HOUSTON AVENUE to NORTH LOOP WEST / NORTH LOOP EAST

Exxon / 2211 North Freeway
This Exxon has been here for years and until around 2011 was branded as an Exxon On the Run (a company-owned Exxon convenience store brand) before it was sold to Star Stop. It had been an Exxon before it was rebuilt around 2001. Notably, it's the first North Freeway address I can find (Houston Avenue, as mentioned above, has different numbering).

Sleep Inn & Suites / 2475 North Freeway
Another early North Freeway address, this hotel, Sleep Inn & Suites Near Downtown North, opened in 2009. It has three floors but I'm not sure of the room count.

NORTH LOOP WEST / NORTH LOOP EAST to NORTH SAM HOUSTON PARKWAY WEST / NORTH SAM HOUSTON PARKWAY EAST

Tostada Regia / 4200 North Freeway
This was James Coney Island back in 1976 and operated as such for years (as late as 2023) but as of early 2026 is now Tostada Regia.

4302 North Freeway
This former Shell shut down between 2008 and 2011 and was demolished around 2020 (though the store disappeared in 2014, possibly burned down). Nothing remains but the old signage that indicates it was a Shell and a trash-filled vacant lot today.

AutoZone / 4314 North Freeway
The site of a Denny's from 1969 to the early 2000s. This was demolished in the mid-2000s for a CVS/pharmacy which closed in the early 2020s. AutoZone moved in a few years later. The CVS also replaced a strip center type building at 4400.

Walmart / 4412 North Freeway
This Walmart (#4526, opened October 2010) anchors Northline Commons, a sprawling strip center where Northline Mall used to be. In its heyday, it had Joske's and Montgomery Ward. The latter closed when the chain went bankrupt in early 2001, and the former closed in the late 1980s (notably, it was not converted into Dillard's as the rest of the chain was and instead served as a clearance center of sorts for merchandise Dillard's wasn't going to carry). More on Northline Mall will hopefully be explored, or at least linked to, in a future update.

Pappas Bar-B-Q / 4430 I-45
This was built in Northline Mall's parking lot in 1998 and lived past the mall's demolition and redevelopment.

EZPAWN / 4714 North Freeway
EZPAWN has been here since 1994 though it was a Sizzler restaurant from 1980 to 1990.

Ventana Gardens Apartments / 5135 North Freeway
One of the first references for this apartment complex comes back in 1965 with the name of "Northline Manor Apartments", which it kept at least up to the mid-1970s with the purchase of the apartments (later references to "Northline Manor" by the 1980s referred to a nursing home elsewhere in the area). It is not known when it adopted its current name.

Chacho's / 5350 North Freeway
Gallagher's was here from 1974 to 1986, and torn down for Two Pesos in 1988. In 1993 it was converted to Taco Cabana and closed sometime around the mid-2000s. The new Chacho's location opened in 2008. These days, Chacho's has better signage than Taco Cabana AND is open 24 hours...

Subway / 5586 North Freeway
The first of four ragged-looking fast food restaurants in front of this strip center, this Subway has been here since around 1990 and the space had already seen a number of restaurants come and go including Church's Chicken. It seems that this started out as a Tex-Mex fast food restaurant called "Taco Boy".

Daiquiri Island to Go / 5588 North Freeway
This was Dairy Queen from the 1970s to the late 1980s and Connie Seafood in the 1990s (numbered as 5590). After it was numbered as 5588 it served as Williams Fried Chicken around 2005-2006, then Frenchy's until around 2017-2018, then Catfish Station (as of 4/18), becoming Chicago's in 2019, then Lefty's Cheesesteak in 2021, vacant for a few years afterward, and as of 11/24 Daiquiri Island to Go.

5594 North Freeway
From at least 1978 to around 2024 this was Thomas Bar-B-Q. There's a Reddit page that discusses the closure. It seemed to be the only original restaurant of the four.

Burger King / 5596 North Freeway
The last of the four, this Burger King opened 2010 in what had closed as a Pizza Inn a few years earlier (which dated back to the 1980s).

