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.

Tennis World Apartments

1985 ad with logo and features (Houston Chronicle, 9/15/85)
New apartment complexes are a dime a dozen these days and not much to distinguish between them, but there a few to try to break that mold and offer stuff that your average apartment complex couldn't, case in point, Tennis World, located at 2101 Hayes Road.

I came across it doing research for when updating another page on this site, and while Tennis World had the usual trappings of other communities oriented toward adults and young professionals (including multiple swimming pools), it featured eight lighted tennis courts, as well as a pro shop and a "resident [tennis] pro will be available to residents for complimentary lessons", with the complex itself featuring seven floorplans ranging to three-bedroom units. (source).

Lots of wood siding here. (Houston Chronicle, 6/16/1984)
From what I can tell, Tennis World maintained its popularity through the 1980s when other late 1970s builds weren't doing so hot, with 1985 adding a fitness center on the premises, though by that time they had family sections.

In 1995 the apartments were renamed to Courtside at Olympia Apartment and by 2002 Westchase Ranch Resort, and despite being renamed twice, still carried all of Tennis World's features, such as the free lessons by a tennis professional on staff. During this era, however, changes were made to the apartment's foundation. I'm not sure when the tennis pro was sacked, but the tennis courts remained up until the mid-2010s when renovations were done, and within a few years, all but three were gone (and I'm not sure if the remaining three are even still operational). Not too long after the apartments changed names again to Westside Flats before changing hands again to The Quinn at Westchase.

One other thing regarding this apartment complex is like many complexes it was later cut in half. I've seen over 700 units for quoted for this apartment complex, and that appears to be the units at 11201 Olympia Drive, which were split off in the late 2010s (it was Olympia Flats in 2018, likely resulting from the splitting of Westchase Ranch Resort and now The Corridor at Westchase).