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).

Burger King / Shell at W. 18th Street

Picture from Google Maps (Gregston Chu, 2025). The Burger King logo on the road side was already changed.
Continuing with the theme of Burger King restaurants I've eaten at (see Burger King at 7406 Fondren Road), this one is at 4401 West 18th Street and combined with a Shell station, opening in late 2007. My main memories of it were from the first time I drove to Houston by myself to visit a friend in Pearland, and after driving on Hempstead Road (partly to avoid the 290 construction) stopped here for lunch. After I bought my hamburger, I drove to the Northwest Mall parking lot directly next to it (at the time, the parking lots connected) and ate some of it in the car. While the Northwest Mall's parking lot resembled driving on the surface of the Moon, I sat in my car and looked out at the big Pizza Inn sign in the distance and imagined it as the old, classic Burger King logo (the new one isn't actually the same) atop it.

It replaced a Texaco which operated from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, and I'm not sure if it operated as a Shell in the early to mid 2000s or as some other automobile-adjacent business.

This is an expanded version of what once appeared on Carbon-izer on the Northwest Freeway page (removed as of Version 8.0).

Burger King at 7406 Fondren Road

Picture from Google Maps (Ryan Smith, 2016)
This particular Burger King at 7406 Fondren Road operated from 1988 to around early 2024 and demolished within a year or so. I removed this entry from Carbon-izer's Southwest Freeway page a while back (or did it even make it to the Southwest Freeway page?) and that's why it's reappearing on The Houston Files, plus I ate here, back in 1999, with my parents when we were visiting this part of town. I was going to write that there was some sort of Muppets from Space promotion going on at the time but further evidence shows that Wendy's did this promotion, but it was definitely Burger King and definitely this Burger King, because it was in a commercial area closer to the highway, whereas Wendy's was a block or two in the opposite direction and faced houses.

Chateau Memorial

It contains apartments now, though... (Houston Chronicle, 10/23/66)
Built as Chateau Memorial back around 1964 (advertising all the upscale apartment perks of the mid-1960s plus some, like weekly oven cleanings) and known as Chateau Memorial West by 1967 (the apartments of 910 Silber Road, across the street, was Chateau Memorial East, later they would be marketed under one name again). By 1989 it was going under the Villa Estates name, which included an update of the units (and based on a photograph, added a few sculptures for a vague Italian theme). The name didn't last long—Legends of Memorial first appeared for the apartment complex's name around 1991.

Looking at modern pictures today, the spiral staircase of the original clubhouse is still there, but it has been converted into additional units.

Most of the content here originally appeared on the Katy Freeway page.

Wagner Hardware

From "Liz S." on Yelp from here.
This post was originally part of Carbon-izer.com and later spun off to Numbered Exits, where it was combined with a post on Village Flowery (current Numbered Exits post here.

When it began construction of a building fronting Kirby in May 1948, Wagner Hardware already had been a known name moving from the Rice Village area, and after completing the building at 6111 Kirby Drive, continued to operate for the next 60 years. At one point, Wagner Hardware had six locations in the Houston area. By December 2004, with the closing of their store at 5233 Bellaire Boulevard (which operated since 1953), Wagner was down to this location. In 2009, it introduced a store-within-a-store for eco-friendly products called "New Living". Not too long after, the store changed hands and the store was remerchandised and rebranded to the "New Living" concept. Most of the hardware lines were dropped for furniture and mattresses in addition to paint, and in 2014, New Living dismantled the old Wagner Hardware sign above the store. Between 2015 and 2017, New Living refocused from "sustainable design and furniture" to simply "organic mattresses". I'm not sure how the transition between New Living and Houston Natural Mattress (the similar replacement tenant) occurred, but it happened between October 2019 and March 2020. They had different phone numbers. (Street View here).

Pyne Hall Apartments

The Houston Post, March 18 1962
This used to be on Carbon-izer (on Outer Loop Roads). In 1962, Pyne Hall Apartments opened at 2450 McCue Road with 60 units and upscale features (see ad above), and featured an unusual first for apartment complexes, a concrete fallout shelter. By 1980, the apartments had become "Galleria Gardens" and was advertising furnished apartments for executive lodging (rooms equipped with everything, including basic cookware), with daily, weekly, and monthly rates. By 1982, it had adopted the 2500 McCue address, but even as of 1984 still featured yearly leases. At some point in the late 1980s it was seized by the FDIC. (It was still apartments after the seizure in 1988, but ads don't list a name).

In 1994, Residence Inn took over the property (92 units at the time), and made improvements since, notably by rebuilding the structures on the perimeter of the property in the early 2000s. The website now boasts 146 suites as of the late 2010s, and in 2025, changed hands to Extended Stay America.