Gallery Furniture / 6006 North Freeway
The formal opening of Statewide Homes, a lot full of model homes, was in November 1967 and by the late 1970s it was selling furniture…but by 1980 it was closed, reopening in 1981 under the new name of Gallery Model Home Furniture, owned by Jim McIngvale, a then-newcomer to Houston. It appears that by the 1980s the model houses were renovated into a single building, with the "Mattress Mack" persona born when McIngvale, taking over a commercial and shrieking that Gallery Furniture will "save you money!" and a star was born. In 2000, the store was completely rebuilt with a new 190,000 square foot warehouse and showroom. In summer 2009, the warehouse component was destroyed in a massive fire caused by arson, forcing the store's closure. Fortunately, the brand-new (much smaller) Uptown location served as the new temporary home of the business until they reopened this location in 2010.

Original Timmy Chan / 7255 North Freeway
This location of Original Timmy Chan took its sweet time opening, plans were filed back in 2009 and the building was completed in 2012 but it didn't open until November 2024, over TWELVE YEARS LATER.

Cash America Pawn / 8223 North Freeway
This is about where North Shepherd merges in with North Freeway and continues the numbering system. In the early 1980s, this pawn shop was a Wolfe Nursery (listed as "Wolfe Garden-Land"). The pawn shop still uses the main building.

8711 North Freeway
Today serving as an auxiliary warehouse for Walmart and facing north towards Little York, this was most recently, from early 2009 to early 2014, Más Club. Más Club was a one-off food-oriented Sam's Club spin-off aimed at Hispanic audiences and had its own membership card ("Sam" spelled backwards is "Mas", see?). Walmart still uses the building for warehouse space. A more extensive write-up on Más Club, including why the building was shaped oddly (it was built as a location of HD Supply which never opened), can be seen here at Houston Historic Retail.

The lot where the former Más Club sits was developed two pieces. The first was the old 8935 North Freeway (aka 8935 N. Shepherd) at Little York and North Freeway. Facing North Freeway, this operated from 1971 to 1983 as a Safeway. In 1983, it was converted to Drugs for Less, a deep-discount drugstore concept owned by Safeway (HHR also has more information) before it was closed in 1986. It was later absorbed by 8711 to the south, Archer AMC/Jeep, which operated from 1971 to 2004.

Express Inn / 9025 North Freeway
This motel opened in 1982 opened as a Travelodge and in mid-1990 had already changed names ("Houston North End", likely a spelling error of "Houston North Inn") and in 1991 became Days Inn. From what I can tell, based on the evidence I have, it looks like it closed in 2006 but reopened in spring 2007 with "brand new rooms", before closing by February 2008. Between 2008 and 2011 the hotel had already reopened as a Super 8 (which made the sign much smaller), then switched to Knights Inn, and by January 2015, had closed again. By late 2016, it had reopened as "Select Inn & Suites". In March 2021, the hotel was branded as "Express Inn - Gulf Bank"...and that's still the name of the motel (for now) as of this writing, June 2026.

Sonic Drive-In / 9403 North Freeway
This was redeveloped from an Exxon in the mid-1990s as a Checkers, but by the late 1990s was Sonic.

Joe V's Smart Shop / 10241 North Freeway
This opened in 2025. The building it replaced was nearly twice the size and opened in 1991 as a "Builders Square II" (the large-format Builders Square locations) and developed as part of a larger power center with other Kmart concepts at the time (see "The Dump Furniture Outlet" and "10261 North Freeway"). In 1999, the store closed just shy of its 8th anniversary.

The conversion to Fry's Electronics in 2000, its better-known successor, involved rebuilding the garden center as retail space, with the expansions taking it to just shy of a 140,000 square feet space. Sadly, in early 2021, it closed with the rest of the Fry's Electronics chain. Some photos and thoughts of this Fry's can be seen at the Fry's Electronics page on this website. In 2024, demolition began for a new Joe V's Smart Shop (the building was totally wrecked).

The Dump Furniture Outlet / 10251 North Freeway
This opened as Kmart's second large-format concept, PACE Membership Warehouse in December 1992 before closing in September 1993 as Kmart Corporation sold the chain to Wal-Mart Stores, which did not reopen either of the Houston locations. In November 1994 it became Compaq Works, a factory outlet operated by Compaq, offering refurbished computers (though only used 20k square feet for selling, the other space was warehouse space Compaq used for other purposes). When Compaq was sold to Hewlett-Packard, it kept the store open for a few years (open as of 2002) but in 2004, The Dump Furniture Outlet opened. Note that places like Petco and Marshalls, which sit between The Dump and Joe V's today, were developed later (presumably Kmart was to put something like OfficeMax there, which it owned).

