Tag: Gas Stations

Alief
03/08/18 11:00am

That’s Not a Buc-ee’s Going Up on Hwy. 6 at Westpark — It’s a Bucky’s

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New Construction
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Make no mistake about the signage now up along Hwy. 6 across Schiller Dr. from the Aldi near Westpark: the travel stop it’s announcing is Nebraska-born Bucky’s — not the Texan Buc-ee’s. Construction vehicles are now pushing dirt around west of the Highway 6 RV Resort where the new complex plans to go.

Last year, Buc-ee’s filed a lawsuit against Bucky’s to stop the transplant from moving ahead with plans to build at least 6 new Houston-area locations. One Bucky’s is now open on NASA Pkwy. in Nassau Bay, but besides that, all other operational Bucky’ses are currently out of state: in Omaha, St. Louis, and the Chicago area.

Across the street, Twistee Treat Westpark is flanked by Golden Corral and a Take 5 Oil Change, and backed up by a Palace Inn:

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The Buc Stops Here
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Featured Posts
06/12/17 12:45pm

Valero Station Near Royal Oaks Stripped of Title, Locked Away with Loyal Dry Cleaner Companion At Its Side

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Retail, Royal Oaks
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These portraits of the Valero station at Westheimer and Crescent Park Dr., now largely bereft of its branding signage and its gas pumps, come from a reader on the scene this morning who speculates that the changes “must have happened very suddenly” on or before Saturday. The fencing has ensnared the Royal Oaks Cleaners’ retail spot as well, though that business’s allegiances and pricing are still proclaimed on nearby signage:

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Gas Station Regime Change
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Featured Posts
03/03/17 5:00pm

Workers Smoothing Things Over around Westridge’s New Gas Station

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Westridge
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Gas Station at 1st Food Stop, Durhill St. and Buffalo Spdwy., Knollwood Village, Houston, 77025

A contemplative moment for the end of the week: the large excavator above was spotted bowing its head at the corner of Durhill St. and Buffalo Spdwy. as cement poured down from the sky next to the 1st Stop Food Mart, currently undergoing what appears to be Valero conversion. The portraitist notes that new glass and some signage structures have gone up at the site since the Saturday visit during which the scene above was captured; workers also appeared to have made progress on flattening out the new pavement on the Durhill side of the property, which was first crunched up late last fall:

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Tank Now In Hiding
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Braeswood
12/06/16 12:00pm

Buffalo Spdwy. First Stop Now Readying Ground To Plant a Gas Station

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Linkwood
1 Comment

9230 Buffalo Spdwy., Houston, 77025

The ribbed tank hiding behind the track excavator in the north-facing shot above will soon be going completely underground, per current plans at the corner of Durhill St. and Buffalo Spdwy. First Stop Food Store, the current occupant of the retail shell on the property, sits right across Buffalo Spdwy. from one of the 2 planned senior living facilities in the vicinity — that property is just out of the frame to the right, while one of the houses in the Pemberton Circle gated townhome cluster can be seen peeking over the fence on the left.

The 1950s convenience store building and property itself changed hands early last year. Here’s a shot from July, a few happy months before the parking lot breakup seen above:

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Tanking Up
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Featured Posts
12/01/16 4:15pm

Big Tex Montrose Self-Storage Now Open on Former Freaky Foods Lot

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Lancaster Place, Storage Facilities
6 Comments

Big Tex Montrose, 1810 Richmond Ave., Dearborn Place, Houston, 77006

richwood-market-freaky-foods-west-viewThe doors opened last week at that 4-story 100,000-sq.-ft. storage facility that has replaced the boarded-up Shell Food Mart just west of the corner of Richmond  and Woodhead — itself a makeover of the 24-hour Richwood Market, known back in the day as Freaky Foods (affectionately or not). The 4-story building started going up next to King Cole Liquor some time after the nearby trees got cleared out about a year ago (with the city’s OK, Annise Parker said at the time).

Big Tex has since widened the sidewalks and added some new baby trees in a series of landscaped rectangles along Richmond; the company’s press release also says there’s gonna be an Art Wall.

Photos: Big Tex Storage via Urbannizer (panoramic of Big Tex at 1810 Richmond Ave.), Swamplot inbox (2014 shot of 1810 Richmond Ave.)

