12636 Research Boulevard featuring Mongolian Grille (Austin, Texas)

Advertisement from the Austin American-Statesman, Feb. 10 2005 Today's post has spun off from Research Boulevard in Austin (Austin, Texas), 12636 Research Boulevard.

This three-building property (also has North Brooke Plaza) has numerous strip mall tenants from the back near Jollyville Road to the highway side (built in 1984) through acquisitions. As of 2024, starting from the back near Jollyville Road, building A has The Abiding Glory Tabernacle, Hey Why Hair Braiding Salon (A-104), Pizza Hut (A-105), India Gate (A-110), and a location of Dimassi's Mediterranean Buffet. Building B has Fusion Tadka in the back (which replaced longtime tenant B.B. Rover's Cafe and Pub). Other tenants (working clockwise) are Hill Country Flooring (also home to Austin Painting & Cabinets), C&J Massage, Trippiez Smoke Shop, Oak Liquor Cabinet, Cash 4 Gold, and D 2.0 Bar (B-101). Building C has Kanji Ramen, Kung Fu & Self Defense (upper level), High Octane, Pretty Lady's African Hair Braiding (upper level), 101 Event Center (upper level), Mind Body Yoga (upper level), Best Brains Learning Center, GoldenLove Tattoo, and possibly others that weren't listed.

What I wanted to specifically wanted to focus on was suite A-110. This was Mongolian Grille (link goes to YouTube commercial) from 2001 to 2012. I ate there in 2004 and for a long time was trying to figure out where and what it was. I remember it being better than Genghis Grill (which has since departed from most of the state) with bigger portions and more selection. (I also remember how bright their orange sauce was). One of my restaurant guides (Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide 2nd Edition) rated it quite poorly, partly because of its ambience (though they reviewed the downtown Austin location) and a stated goal that they like restaurants where the chef (not the customer) knows best when choosing between various proteins, starches, and sauces. (They hated Cafe Express in Houston for the same reason). Anyway, Mongolian Grille was replaced with the similar restaurant Mongo Fire (until around 2018) and has been an Indian restaurant since. Chicha's Fire And Grill opened by the end of 2018 but reused Mongo Fire's awnings (including their website and phone number). Around 2020, this closed and was replaced by India Gate. Prior to Mongolian Grille, it was "Cafe Chino" (Chinese restaurant, 1989-2001, mentioned in this article).

Corner Store at 1624 West Waco Drive (Waco, Texas)

Picture courtesy McLennan CAD
1624 West Waco Drive was originally built as a Payless Gas, a convenience store chain owned by Strasburger Enterprises (the actual gas brand is unknown--they all used different gas brands) in 1985. It's been mentioned at a few of my other pages on Waco at Carbon-izer (at 1020 N. Loop 340 and at 901 South 5th Street). I never knew Payless Gas as Strasburger Enterprises sold the entire 64-store chain to Diamond Shamrock in 1991¹, whereupon they converted to Corner Store, Diamond Shamrock's in-house store brand. When Diamond Shamrock stores started to be converted to Valero around the mid-2000s Corner Store was their preferred brand (winning out over Stop-N-Go in Houston, which they also owned) and ultimately spun off Corner Store as CST Brands, though despite a promising start was purchased by Circle K (all of this happened within a decade or so). Unfortunately this Corner Store never got to see Circle K. In 2006, Valero sold the store to an independent (just labeled as "Food Mart") but within a few years was picked up and remodeled as Chevron with a new sign (the brick base for the old sign still stood) and a coat of paint. Within a decade this too was abandoned and in 2020 remodeled as "Be'ur Mart" with its own mascot on the signage (that looks like it was stolen from somewhere). Nevertheless, the Payless Gas legacy still exists in Waco, carrying on as Circle K.

1. It seems that not ALL of the Payless Gas stores were sold, and Strasburger Enterprises would later go back to convenience store in the mid-1990s with Quix. These were sold to 7-Eleven in 2012.

AkzoNobel - Houston Plant (Houston, Texas)

Want ad from 1978 from what was then Matcote
The AzkoNobel plant in Houston at 6001 Antoine Drive was originally built in the late 1960s as an annex to Matcote Co. Inc., a Houston-based protective coatings company which had a small facility at 5810 North Houston Rosslyn Road, which soon moved to this location (it is unknown when they closed the North Houston Rosslyn Road facility) and expanded again in the early 1970s.

A 1979 article goes a bit more into detail what Matcote did, which was not make paint but rather protective coatings for industrial use. In 1980, Matcote was purchased by UK-based Courtaulds d/b/a International Paint, but expanded the facility, adding another warehouse in 1982 and in 1985 opening a powder coating facility (they also expanded the facility's production after the closure of an International Paint facility in New Orleans in 1986). During this time the Matcote name disappeared and was replaced with the Courtaulds Coatings name through the 1990s (following a reorganization at Courtaulds that spun off its textile business). In 1998, Courtaulds merged with Dutch-based AkzoNobel and the plant reverted to the International Paint name again, though the plant has been branded as AkzoNobel since at least 2007.