10261 North Freeway
Kmart #7439 opened here in November 1992 as part of their power center (see "Joe V's Smart Shop" and "The Dump Furniture Outlet" above) and replaced two other Kmart stores. When it closed as Big Kmart in April 2003, it was divided into Dollar Tree, Fallas Paredes, and Ross Dress for Less with a notch cut out in the back for loading docks. Since then, Five Below has replaced Fallas Paredes (which was still there in 2022).

Taco Cabana / 10325 North Freeway
This particular Taco Cabana location opened in 1999.

Walmart / 10411 North Freeway
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, this store opened in spring '89 (May 1989, as it turns out) as a 120k square feet Wal-Mart.

Aldine Ninth Grade School / 10650 North Freeway
This AISD campus opened in fall 1998 with six other new campuses (three pre-K centers, another 9th grade campus, an elementary school, and a magnet school).

I remember seeing this way back when I was in high school myself (a bit more than a decade after the opening of Aldine NGS) and thought it was brilliant to segregate the freshmen since we were having capacity issues at the time with more incoming ninth-graders than ever...though in this school's case it does share some facilities with the actual high school.

10718 North Freeway
Steak & Ale was here from 1975 to 1998 (approximately) with China Border taking over soon after and closing between 2021 and 2022. Google seems to indicate a "Club Aldine" being here but that doesn't seem to be accurate (no Google results, and no changes to the building).

Mambo Seafood / 10810 North Freeway
This was originally the site of Jim's in 1977 but became Champ's restaurant (#3) after they split off as their own chain. It has been Mambo Seafood since early 2002 (shortly after Champ's closed); however, I don't think it's the same building.

North 45 Plaza / 10822-10990 North Freeway
This strip mall has a variety of low-end tenants (archive) like Family Dollar, dd's Discounts, and My Melrose. This was developed as one of three Deauville shopping centers and the only one with a residential component (while not an enclosed "Deauville Fashion Mall", this center is briefly mentioned on Houston Historic Retail). Early tenants included theme restaurant Bobby McGee's Conglomeration at 10822 North Freeway (closed sometime in the early 1980s and eventually home to CiCi's Pizza which closed in the early 2020s) and the main anchor Randalls (at 10902) which operated until around 2000.

Monk JCB / 11211 North Freeway
In January 1967, Field Inn opened as the first location of a new motel chain that was intended to go nationwide much like other motel chains starting to take off at this time. By October, Field Inn North (aka Field Inn #1) was a "motor inn" with full services (including a "private air-conditioned bus" for large events), with banquet and meeting rooms, as well as a club and restaurant. Unusually for these types of developments, a third of the property was apartments owned and operated by the hotel (with a notably different architectural style). The apartment portion (completed later that year) featured a washateria on the premises and a children's playground and in 1967 had the name of Aldine Field Apartments. By January 1976 the hotel was flying under the banner of Rodeway Inn (Rodeway Inn Greensgate) with the name later that year Greenspoint Inn (and Greenspoint Apartments, also known as Greenspoint International Apts.). The actual Greenspoint Mall was a mile to the north and the area was a trendy spot for new apartment construction.

By 1985, the hotel portion was Best Western - Greenspoint Inn (aka Best Western Greenspoint) and kept the name into the name into the mid-1990s. By the late 1990s, the hotel was known as the Greenspoint Plaza Inn. By this time, the motel's best years was behind it. The club was leased as a swingers' club at the hotel operated from 1999 to 2003 as Club Connections. Around the time Club Connections closed, the entire property closed and was demolished circa 2004. For many years the property was dormant, but with Gillespie Road (which ran just south of the property) getting upgraded and connecting in with the new Pinto Business Park behind the property, revitalization was to come. In late 2019, Monk JCB, a construction equipment dealership, began groundbreaking, and in December 2021 it opened, bringing the 11211 North Freeway address back into service. The back half of the property remains vacant (some of the hotel buildings and all of the apartment buildings), but it will be probably be redeveloped soon enough.

