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.

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.

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.

Leo's Coffee Shop

In 1973, Leo Kalantzakis opened a 24-hour coffee shop at the ground floor of 1203 Fannin (below a parking garage), where, according to the Houston Chronicle, "he'll offer platters of seafood, steaks cooked to order, specialty salads, and a magnificent sandwich selection. Two midnight breakfasts, steaks and the traditional ham 'n eggs are ranking high, says manager Jerry Erwin."

The signage looks big and gaudy and probably was outdated even by 1970s standards (certainly with energy requirements coming in soon) but the reason why Leo's can still be talked about today is a rather scathing report by Marvin Zindler's "Rat & Roach Report" from 1982. That's where the pictures in this post come from, the current A dingy downtown diner that never closes has issues, with health inspectors finding two dead mice in a storage area and "roaches crawling on the condiment cooler" (as Zindler relished the alliteration). By 1984 Leo's was gone.

The current site is now home to McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steaks; the building was demolished and rebuilt in the late 2000s.

Railhead

Postcard from the early days. (Source unknown).

The first reference to 6400 Richmond appears in 1974 as the Railhead, a steakhouse themed to the golden era of American railroads. From what I've heard it had two portions of the restaurants, one focusing on steakhouse dining (serving a menu of prime rib and seafood) and the other toward live shows, which got increasingly more nightclubby as time went on. A January 1983 show with Dan Berry of Jan & Dean invited women to come in a bikini (and get their first drink free). Later that year it closed and the building received a large expansion to become Fizz, a popular nightclub, opening in spring 1986.

Fizz closed in October 1986 for a renovation, with a new theme and name, Hippo, opening in December. Hippo featured "a pseudo-artsy decor" where "abstract acrylics, animal murals and bad Picasso-esque paintings line the walls". By June 1988, however, the location had transitioned into a new concept, simply called "6400 Richmond" with alternative music (the new slogan - "Top 40 - We Ain't Playing It!"). This was done slowly, with some nights as Hippo and some as 6400 Richmond with black plastic covering the walls. You can see some of what was the nightclub in this video. It mentions a private club-within-a-nightclub (Wolfgang) with a quieter, more discreet atmosphere (this was likely the old Railhead portion) and you can see guests dance on the floor (note the very drunk man at five minutes) to Dead Or Alive's "My Heart Goes Bang" (Live in Japan).

"6400 Club" as it was known by late 1988, was destroyed in a fire in January 1989 and appears to not have reopened. The most extensive damage was at the former Railhead building, which was essentially rebuilt as a covered patio. The rest of the building was repaired/rebuilt and reopened as Back Alley in August 1991. Just over a year later, the club was closed and reopened around December 1992 as Texas Live, a new country western club, but it closed after four months, citing an oversaturated C&W nightclub scene. In mid-1993 it reopened as Rockefeller's West, a spin-off of Rockefeller's in the Rice Military area and designed to be primarily a performance hall rather than a dance club. Operations changed hands and eventually the "original" Rockefeller's managed to get exclusivity rights to the name back and Rockefeller's West was changed to Bayou City Theater (aka Bayou City Theatre) in December 1993.

In July 1994, Peter's Wildlife opened, turning it back into a nightclub. In November, the club faced some bad publicity with "Slash 'N Dash", to feature "was to feature a straw poll on [O.J.] Simpson's guilt or innocence; free valet parking for customers driving white Ford Broncos; free Simpson masks and a gift certificate for a hunting knife as a grand prize". Not only was the grand prize a knife but the winner was to "win an O.J. Simpson 'Slash N' Dash' night on the town to include dinner at McDonald's, a black stocking cap, a gift certificate for a hunting knife, a pair of sunglasses and a limousine ride to the airport". After there was an outcry from local womens' shelters about this, the club announced that the party would instead be "An Evening of Extremely Poor Taste" and "did not mention prizes". At some point around this time, there was a club-within-a-club, Florida Keys. Peter's Wildlife closed in mid-1997 shortly after a lawsuit was filed by a woman claiming she "almost choked to death" in a hot dog eating contest Peter's Wildlife had hosted in 1995. T-Town 2000, a Latino-themed nightclub opened in September 1998, not long after 6400 Sports Cafe made a brief appearance in the building. T-Town 2000 was successful enough to last seven years (something that every club, dating back to Fizz, couldn't manage) before closing/changing to Planeta Bar-Rio around 2005 (probably because "2000" anything became quickly dated after the year 2000). Around 2010 it was reformatted once more to Stereo Live, a live performance venue, which has remained since.

