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SpaceGhost

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Posts posted by SpaceGhost

  1. If property ownership is of any help, the property was held by a Carl E. Zucker until 1988. The property records that I can access show him as the first of two landowners for 40 East Crosstimbers, the 2nd being the current ETB, LLC.

    I'm a little too young to remember it as a Roy Rogers restaurant, having been born three years before it opened. As far as I can recollect, Hungry Farmer has been the only restaurant I can remember there and I basically grew up 5 minutes from the location.

    BTW, everyone seems to forget, but the Zone d'Erotica in Joske's/Dillard's parking lot was "Houston 420" head shop prior to Zone, and right after Charlie's Hamburgers. After Charlie's closed, the building sat vacant for a long time before the 420 folks went in, gutted it to the bare walls, and brought it back to life selling paraphernalia, t-shirts, and black light posters. That particular 420 opened simultaneously with the one next to Heights State Bank/Rockefeller's on Washington. Heights was 420 #9, Westheimer was 420 #10.

    I'll lie to anyone who asks me how I know the specifics, lol...

     

    Ah yes I do actually remember the building as Houston 420! Also was the location ever a Charlie's? I only remember as a Luke's when they still sold burgers.

  2. Interesting - I go by there often but never made the connection! It definitely has the signature roof line!

    https://goo.gl/maps/43h3Vxxm2dE2

     

    They even kept the roof line when expanding the roof out for a patio! Interesting side note, the Sonic right next to it was a former Rally's!

     

    Also I had an idea, when googling info about Hungry Farmer I found their facebook on which they're quite active. You might consider messaging them, and asking if they have any info, on taking over after Roy Roger's vacated. I wonder if it is possibly the same former franchisee running it! Unlikely, but it would make for a great story!

    • Like 1
  3. There was a store in Bryan too. Since Roy Rogers was always an East Coast chain, I would guess that all the stores in the area went down with the franchisee in the early 1970s.

     

    Okay so I got home and have been doing a bit more research on the company. Roy Rogers seemed to be doing alright as a whole in the early 70's. The chain was started in 1968 so the Crosstimbers location would of been one of the first in the nation. I'm wondering if the locations down here were franchised, or corporate owned.. It's possible that they could of been conversions of Marriott's previous chain "Jr. Hot Shoppes" but I don't know enough info about that chain to speculate. I also am not sure when the other Roy Roger's in town closed, but that could give some insight into why this location closed. If everything shut down around the same time it's possible that Marriott did not see promise in this part of the country and either shut down any cooperate locations, or revoked franchise licensing from their franchisees.

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  4. You're welcome! I'm on mobile right now so I'll expand on this later but abandoning the building would of fallen into one of two categories. Either poor sales or the eventual "failure" of the chain. I really don't know a huge amount about Roy Rogers although I can tell you they went from 650 locations down to around 50. They expanded far too quickly and ended up paying the price. The determining factor for why this store closed would of been when they closed in relation to the rest of the chain.

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  5. Okay did a bit more research, this was definitely a Roy Rogers. Those stone pillars really threw me off. The building was expanded however. Facing the front everything on the right side was added, and some buildings along the back were added. What is shown in the picture below is what was contained in the original structure. Another comparison would be the former Roy Rogers, turned Luke's, turned Zone D'Erotica (always hated that name..) which has an identical facade. This is without a doubt a former Roy Rogers.

     

    3938593491_4f67be9bf5_b.jpg

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  6. Totally wrong, check the next reply down for the correct info.

     

    It looks strikingly similar to a Covered Wagon Arby's which was added on to, and had the roof replaced. Having it built in 1969 also puts it at the perfect time. After checking Google Streetview the double posted sign also lends credit to the Arby's theory. Finally checking out the overheard view on Historic Aerials the building is difficult to make out but you can tell it's short and thin with plenty of room for a drive-thru. So my best guess is former Arby's. However I wasn't born for about another 15 years after the first tenant left, so I couldn't tell you with any certainty what was there

     

  7. While not Houston specific.. I know the exact ones you're talking about. They are indeed huge and round. They look slightly like the Target logo. Also they sat slightly outside of the ceiling and overlapped the tiles. They tended to get dusty quickly. A bunch of former Kmarts still have them. A good Houston example is the go-kart track "Track 21" You can check it out here.

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  8. So I'm doing another article for the website on Flakey Jake's (basically a Fuddruckers ripoff) supposedly we had 2 locations in Houston. I was able to find an address for the Katy Freeway location, but can't find the other. Does anyone know where it was, or have any info about the chain? Pics etc..

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  9. It was at one point a Globe Department store. It later became a "Sak-N-Sav" which AFAIK is different from Sack N Save (a company that was owned by Furrs up in Dallas). Then according to a post made a few months ago it became Foodland then the flea market.

     

    http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/32544-fedmart-in-houston/?p=510009

     

    I'm not 100% sure this info is accurate maybe some other folks can help fill in the gaps?

  10. The fact that one was converted to a public elementary school is kind of cool.

     

    Yeah! The building is so transformed that I wouldn't be able to recognize it. Also there are a couple of other locations that were converted to an HCC Campus, and a Police Station. Leads me to believe that Food Lion dumped the property for cheap. Cheap enough, that they were willing to subdivide some property like I mentioned in another post.

  11. Howdy folks! So there's currently a grocery store at 9520 Jones Rd, Houston, TX 77065. It is presently a Food Town, but is document as previously operating as Food Lion #1311. (Btw here's the list of Food Lions I've found so far.) Checking out HCAD I noticed that the property was purchased in 1992 from Safeway of all companies! Checking out historic imagery on Google Earth I found that there was a grocery store across the street which turned out to be a Randalls built in '85, now an HEB. There wasn't anything on the corner that Safeway owned however.

     

    So the question is, does anyone know if Safeway ever built there? The earliest images of any help are from 1989. So it's possible that a store was built after the image and torn down for Food Lion, or even remodeled. An interesting side-note is that this property was owned by Safeway long after Apple Tree had taken over.

  12. What then, was the store at Briar Forest and Interstate 45? It's empty in the 2002 Google Earth aerial (and has since been completely redeveloped) and has a garden center and everything! It probably isn't a Kmart given its proximity and timeline with the other one (though one can never be too sure, they have engaged in some rather questionable locations and moves). Was it a big hardware store if not, then?

     

    Is the street still called Briar Forest? I tried looking it up on GE but could only find the Briar Forest over by Highway 6.

  13. From another topic discussing this, that is correct.

     

    Yeah I'd seen that in the past but wasn't 100% sure it was accurate. I guess it makes more sense than an address change though.

     

    Also slightly off-topic but does anyone know if the Academy across the freeway was where the Walmart used to be? I read up that a pair of criminals robbed the Walmo and one ran out the back and jumped into Greens Bayou and hid for a few hours.

  14. I remember a Champs that I've ate at a few times, I believe it was somewhere near I10 and Uvalde... But maybe it was on Wallisville, I can't remember where exactly it was anymore. I do remember that one of the early Sams Club stores in the area was at I-10 and Uvalde. We frequented there a lot because my parents thought that buying bulk items was innovative!

     

    Yup there was one at I-10 and Uvalde. The exact location is unknown but it looks like it could of been here. The building highly resembles Champs and was previously owned by something called "COLLINS FOOD SFSH #1308" which indicates it was probably a restaurant.

     

    Anyone have an old phone book they can check?

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