Golf Cars of Houston Superstore / 11219 North Fwy.
This building has seen multiple tenants over the years. It was built in 1979 as a location of Fun City Toys (later branded as Lionel Playworld Fun City before going out of business in 1982 with the rest of the Houston locations) and in spring 1986 became a Federated electronics store by spring 1986 before being liquidated at the end of 1989. In late 1991, Best Buy opened, one of four new stores in the Houston area when the chain entered the city. Best Buy vacated around the mid-2000s (still open in early 2005) and was replaced by its current tenant in the year 2008.

Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen / 11301 North Freeway

This was built as Carlos O'Brien's in April 1982. A newspaper review has a good look at the restaurant, a one-off theme Tex-Mex restaurant owned by General Leisure Corporation (which, at the time, owned The Mason Jar and Gallagher's) with notably bad Tex-Mex food, even for 1982 standards. This ad even provides a sketch of the restaurant's facade. Within a year, General Leisure had closed the restaurant and reopened it as a new location of The Mason Jar, which wasn't successful either. Pappas Seafood House opened sometime in mid-1984, and operated up until June 2020 when it was closed with four other Pappas restaurants. Within a few years it reopened before closing in spring 2026 for conversion to a Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen.

Shell / 11311 North Freeway
This Shell with Timewise opened in 2023. The convenience store isn't that big but there's lots of pumps.

Ostioneria Michoacan / 11402 North Fwy.
This former Exxon spot (approx. 1975-2001) was redeveloped into a restaurant space in 2004 (Mexican-style seafood. The building and parking lot are brand-new but there's something Exxon-shaped about the sign...

NORTH SAM HOUSTON PARKWAY WEST / NORTH SAM HOUSTON PARKWAY EAST to GRAND PARKWAY

Greenspoint Mall / 12300 North Freeway
Located at the northeast corner of Beltway 8 and Interstate 45, there's not much left of Greenspoint Mall these days (once Houston's largest mall), with only Fitness Connection remaining (located in the former Lord & Taylor, later Mervyn's) and I don't think they ever connected to the mall proper, even when it was open (it closed for good in 2024). I created a dedicated page for this mall that can be seen here, featuring the original 32-page opening guide of the mall with its original stores and original department stores (Foley's and Sears) with the rest of the history in prose—by 1980 Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, Joske's, and Lord & Taylor would also join). Of course, it's not a comprehensive history and a lot of tenants are missing. In particular, my notes specifically say a Wendy's was in the food court at one time but if I tried listing everything that wasn't already on that page, we'd be here all day.

Monte Carlo Inn / 12500 North Fwy.
This opened as "The Point Hotel" in 1982 (180 units according to a 1982 posting, though my Days Inn directory says 170 units) and was a Comfort Inn by 1985. Between February 1994 and November 1995 it became a Days Inn. Between 2008 and 2011 (probably closer to the latter) the hotel became a Knights Inn, which involved moving the signage (still Days Inn-shaped) closer to the highway...originally, it was about 200 feet back from the frontage road. Between October 2019 and February 2020, however, the hotel became the "Monte Carlo Inn" (probably closer to the latter as a February 2020 article mentions Knights Inn), and all visible traces of Days Inn disappeared.

Sunoco / 14811 North Fwy.
Apparently, converting the Mobil was a big enough success for Stripes that a second store was built in 2016 and opened around January 2017 featuring a Stripes/Laredo Taco Company. This is still branded as a Stripes as of January 2023.

Sunoco / 14834 North Freeway
This was built as a Mobil truck stop in 2000, and by 2007 it was a Texaco. In 2011, the gas station was briefly closed as the convenience store renovated into a Stripes with a Laredo Taco Company, with the Sunoco brand replacing Texaco around 2014-2015. Around that time the diesel pumps behind the store were rebuilt to be parallel to the store's back. As of June 2026, the convenience store is still branded as Stripes despite being a 7-Eleven in all but name. Despite being on the 148xx block, this Sunoco is on the southeast catty-corner of the intersection. ONE of them must be out of order...