The billboard-esque sign for the club dates back to the days of the Railhead.

This post is researched through Houston Chronicle and Houston Post archives and expanded from what originally appeared on Carbon-izer.com at this page.

Barbecue Inn

Picture from author, March 2019
With the recent passing of Barbecue Inn (closed the first weekend of August 2026) I wanted to take another look at this post and expand it somewhat. To start off, let's take a look at what Fearless Critics: Houston Restaurant Guide said about this restaurant in 2008 that convinced me to try it.

Click to enlarge. Sorry about the quality, it's not my scan.
When I visited in March 2019 I was happy to see that most of that held true. The fries were good (but best in Houston? Hmmm...) and the chicken fried steak was excellent. And they did have that little thing for the baked potatoes. But at the same time the restaurant seemed largely stuck in the past, and its time was ultimately coming to a close.

Barbecue Inn's closing made the Houston Chronicle (7/31/2026).
Now, it's talked about that it's 80 or so years but how old is it really? Well, Barbecue Inn's current building, according to both HCAD and newspaper records, was built in 1965. As of 1961, the 116 West Crosstimbers address that Barbecue Inn called home for decades was a private residence, with a fire reported in 1961 that damaged the roof, and it's likely that this house, whether repaired or not, was the one that was torn down.

The first reference to Barbecue Inn in the Houston papers appears here in 1931 as a restaurant opening at 242 West Gray. There were references to an "Eddie's Barbecue Inn" in 1942, an "Avalon Barbecue Inn" in 1947, and "Casey's Barbecue Inn" on Market Street in Baytown. Louis & Nell Skrehot opened the restaurant back in 1946, and in 1948 there's a reference to a Barbecue Inn at 4400 Yale, which is the same business, but located across the street where the gas station is currently, but no references to its current address exist prior to 1965, which is what HCAD says. Of course, it's possible that HCAD guessed from the newspaper archives and is just as wrong, but aerials back up the current building not existing prior to 1965, and another similarly-sized (non-residential) building being across the street.

I didn't take any pictures of my meal, unfortunately. (3/2019, by author)
When I originally posted this back in 2020, my Crosstimbers page looks nothing like it does today (and for some reason, as of this update—September 7th, 2026— it somehow is missing the link to the page, which will be fixed by the end of the month.

Jack in the Box in The Heights

Photo by author, March 2019
Built in 1977 but replacing an older restaurant dating back to at least the mid-1960s, this Jack in the Box closed September 2018. The restaurant was poorly run, with employees actually refusing to serve hamburgers after around 7 pm citing the grill being shut off (likely a reason for its demise, as Jack in the Box stores usually thrive on night traffic). After a major renovation inside and out, it reopened as Velvet Taco in January 2021, their third location in Houston at the time but the first with a drive-through. Jack in the Box's "box" signage was kept and reused, however.

UPDATE 08-25-2026: Article touched up for better integration with Carbon-izer

Former Joe's Crab Shack on Northwest Freeway

Picture by author from September 2018, when it was BrickHouse Tavern + Tap.
The restaurant at 12910 Northwest Freeway first opened in 1997 as Joe's Crab Shack, which was a growing chain under parent company Landry's (you can see it in Google Street View as Joe's). After Landry's sold Joe's Crab Shack to investors in 2006, in 2008, the restaurant was closed with other underperforming locations to be converted to a new restaurant concept, BrickHouse Tavern + Tap, with this location being first to open in January 2009. By the picture above was taken, Joe's Crab Shack was back in the possession of Landry's having purchased JCS Holdings (renamed as Ignite Restaurant Group in 2009) in 2017 after Ignite's bankruptcy. Despite surviving the bankruptcy of Ignite and the re-acquisition by Landry's, this particular location was shuttered in March 2022. In early 2023, it reopened as a Cajun-California cuisine restaurant concept called "Cali Kitchen & Bar", though this has since closed around early 2026 (that's when their social media accounts stopped posting); I think I noticed it when their parking lot was empty and all the other restaurants nearby were full (except for the defunct Fuddruckers, of course).

