84 Lumber Near Northwest Freeway

What came before 84 Lumber. Just beyond that railroad was Northwest Freeway. (source).
This used to be on my Northwest Freeway page from "Version 4.0" to "Version 8.0", but 84 Lumber is located at 22770 North West Lake Drive and built in 2007 with a functional rail spur (which built off an existing spur, not the main line). When 84 Lumber was built, it was easy to access from Northwest Freeway as there was a long driveway to the former Cameron plant (now owned by NSPS Metals) that had a railroad crossing complete with gates and lights; however, by the end of 2008 the railroad crossing permanently closed. 84 Lumber isn't much to look at these days.

Originally this was part of Cameron's recreational facilities for employees, which is why I chose the picture I did. On the south end of the driveway was a large stocked pond (drained in 2016 with a building constructed in 2017) and on the north end, a park area with a large swimming pool.

I'm not sure when it closed. It was still operational in 1995 but filled in by 2001.

Cal-Tex Citrus Juice

As of this writing I can't get a good picture of the site, so we'll just have to go with this 1980 help wanted ad for now.
There's enough "removed from Carbon-izer.com" content to keep this blog going for a while, with this one being taken off back in May 2025 as part of revamping a page to focus exclusively on "Inner Loop" Westheimer Road, 402 Yale Street and newly updated for The Houston Files. While we'll get to the current fate of 402 Yale in a minute, it was built as the new building for Nelson Milk Company (moving from 1331 N. Shepherd) in 1948 but around 1956 it closed and was replaced by Cal-Tex Citrus Juice Inc. in 1957 (moving from 1918 Center), processing 60 tons of oranges (70% from Texas) into Vita-Pakt brand cartons and bottles.¹ The company got in trouble a few years later when it was discovered the "pure" orange juice was actually orange juice concentrate, sugar, and water², but nevertheless the company remained and endured, up until 2012 when it was purchased by Ohio-based Country Pure Foods.

By 2016 the company (still officially "Cal-Tex Citrus Juice LP") hadn't converted fresh oranges to juice in a long time (the hard freezes in Texas winters killed the idea of Texas being a citrus powerhouse decades ago) and instead brought in existing orange juice concentrate (along with apple and grape juice concentrates) and exclusively packaged for institutional and foodservice uses.

I personally visited the building once for an interview and I remembered the main offices were on the second level, accessed by a tight spiral staircase. (Definitely not ADA compliant, but American fire code has disallowed this for decades, and at the time the tragedy at Kyoto Animation, which had similar construction, had not yet happened.

Despite the fact that on the other side of Yale Street (where employee parking was), a railroad connected the MKT line to the north with the Southern Pacific line to the south, 402 Yale had no rail access.³ In early 2025, Country Pure announced it would close the plant and sold the land by the end of the year, with the building demolished by February of next year. It's probably going to be apartments or something similar, as is the usual play in Inner Loop Houston...

1. "Meadowgold" was another brand used.
2. This was an advanced operation by the government, to the point where they were using film cameras and months of surveillance. Several received fines, with the company president being fined and sentenced to six months in jail.
3. While it's been gone since at least the late 1990s, very little of this line remains today except an abandoned bridge at the southwest corner of the eastbound frontage road of I-10 and Yale Street.

Northwest Freeway Shoney's Inn

Picture from Google, appears to be the official picture when it was Comfort Inn
Much like the Shell off FM 1488 we covered at Numbered Exits the other day, this entry is also part of the Northwest Freeway entries but taken off the main page, with this one being removed from the page as of "Version 8.1" (and originally added in "Version 5.0").

Built as a Shoney's Inn (adjacent to the Shoney's off Northwest Freeway, though by that time, the chains had officially separated) in 1995, this became a Days Inn around 2003 and was converted to a Comfort Inn between 2005 and 2007. Around 2023 it became a co-branded Comfort Inn/MainStay Suites before becoming Sonesta Essential (Sonesta Essential NW Houston around 2024, which repainted it white with blue trim. The two-story motel has 115 rooms.

Luby's Cafeteria Town & Country

I dislike using Google Maps Street View photos because they're blurry or have weird stitching artifacts, but it will have to do today.
Among the businesses in the original, pre-1983 Town & Country Village was Luby's Cafeteria (opened in 1974 as Romana Cafeteria). The address was 825 Town & Country Village, but I've also seen 825 Town & Country Lane or even 12867 Town & Country Way for the address. The history is tied to Town & Country Mall. It initially faced the Town & Country Village shopping center, but when the Town & Country Mall was built, the front of the Luby's faced the mall's parking garage, the back was toward the street, making the Luby's essentially face backwards, which no other Luby's did. It advertised with Town & Country Mall's directories and advertising as if it was a restaurant in the mall, but it was still located outside, and outlasted the mall itself by about eight years (I believe this restaurant closed in 2012). A few years later it was torn down for CITYCENTRE Five, an office building that was part of the CityCentre development that itself replaced Town & Country Mall. As of this writing and according to the CityCentre website, the building is home to City Bank (suite 100) on street level and LifeTime Work (suite 1200) above, as well as others.