MeXcal Cantina Pacifico / 14901 North Fwy.
This was built in 1994 as a Joe's Crab Shack (developed alongside an adjacent Saltgrass Steak House at 14909 North Freeway, which is still there...the parking lots connect in the back). Joe's Crab Shack closed around 2014-2015 and was significantly modified for "Fresas Cantina" which ended up opening in spring 2023 as MeXcal Cantina Pacifico. The parking lots had a back entrance to Back Ash Drive, this was closed since at least 2009 (if not longer).

Spanish Flowers / 14915 North Freeway
This was Zio's Italian Kitchen from 2000 to 2016. It became El Toro Loco in 2017 but became Spanish Flowers within a year or so. It was the same ownership as El Toro Loco (reopened with a new menu) but became associated with Spanish Flowers on North Main. It appears that this location of Spanish Flowers was never 24 hours unlike its North Main counterpart.

Flying J Travel Center / 15919 North Freeway
Flying J opened in 2001 with Denny's (replacing a previous site that was originally opened as a truck stop, though I'm not sure it still was at that point).

Mustang Inn / 16021 North Freeway
This off-brand motel opened in 2014 as Days Inn & Suites (changed names around 2021-2022) but until 2019 had no access to North Freeway beyond the truck stop (the construction of Candlewood Suites to the north changed that).

17211 North Freeway
This 100,000 square foot retail building has served numerous tenants, from opening as Gemco (#587) in 1978 (the last Houston Gemco store to open) until the Gemco stores in Houston were closed in December 1983, then Sam's Wholesale Club (as it was known back then) from 1984 to 1991, a brief time as International Market, a flea-market like business with smaller retailers inside selling clothing, apparel, furniture, and other items (circa 1993-1994), and finally the first Houston location of Floor & Decor from November 2003 to August 2023.

Shipley Do-Nuts / 17425 North Freeway
Shipley Do-Nuts was built in the late 2010s, redeveloping a site that was Steak & Ale from approximately 1978 to 2008 and later briefly a restaurant called "Texas Seafood" before it was flattened in the mid-2010s.

18750 Interstate 45
This opened as "MainStreet America" in 2013 by Design Tech Homes, featuring model homes outfitted in the newest styles and décor, things to buy, and a restaurant on the premises...as well as an admission fee ($15 a person, raised to $20). Based on what I could find, the restaurant went first (later replaced by a cooking school) and it closed after Hurricane Harvey when many of the model houses got flooded. The houses are still there but are by appointment only and in 2024 seems to have been abandoned entirely. It looks like the non-profit "Protect Our Children" may have set up shop here but I'm not sure what they plan to do (if anything) with the model houses behind them.

Camping World / 19302 North Freeway
This was Gander Mountain from 2005 to its 2017 bankruptcy. It was reopened as Camping World's "Gander Outdoors" (later "Gander RV") but by 2022 just became Camping World, dealing in RVs.

19746-19750 North Freeway
Originally, this building was JUST 19750 North Freeway and served as an Albertsons supermarket from 1995 to 2002. After the failure of Albertsons in the Houston area, it was reopened as an AppleTree in 2004, the only AppleTree supermarket that was not originally a Safeway and the first AppleTree to be in the Houston area since its 1997 exit. (It even had Boar's Head, which no other AppleTree had), though within a few years of AppleTree's closure in 2007 the chain vanished for good as its other stores in Bryan were sold off. After that, it was divided into two tenants, with 19746 being the larger, more prominent spot and 19750 being a smaller tenant. These were filled with Conn's Appliances (later Conn's HomePlus) and Sears Outlet (later American Freight) before both disappeared in 2024 due to their respective bankruptcies. In September 2025, AR's Entertainment Hub opened their Spring location (at 19746).

21005 North Freeway
In addition to Luby's, one of the other popular "cafeteria" chains in the South was Furr's Cafeteria, a one-time asset of Kmart and a spin-off of Furr's supermarkets. Houston never had many Furr's locations, though there was a location near West Road and Interstate 45 until the early 2000s.

When Furr's reappeared in Spring in May 2011, it was as Furr's Fresh Buffet, a buffet (rather than cafeteria) concept. It closed in January 2014 following a round of closings chain-wide. Later that year it became a location of Bombshells; however, this closed in November 2024.