UPDATE 06-26-2026: The most recent update rewrote a good part of the post and renamed it from "Brick House Tavern + Tap (290)". This is part of the changes to help integrate it with Northwest Freeway.

1344 Yale

1344 Yale Street

This building was a former bakery operation (as of the early 1980s directory, listed as "Heights Bakery" though it's possible it was something originally), with a large three-point sign located at the corner that has faded off completely. As of this writing, the building is scheduled to become a wine bar/shop called "La Grande Rue" and a restaurant called "Savoir". Their websites are (also as of this writing) almost identical. According to HCAD, the build date is 1930 but Loopnet says 1950. However, the building does not seem to be on Google Earth's 1944 view but is on 1953, which suggests 1950 is perhaps the actual build date. More information can be seen on the Houston Architecture Forums.

Picture above is from May 2018 (by the author); picture below from Loopnet before renovations began.

Tommie's Restaurant & Club

5850 Highway 6 North

Advertisement from the Houston Post, June 1985. The 5850 Highway 6 address is no longer in use, as it was a different building before being torn down in the early 1990s for a Dairy Queen (which briefly used the address before switching to 5854 Highway 6 North at some point, most recently home to Captain D's). Tommie's Restaurant & Club opened around December 1983-January 1984, but in March 1986, Tommie's became the nightclub "6th Avenue" (focusing more on entertainment than on food) before closing in 1990. 5848 Highway 6 North was also built on the site at some point.

290 / Beltway 8 Demolition - Taco Bell

15950 Northwest Freeway

This is the third of at least three posts on a small collection of fast food restaurants which the author has taken a personal interest in, to be further explored in a future post on the Northwest Freeway site (this link will be updated soon to reflect that). Along with McDonald's and Wendy's, a Taco Bell was also among the three fast food sites and others on the south side of Highway 290 to be leveled for road widening. According to HCAD, the Taco Bell was built in 1993 and had red, green, and yellow striping outside. Like the other restaurants it closed around fall 2012, and was demolished within months of when these pictures were taken in March 2013 by the author. (The above photo is one of the only ones I have of the building, and the photo below shows the back of the restaurant). Previously, these photos appeared on Carbon-izer and Brazos Buildings & Businesses.

Street View of Taco Bell still in operation

290 / Beltway 8 Demolition - Wendy's

16055 Northwest Freeway

This is the second of at least three posts on a small collection of fast food restaurants which the author has taken a personal interest in, to be further explored in a future post on the Northwest Freeway site (this link will be updated soon to reflect that). The Wendy's was among the three fast food sites and others on the south side of Highway 290 to be leveled for road widening. According to HCAD, the Wendy's was opened in 1984 and had the "solarium" design as Wendy's had during that time. It is unknown if the tarp was put on the solarium before or after it closed, as the windows made it harder to heat and cool the building (there was no tarp in 2011). The restaurant closed around fall 2012, and was demolished within months of when these pictures were taken in March 2013 by the author. Previously, these photos appeared on Carbon-izer and Brazos Buildings & Businesses.

Street View of Wendy's still in operation

1102 Yale

1102 Yale
Because of a plan this site had not to cover the same territory as other sites, it will only add/update to what Arch-ive has already covered.

The most important thing to note is that Arch-ive.org implies it was Ivy-Russell Ford, THEN ABC Food Stores, which it was not.

In 1941, the 1930s-era grocery store here, ABC Food Stores, was absorbed and rebranded by rival Henke & Pillot. In 1955, Henke & Pillot closed and was replaced by Ivy-Russell Ford (which would only make sense seeing as how it was Ivy-Russell, not ABC/Henke's, brand when the siding was peeled off).

In the early 1960s, Ivy-Russell Ford departed and was replaced with Big Bonus Stamp Company (a redemption center for a type of trading stamp) before folding around 1977. For a brief time after that it was the home of F.A. Bogar Furniture (1977-1982) before becoming Eckerd in 1983.

Eckerd remained here until as late as 2004 when the stores were purchased by CVS (CVS did not convert this store).