Former Barry's Pizza

In 2001, they only had their original and a short-lived Stafford location.
This used to be on Carbon-izer.com under "Other Houston Roads - Outer Loop", well, as of this writing anyway, as it got eliminated during the rewrite of the page to the new Richmond Avenue page (which will go live within 24 hours of this post going to press, so unless you're subscribed to the blog it's up).

In 1983, Carlos'n Charlies opened at 6003 Richmond Avenue, though perhaps due to issues with the parent company became Carlos'n Lefties Del Norte within a year, likely taking inspiration from the country song. After it closed in 1985, Crocodile (a seafood restaurant) opened in 1987, and was described in a restaurant review as "Bennigan's meets Banana Republic" and "everything about it [was] derivative of one restaurant theme or another" (For a brief time, Crocodile was just a few blocks away from Hippo). By 1990, the restaurant was just the "Pappas Party Room", with the defunct restaurant now being rented out as event space, and in early 1992 became the new home of Barry's Pizza, which had multiple locations in Houston at the time.

By 1997, the restaurant, also known as "Barry's Pizza & Italian Diner" was referred to as the "original" location and by 2019, Barry's Pizza was down to this one location, closing in 2020 (one of Houston's COVID-19 victims). A similar restaurant, Parma Pizza, opened in 2021, but it closed after a relatively short run, and by August 2024 the building was being torn down.

Replacing it was a gas station (Spark) with the address of 3222 Fountain View, featuring "Kare Market" and "Spark Laundry". Pictures can be seen at HoustonArchitecture.com.

The Redevelopment of Pinebrook Apartments

Ad for Pinebrook Apartments shortly after opening. From Houston Chronicle, 1973.
Welcome back to The Houston Files! For the last few years I've been adding Houston-related entries to Numbered Exits but there were so many Houston-related entries (especially as they've gotten taken off Carbon-izer) that I decided to revive this site again.

While I've discussed on my Northwest Freeway page in the past, 5201 West 34th Street currently houses a Jimmy John's and Origin Bank these days, but it wasn't always like that. It was originally a much larger lot with Northwest Freeway frontage and housed Pinebrook Apartments (stylized as "PineBrook", at least in the early days of the apartment complex) was a 232-unit apartment complex built in 1971 (and started advertising in 1972) as one of the many apartment complexes with clubhouses, swimming pools, and shag carpeting in the early 1970s, though PineBrook was always open to families (and pets).

The apartment complex suffered issues leading up to its official closure in November 1990 (transients moving into vacant apartments and starting fires), with (apparently) another fire happening after it was closed before the city tore it down in early 1992. By early 1995 it had been redeveloped into new sites, a new building housing a stand-alone Payless ShoeSource (using the old address, 5201 West 34th Street) and the Pine Hollow Shopping Center at 5215 West 34th Street, which was also near Northwest Freeway.

From what I can find, there was Jason's Deli in suite A (1995 to eviction in the early 2010s), Pro-Cuts in suite B (might've changed its name before closing/eviction), and Blockbuster in suite D (1995-2008). (If there was anything in Suite C I couldn't find it). I did get a bit of the Street View here.

In 1996, Boston Market was built at 5195 West 34th Street, and in 2005¹, another building was built next to it (5185 West 34th Street) with Lenny's Sub Shop, a vacancy, First Cash Advance, and RadioShack (which moved from across the street). 5175 West 34th Street was developed as a Wells Fargo in 2008.

Of course, all of these have changed over the years. Pine Hollow was demolished with the widening of the freeway, with Jason's Deli (which was closest to West 34th) going last². Payless ShoeSource closed in 2006 and was replaced with Purpose Money (later Check into Cash, by 2011) but only in half of the building. By late 2014, Jimmy John's opened in the other half but the west half was empty, and finally filled in 2016 with Verizon, though that only operated for around four years. By summer 2024 it was replaced with Origin Bank.

Boston Market closed around 2000 and was replaced by Sonic Drive-In (featuring an eat-in area) in 2001 which closed around 2026 (though the sign had been smashed out for a few years at that point).

The strip center next door had tenants come and go, with Lenny's Sub Shop getting replaced by a Little Caesars and the RadioShack becoming a Sprint RadioShack, then converting to a regular Sprint store before closing entirely. Tenants as of January 2026, from east to west (left to right) include Little Caesars (100), Fred Loya Insurance, Total by Verizon (200), Studio 34 Barbershop, and Wingstop.

Wells Fargo closed between 2024 and January 2026.

Additionally, here's an adver-article from 12/31/1972 from the Houston Chronicle that talks more about the apartments.

1. It appears the tenants moved in proper around 2006.
2. Presumably waiting until their new location on Northwest Freeway could be completed.