bell/Wendy's/McDonald's/Jack's Carpet pictures). Based on some preliminary Googling from late 2019, here's what was there.

9552 - Demeri's Bar-B-Q*
9554 - Space City Tattoo Parlor & Body Piercing*
9556 - MP Healthcare Medical Supply [looked long abandoned by the time center was torn down]
9558 - [unknown, looks like there was a for lease sign]
9560 - Soundwaves [store #8]
9562 - King Street Patriots
9564 - Southern Apache Museum
9566 - Barber Shop & Beauty
9568 - Americana Insurance*
9570 - Smoke Toys*
9572 - The Security Store [address is also Townsley Baugh Design]

Finally, I should mention that the address of the mall is still in use through Houston Granite & Marble Center. The old JCPenney Auto Center was later sold to Firestone and that closed in the 2000s. After remaining empty for years it was revitalized as its current use in 2014.

This is an updated version of what originally appeared on Carbon-izer with additions from other pages.

Hearne Wal-Mart (Hearne, Texas)

From The Eagle (1991), source linked below.
Before it even reached 300 stores, Wal-Mart was mostly opening small stores in smaller markets, and Hearne, Texas, was no exception with store #291 at 1201 W. Brown Street, opening in September 1980.

Most of these stores are still open or replaced with Supercenter stores that share the same store number, Hearne, though, is an exception. In late 1990 it announced its closure—its short tenure making the New York Times (archive).

New York Times posits the oft-repeated theory that the larger store #322 in Bryan (located at 3113 South Texas Avenue and opened in 1982) had something to do with its closure, though that was over 20 miles away. It doesn't make much sense; after all, store 1150 at 1815 Brothers Blvd. co-exists with store #273 in Navasota, which is closer (a straight-shot of 20 miles, hardly any stoplights) and has co-existed since day one. Even when #1150 became a Supercenter, #273 never changed much.

But what really happened? In October 1990, there was a Ku Klux Klan rally in Hearne where a Klan higher-up, Michael D. Lowe, accused the Wal-Mart of closing because of theft, including shoplifting by employees. Wal-Mart denied all accusations. It wasn't in response to the demographics of shoplifters but a spokesman for Wal-Mart was quoted as saying, "To the best of my knowledge employee theft is no more a problem at that store than in any other store in any other company. The reason the store is being closed is because it is unprofitable. Period." The mayor (and serving municipal judge) had heard less than 15 theft cases over the last few years but conceded that "if there is a problem at Wal-Mart, it is occurring within the store."

The Wal-Mart closure left bitterness either way, with the store apparently never having turned a profit.

Eventually, Hearne was able to buy back the building from Wal-Mart and after a renovation that expanded the building, the store became the new home of Hearne High School, first opening for the fall 2004 school year and been around ever since. However, that article in the previous link does apparently confirm what was long-suspected...that it was employee theft after all. With that, we are left with two choices on what actually happened. The most likely scenario is that Wal-Mart lied through their teeth on what the closure was (after all, it's not like corporations are bound to tell the truth about everything and they'd also deny that their store had anything to do with the demise of downtown). The second, far less likely scenario is that Michael Lowe made up the "employee shoplifting" accusation and that's what the 2004 article ran with (which would look way worse for everyone involved).

Karolyi's Gym (Houston, Texas)

Per Google Street View (c. 2017), the building's current use is a warehouse but I can't imagine it looked that much different in its gymnasium days (if it all). The warehouse-like building at 17203 Bamwood Road, just off FM 1960 West, has a bit of an interesting history. In 1980, a gymnastics center at 17203 Bamwood was built, known as "Gym-an-i Gymnastics Center". In the early 1980s, recently defected Olympics team trainer Béla Károlyi invested in the gym and ended up buying it in 1982 (renaming it as "Karolyi's Gym") and spurring the creation of many similar facilities in the area. In 1996, the Bamwood facility was purchased by James Holmes of College Station and renamed Acrofit Gymnastics (more on Acrofit Gymnastics can be seen at Brazos Buildings & Businesses). Károlyi continued to operate Karolyi Ranch until it was shut down as part of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal (Karolyi passed away in 2024).

This facility continued to operate as Acrofit until around 2000 when Acrofit opened a new facility at 2103 Anders Lane in Kemah. I'm not sure if both locations co-existed at the same time (probably not) but this location was gone by 2004 (which was when the College Station location closed).

High Energy Lighting Inc. was later here and which has since renamed Famous Stages, Inc. and is in use as their warehouse (their showroom is elsewhere in town).

This is an updated version of what originally appeared on Carbon-izer.

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.