Boxes on Richmond
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Quicklink
10/17/16 4:45pm

76 Gas Stations Headed to Houston, Trying Out Dynamo Soccer Strategy

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1 Comment

76 GAS STATIONS HEADED TO HOUSTON, TRYING OUT DYNAMO SOCCER STRATEGY BBVA Compass Stadium for Houston Dynamo, East Downtown, HoustonOrange-logo’d gas station brand 76 has bought naming rights to an entrance gate at the Dynamo’s stadium in East Downtown, despite not having any stations in the Houston area — but a company rep on the chain’s Facebook page says there will be a few popping up around town soon. Phillips 66, which owns the 76 brand (and which also bought the naming rights last fall to a soccer stadium in Warwickshire County, England), made a deal in February to let Saudi-Aramco-and-Shell-owned Motiva use the brand in Texas and other Gulf Coast and eastern states. Currently most of the brand’s stations are in California and Washington — though a scattering of 76 stations are now marked on Google Maps on top of some existing Phillips 66 and Conoco stations. [Houston Dynamo, Convenience Store News] Photo of Dynamo’s stadium in East Downtown: BBVA Compass Stadium

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Featured Posts
10/11/16 3:45pm

Memorial Dr. Gas Station Back to Selling Gas After Deadly Memorial Weekend Shooting Spree and Pump Fire

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Wilchester
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Memorial Conoco Car Care, 13202 Memorial Dr., Wilchester, Houston, 77079

The Memorial Conoco Car Care station at Memorial and Wycliffe drives is now fully back in the swing of things following the shootout and subsequent fire at the station over Memorial Day weekend, a reader notes. The station reopened its garage for repair and maintenance services within about a week of the May incident, during which police and a SWAT team faced off with a gunman who had begun to unload an AR-15 on passers by. The shooting spree resulted in 2 deaths (including the gunman), 6 injuries (including 2 officers and an armed guy mistaken for another gunman), and the gasoline fire that burned down the fuel pumps and canopy; the reader reports that the station is back to dispensing gasoline as of last week. That’s a new peaked canopy visible in the background over the sign shown above — here’s what the old one looked like:

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Tanks Full on Wilchester
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Demolitions
08/01/16 1:00pm

Gasoline-and-Burgers Mashup at Wilcrest and I-10 To Be Replaced By Innovative Fuel-and-Fast-Food Combo

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Openings and Closings, Redevelopment, Restaurants, Wilchester
4 Comments

Exxon Gas Station with McDonald's, 11035 Katy Fwy., Wilchester, Houston

Exxon Gas Station with McDonald's, 11035 Katy Fwy., Wilchester, Houston

Do not mourn the Exxon station with the McDonald’s inside on the eastbound feeder road of the Katy Fwy. Yes, there’s a new fence around the property, and it’s about to be demolished. But the replacement is well worth waiting for: It’ll be a brand new Exxon station — with a brand new McDonald’s! Ah, but the more things stay the same, the more they change: A reader who contacted the burger chain’s regional office reports the new McDonald’s will sport McDonald’s “next generation” design, and will feature free wifi when it opens — around mid-October Election Day.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Exxon and McDonald’s, Together Again
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Braeswood Place
06/28/16 5:15pm

Shots of the Quintuple Stumping Around the Valero at N. Braeswood and Stella Link

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9 Comments

Trees cut at 8430 Stella Link Rd., Braeswood Place, Houston, 77025

Trees cut at 8430 Stella Link Rd., Braeswood Place, Houston, 77025In other de-tree-ment news along Brays Bayou, a reader further upstream sends some photos of recently cross-hatched stumps now dotting the Valero-inhabited corner of Stella Link Rd. and N. Braeswood Dr. The top shot looks east past the gas station and the Church’s Chicken roosting within; the second shot looks south down Stella Link Rd. toward the former Pilgrim dry cleaners, which these days accepts clothing only as donations to the Shriners Hospital. A neighbor on NextDoor says that the 5 trees (mostly of just-over-15-inch diameter) appear to have been trimmed all the way down to the toes in mid June; at least 4 separate 311 complaints have been made on the matter since then.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Green Gone
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Braeswood Place
01/21/16 4:45pm

Starbucks Brewing at Former Gas Station Site on Brays Bayou

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Meyerland Plaza, New Construction, Restaurants, Retail
11 Comments

Future Site of Starbucks, 4660 N. Braeswood Dr., Braeswood Place, Houston, 77096

A pile of dirt is heaped up at the northeast corner of N. Braeswood Blvd and the West Loop feeder road this afternoon, next to a sign announcing the upcoming arrival of a Starbucks to the site. The lot held a Citgo station before demolition in mid-2013; a reader notes that construction crews have been poking around at the site for at least the past 3 weeks.