The property also incorporates 5903 Antoine Drive—a former site of Monterey House (later Monterey's Tex-Mex Cafe) from 1981 to 1994 and ultimately torn down for additional parking.

This was originally part of "Antoine Drive in Houston".

Southern Season (Richmond, Virginia)

Southern Season in its second phase of life. This was LL Flooring's own photo (source).
When Southern Season opened in July 2014 in the new Libbie Mill development of Richmond, Virginia (2250 Staples Mill Road), it was unlike anything the city had seen. Despite being around 53,000 square feet, comparable to other supermarkets, the gourmet market lacked traditional departments like produce, milk, bread, or eggs, it made up for it with over 80,000 items (10,000 of which came from Virginia) with all sorts of sauce, coffee varieties, tea blends, cheeses, craft beers, and kitchen gadgets. The response was positive and the gourmet grocer seemed like a great anchor to the development...but it was not meant to be. Less than two years later, Southern Season announced it would close its Richmond location in April 2016, with the parent company indicating the store was still too large to be profitable and future stores, such as one in Atlanta, being around half the size. The Atlanta store never opened as in June of that year Southern Season declared bankruptcy. Their first and now only store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina would announce its closure a few years later, leaving Southern Season just another online retailer.

A few years later, the building (now under the address of 4901 Bakers Mill Lane) was leased by Lumber Liquidators as their new headquarters and received a full interior renovation. A few years later, Lumber Liquidators rebranded as LL Flooring...and a few years after that, went bankrupt. The whole chain was days away from "Lumber liquidating" itself and its 400+ stores when it was saved by a last-minute deal by the original founder. Along with half the chain, the headquarters didn't make it unscathed and shortly afterwards the newly-reverted Lumber Liquidators announced it would pack up and move the headquarters to its distribution center. Still, hope springs eternal--just about a week ago as of this writing, it is to become a location of ACAC Fitness & Wellness.

575 FM 150 East (Kyle, Texas)

Google Street View from 2019. The Family Dollar would be a Dollar Tree by year-end. I'm continuing to work off of this page (Big's Meat Market spun off already) and I wanted to spin off another entry, 575 FM 150 East (well, Ranch to Market 150 at least), a strip center composed of several buildings. (It's all part of upgrades at this site.) From south to north there's Money & More Pawn (a separate building, this was here at least since 2015), Dollar Tree (another separate building; this opened as a Family Dollar around December 2006 but in 2019 it was closed and converted to a Dollar Tree), a third building with Lone Star Pediatric Dental & Braces - Kyle, Kyle Donuts, a branch of Austin Texas Martial Arts Centers (formerly home of Kyle Care Pharmacy), Liquor House, Papa John's, Kid to Kid (children's clothing resale), Absolute Life Wellness Center (a chiropractor office), and Garcia's Mexican Restaurant.

Google Maps Link

The Andersons Retail Store (Maumee, Ohio)

530 Illinois Avenue in happier times Agribusiness company The Andersons for years ran a small chain of retail stores, described as having an eclectic mix of food, agricultural supplies, and general merchandise (mostly hard goods) and Maumee's store was the first, opening a 155,000 square foot retail store at 530 Illinois Avenue in 1972 to replace a small sales office nearby (their headquarters are located nearby). They built several stores, including a grocery-only store in Sylvania, but in early 2017 they announced that after several years of losses the retail stores would close permanently. Yelp reviews and articles indicate that there were at least two subleases, Tony Packo's and a meats section operated by local operator House of Meats.

A few years later, The Andersons reopened the property as a warehouse.

Rattlers' Navasota (Navasota, Texas)

I only have Google Maps Street View (this one is c. 2013), so it's a bit distorted. There's a self-serve car wash off to the left that's part of the property.

Rattlers' has previously been a discussion topic of mine, a local convenience store that was later absorbed into 7-Eleven (with the stores still bearing its name cut out of the chain, however), and in 1990 an Exxon was built there (Jim's Express Mart, but listing for "Hit & Run" stores also comes up). By 2004 the store's owner, Kolkhorst Petroleum, unified the convenience stores it owned at the time by giving them a common brand, Rattlers' Country Stores. Despite having the oldest ownership in the chain, outliving a few other stores that Kolkhorst had previously owned including some stores in the Waco-Temple-Killeen area, and of course, being right near Kolkhorst's offices, this location, 1701 E. Washington Avenue, only became Rattlers' #2. Store #1 was sold within a few years. On the Highway 6 side of the store there was a sign for "Rattlers' Deli" but state tax records indicate from 1999 to 2003 there was a Taco Bell Express inside the store (I believe by the time of the Rattlers' rebrand this was gone). In 2016, Kolkhorst Petroleum sold its stores to Sunoco (owner of Stripes) but Rattlers' stores never got rebranded to Stripes because the Stripes chain was sold to 7-Eleven a few years later, and within a few years was branded as 7-Eleven (as did the Stripes an exit down). This was also the first place I saw the new lower-case Exxon logo in late 2017, a sign of things to come. (At least the blue stripe-less version didn't last long before they added back the blue stripe).

This post was split off from this post as part of ongoing upgrades to the site.

UPDATE 12-19-2025: Minor grammar fixes.