SpaceGhost

Awesome, looking forward to seeing more pictures!

I've been a bit underwhelmed by the ROD. Everything in it is way too overpriced. Even down the street in Highland Village I can get P.F. Changs during lunch once in a while, and occasionally save up for a $4 cupcake.. ROD almost seems to be just for rich folks from out of town.. hey maybe that's they're target demographic. I dunno.

Did it flood during Tax Day? All my classes at UHD were canceled so I stayed clear of that area for a few days..

Okay that took longer than I expected... anyways, it seems to me that it was probably always Hamburgers and Taqueria. Maybe someone with an old phonebook can verify. The earliest mention I found in the Chronicle was 1986, its referred to just "Goode Co. Hamburgers" in the article, but only receives a one line mention. In an article published less than a month later it's called "Goode Co. Hamburgers and Taqueria". However the author notes that the Goodes just called it "burgers" for simplicity's sake. So I wonder if the author of the first article was misinformed/or trying to seem more hip. Also an interesting side note, the old railroad car used at Goode Co. Seafood was brought by a locomotive from Dallas, and hoisted right off the rails onto the lot. I wonder if the spur that ran South of Westpark towards the Coca-Cola bottling plant (right next to the current home of Goode Co. Seafood) was still active at this point?

It was Hamburgers and Taqueria by 1989, I'll try to research it a bit more later tonight to see what I can find, but I suspect it may have always been Hamburgers and Taqueria. FYI They do still sell Hamburgers (very good ones), but their main focus is definitely Tex-Mex.

Yup this seems to be the case. I was briefly transferred to Westheimer/Gessner to help prep the store for the grand opening and assist with the actual process. It was incredible how much went into that store! Especially compared to others of that time. It was made clear by the management that this location was one of the biggest, if not the biggest money maker for Randalls.

I wonder if the roofline was only added to the later gourmet stores?

I don't really have any info on Handy Andy.. so let the speculation begin! Either the rest of the stores were planned, or possibly opened under another name?

Just click and drag the file onto the site. You don't need to sign up. Here's the image you attached, uploaded to Imgur. http://imgur.com/a/aXYk6

Yup Richmond at Chimney Rock is now a Starbucks, which moved from across the street. Starbucks even installed a very nice looking lit intersection/street sign on the corner.

Did Shipley's ever bake "normal bread"? I found a sign at Six Flags in San Antonio with the name "Shipley's Holsum Bread" on it. I took a picture but I'm having a hard time finding it. It was very similar to this patch. So my question is, was the Shipley's on the sign, related to the modern day Do-nut chain at all?

Does anyone know what the Foodarama at 5665 Beechnut St, Houston, TX 77096 was originally built as? I've tried checking HCAD but there's no listing for the building, just the whole shopping center which doesn't help.

Indeed it did, it originally opened as an A&W Root Beer stand and would have looked something like this. The dining room was added and some of the bottom of the barrel was removed, but you could see where the original walk up windows were. So to answer your question yes the barrel was original, and everything else was an addon.

I hit up the Rosenberg one yesterday, the Canyon Gate location has been open just as long afaik. I know for sure it was open in early June.

I don't think dates were ever revealed other than the first store. IIRC they were supposed to be open within 5 years? Maybe less.. Loved that article by the way! I unfortunately wasn't around the first time Del Taco was, and was only around for the tail end of Two Pesos. I had always wondered why they looked like they had a dual drive-thru setup, now I know! Edit: Found the article I was quoting.

Two Pesos locations have always been difficult to find. If anyone can supply any definite Two Pesos locations it would be much appreciated!

So what did the restaurant currently known as Baytown Seafood at 9205 S Main St. originally start as? The Shipleys next door was a Mc Donalds and there is a Burger King right down the road so I doubt it was either. Any ideas?

KHUT Has produced a documentary on the history of the Post Oak/Uptown Park area of town. It's in depth, and very well down. It is definitely worth a watch!

Based on the Humble and Wok Bo building designs I would wager that they were part of the same chain.

Thank you! I had seen the Olive Garden before (had it come up here on HAIF?) and remarked on the similarity to the former Wokbo.

So I'm trying to find the history of a particular building. It was once known as Wok Bo. The address is 12270 Westheimer Rd Houston, TX 77077, or should I say was. It's been out of business for around 5 years now! One of the Yelp reviews the place got before it closed was to ignore the fact that it was painted pink, as it had been a Mexican restaurant in a previous life. The only Mexican place I can think of that resembles this was Chi Chi's, who closed all their locations around 2004. So if they were in Houston it had to have been earlier than that. Also if I'm not mistaken there are some other similarly shaped buildings around town.

Ended up putting them all on Flickr! Check them out!

The building on the left was not actually a Safeway, sign definitely looks like it though! It was a home improvement store, I can't remember the name of it at the moment, but I think it may have been a Handy Dan. The building on the right which looks like a department store was a Kroger. Here's one in Cleveland with the same building design.

While the Edgebrook location may have started as a Del Taco in terms of chain restaurants it was definitely most recently a KFC. They could have knocked down the whole building, but the layout and size doesn't really look like a Del Taco to me.

Yup it's still the same company, just under a new name. I've been busy with work, but pictures will return shortly! Edit: Outside of External hosting, is there anything that can be done to increase file size limits? It's a piddly 0.69MB for me!