The blocky facade of the Halstead apartment complex can been seen in the background of the above snapshot — down the street to the east, the Halstead and next-door Meritage complex are slowly being joined by a midrise residential development going up at the corner of N. Braeswood and Frankway. East of that is a Proguard Storage facility and the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant.

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Coffee on 610
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Historic Preservation
12/17/15 11:30am

Future Gas Station Coffee Shop Tops the City’s List of New Historic Landmarks

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Midtown, Quicklink
3 Comments

FUTURE GAS STATION COFFEE SHOP TOPS THE CITY’S LIST OF NEW HISTORIC LANDMARKS former Gulf Oil Filling Station, 3709 La Branch, Midtown, Houston, 77004Among the structures designated as historic landmarks by the City yesterday: an abandoned gas station at 3709 La Branch St. in Midtown. The interior of the 1925 Gulf Oil filling station has been unemployed for the past 30 years, though the exterior has occasionally taken gigs as a canvas for grafitti artists. The structure, which is now under protection in perpetuity, will become Retrospect Coffee Bar in coming months, as part of the larger Almeda Yards development planned for the area. The shop will offer local coffee and sweets, and will attempt to preserve the structure’s original feel. [Paper City] Photo: City of Houston

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Adaptive Reuse
12/29/14 2:15pm

Report: That Former Gas Station at Yale and W. 11th To Be Reborn as Restaurant Run by Heights-Famous Duo

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Houston Heights, Restaurants
11 Comments

1039-yale-citgo-coltivare

Looks like that long-vacant, wheatpaste poster-festooned former service station and repair shop in the heart of the Houston Heights will finally be reincarnated. Eater Houston’s Jakeisha Wilmore is reporting that Morgan Weber and Ryan Pera, the team behind Revival Market and Coltivare, have snatched up the former Citgo at 1039 Yale St., an address less than a mile from both Coltivare and Revival. Exactly what Pera and Weber will be dishing out in lieu of unleaded and 10W-40 remains to be seen; a spokesman told Wilmore that the rumored restaurant’s concept is still secret.

Photo: Jakeisha Wilmore

Combustibles To Comestibles
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Energy Corridor
12/15/14 10:30am

Energy Corridor ConocoPhillips Workers Will Have to Drive Farther to Stay Brand-Loyal at the Pump

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7 Comments

eldridge-conoco-distanceeldridge-conoco-road-sign-cropped

Tank up and get your real fruit smoothies and other convenience store Kicks while you still can at this ConocoPhillips service station and market at the corner of N. Eldridge Pkwy. and Dairy Ashford Rd., just north of the Omni Hotel Westside and just west of the petrochemical giant’s 62-acre Energy Corridor corporate campus.

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66 Kicked
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Featured Posts
12/12/14 10:30am

The Old Freaky Foods on Richmond Ave Is Boarded Up and Looking Forlorn

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Lancaster Place, Montrose
15 Comments

richwood-market-freaky-foods-west-view

Is there more change coming to lower Richmond?

The former Shell station and grocery at 1810 Richmond Ave known until recently (formally) known as Richwood Market and (informally) as “Freaky Foods” is boarded up and graffiti-tagged:

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Death Knell For The Shell?
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Adaptive Reuse
04/21/14 10:00am

The Studewood Cantina Where the Gas Station Canopy Will Become Part of the Building

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Restaurants, Woodland Heights
7 Comments

Construction of The El Cantina Superior, 602 Studewood St., Houston Heights

This photo, looking northwest northeast from BB’s Cafe catty corner at the intersection of White Oak and Studewood on the western border of the Woodland Heights, shows construction on the former gas station where serial Heights-area restaurant opener Ken Bridge plans to piece together his latest spot, The El Cantina Superior. Bridge, the initiating force behind Lola, the Shepherd Park Draught House, Witchcraft Tavern & Provisions (and Dragon Bowl before that), and the growing Pink’s Pizza chain, hasn’t bothered to get rid of all of the Conoco fixin’s onsite — there’s the canopy angled slightly toward the streetcorner, which is being incorporated into the new building under construction around and under it. And the sign for The El, which has been up on the site well in advance of construction, hoods the gas station logo but still shows the per-gallon pricing slots of the predecessor’s liquid offerings.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Fill ’Er Up!
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