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor SplashTown / 21300 I-45 North
Originally built as Hanna-Barbera Land in 1984 (the only stand-alone park with Hanna-Barbera properties) and later redeveloped as a waterpark, I invite you to check out my very outdated (but nonetheless informative) Splashtown page from back when I was in high school. It doesn't even link to my own memorablia, some letters and some old brochures. This is about as much I'll cover this waterpark. Well, that and there was an arcade at the waterpark as well utilizing some of the Hanna-Barbera buildings...I don't think I spent money there but I do remember the attract mode of Crisis Zone.

McDonald's / 21330 Interstate 45 N.
Just outside Splashtown is this McDonald's restaurant (a Wendy's is nearby, that's where I remember visiting on my first visit to the waterpark in 1999), but the McDonald's was notable. It was originally built in 1984 and was rebuilt in 2002 (the 1984 restaurant faced north/south as opposed to the 2002 restaurant). I visited this restaurant in 2006. I don't think it had any unique menu items or a specific local touch but was certainly nicer than most McDonald's and was more akin to the mid-2000s "spruced up interiors" that stores had at the time. I specifically remember one of those "indoor glass water fountains". It was very similar to the one shown here as an example but not nearly as large (maybe a quarter of the size).

Unusually, it featured the "lightning script" logo on the signage on the Golden Arches signage (but not on the store itself). A blurry Street View picture can be seen here (it also shows up in a picture in the background of Houston Freeways, see page nine of the PDF). Around 2011 it was replaced with the traditional font, and in 2012 the restaurant was renovated to a standard prototype inside and out.

22565 Interstate 45
D.B. Cooper's Mansion was built here in 2006 and shut down a few years later because it was operating as a sexually oriented business without the license or permit to do so, and the elaborate property (complete with a guard house just for show) deteriorated. In December 2019 it became Balls & Bruises Paintball Airsoft (with the address of 22340) but within a few years that closed too. Currently (June 2026), Google shows it as "Elenson Buildings" which at least as of February 2026 has a few shed-type buildings (the type Home Depot sells in the parking lot) behind a gate. Maybe that's different now, but it doesn't look operational...and their website doesn't seem to work.

GRAND PARKWAY to LAKE WOODLANDS DRIVE

Spec's Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods / 25010 North Freeway
Academy Sports & Outdoors opened here in 1999 but moved out to a new location, with Spec's moving in from their adjacent space. These exchanges appear to have happened around 2016.

IHOP / 25619 I-45
The IHOP here was built in 1996. Not much to see here.

25657 I-45
This was built as a location of El Chico and lasted from 1994 to 1998 (El Chico had built a number of restaurants in the 1990s which all somehow looked like they already 30 years old, though El Chico never had many Houston restaurants to begin with). In 1999 it became Tortuga's Coastal Cantina in 1999 and became eventually became Bikini's Sports Bar & Grill in 2012. In 2015, the parent company of Bikini's converted it to Gino's East (see the Bikini's Wikipedia article) but it closed in 2017. In 2019 the vacant restaurant was demolished.

Floor & Decor / 26906 North Freeway
One of the things this large Floor & Decor store (opened late 2010s) replaced was an old Dairy Queen at 26904. It became Crow's Nest later on (liquor store) and closed around in the early 2010s.

Bowlero / 27000 Interstate 45 N.
The Woodlands Bowlero was originally Oak Ridge Super Bowl when it opened in 1985 under Fair Lanes, a bowling alley operator, though later became Fair Lanes Woodlands by the early 1990s and by 1996 was AMF Woodlands. Around 2013, AMF closed down and renovated the facility into the first Texas location of Bowlero.

Pappas Bar-B-Q / 27752 Interstate 45 North
This opened as Luther's Bar-B-Q in 1988 and was converted to Pappas Bar-B-Q in 2006.

Whiskey Cake Kitchen & Bar / 27800 North Freeway
This restaurant pad, part of Wood Ridge Plaza, has seen a number of changing hands over the years. From 1981 to the early 2000s, it was a Red Lobster and by the mid-2000s was Gators Grill. I could find some references to Raceway Grill in late 2007 but it doesn't seem to have opened, the vacant Gators Grill was still intact as of December 2007. From around 2008-2009 it was Ambience Bar & Lounge. Around 2010 it became Austin-based meal prep company My Fit Foods after a remodel, which closed several years later with the abrupt chain-wide failure in February 2017. Whiskey Cake opened September 2020.