In 2008, renovations began on the building with the facade (added by Eckerd, or maybe a previous tenant) peeled off. Lola opened in 2009. Additional tenants that arrived by 2011 included Anytime Fitness, Flooring in the Heights, and Nutrition Epicenter. Nutrition Epicenter has closed (Flooring in the Heights has only one mention beyond Street View, and it is also gone). Sharkey's Cuts for Kids has taken over the nutrition store, and it appears Anytime Fitness has expanded into the flooring store. While this site aims to cover full histories of the sites it covers, sometimes that is not feasible with the schedule. Photo taken by author, August 1, 2018.

290 / Beltway 8 Demolition - McDonald's

16001 Northwest Freeway

This is the first of at least three posts on a small collection of fast food restaurants which the author has taken a personal interest in, to be further explored in a future post on the Northwest Freeway site (this link will be updated soon to reflect that). The McDonald's was among the three fast food sites and others on the south side of Highway 290 to be leveled for road widening.

While technically in Jersey Village, the McDonald's had the address and zip code of Houston, and to reduce confusion, that's what the "labels" of this post represent.

The address of the McDonald's is a bit in question. Normally, addresses on the north side of Northwest Freeway or Hempstead Road (when they parallel) are all even-numbered, as there's nothing on the south side (railroad), and when they are together they share addresses as they are in parallel. When Northwest Freeway is split away from the railroad, they have odd-numbered addresses. The McDonald's and the other stores in the "wedge" approaching Beltway 8 had both. As a result, legally this McDonald's is 16001 Northwest Freeway but also operated as 16002 Hempstead (despite the signage being 16001).

The McDonald's was built in 1980 (as per HCAD's paving records) and was listed as being rebuilt in 2000 (as per HCAD), which is a bit unusual given that the previous restaurant was not very old at the time. It is possible that it was just renovated, and the paint job of white and red was common to what McDonald's was repainting their older restaurants at the time. The paving record also indicates that it was a renovation as opposed to a rebuild; full rebuilds usually involve a new parking lot as well.

In 2012, the McDonald's closed, and stripped most of its iconic roof in the process. By June 2013, the building was demolished. The pictures were taken in March 2013 by the author. Previously, these photos appeared on Carbon-izer and Brazos Buildings & Businesses.

Street View of McDonald's still in operation

Ruth's Chris Steak House on Richmond

6213 Richmond Avenue

The current Ruth's Chris Steak House in Houston is at 5433 Westheimer, when a renovation of an office building built it into a former bank lobby, but the original was located here on Richmond. The original restaurant here, "PTI Restaurant" opened in 1975. It then Zachary's before closing altogether in less than two years, and from 1977 to 2013 was the home of Ruth's Chris Steak House, which despite being a chain offered some of the best steaks in Houston (dry-aged, well seasoned, with a pat of butter added to the steak just moments after being pulled off the grill). Afterwards, by fall 2014, it was V Live (despite signs of "Vintage Steak & Seafood", it was a strip club). Newspaper articles say that V Live was closed in November 2016 due to not paying taxes, and it later became Karma Houston 6213 (which did not last long) and Draise Houston (also similarly fly-by-night looking). The most recent strip club here, Bunny's Gentlemens Club, operated here from 2020 to 2022. In late 2024 it became Selfish Hookah Lounge. Image picture above is from a Houston tour guide from the 1980s and the bottom is from Loopnet.com.

UPDATE 07-07-2026: Updated as part of the new Richmond Avenue page, of which this is fully independent. Title of post changed from "Ruth's Chris Steak House" to "Ruth's Chris Steak House on Richmond".

Mambo Seafood (Northwest Freeway)

13485 Northwest Freeway

This was built in 1993 as a Shoney's and still shows up as such in some 1995-era listings. However, Shoney's did not last long and a small addition was built to the north side of the building being recorded in 1997, likely after Shoney's closure. In 1998, it reopened as Yank Sing (possibly relocated to 2005 Mangum later). Little exists of this location on the Internet, but it was listed on this list of Chinese restaurants in America. This second incarnation appeared to have a rounded red sign from Google Earth. In 2004 ownership transferred to Mambo Seafood, which has a neat neon sign that failed to be captured in the photograph above (taken the week this was posted).