Mueschke Road

Hey! It's hard to take a picture of a westbound business from the eastbound highway!

Just a decade ago Mueschke Road (I'm not sure on the pronunciation, is it "mush-key"?) was a small two-lane road with...nothing, the first building being a church near the creek and then a Buc-ee's gas station with a car wash. The store isn't nearly as large as the one in Waller but it has fudge, Beaver Nuggets, and clean restrooms. This page is all westbound businesses but written from an eastbound perspective, that is, it starts west and goes east. This is because I wrote this from an eastbound perspective.

Westbound (North)
27240 - Fairfield Baptist Church. Predating everything else in this stretch, this church was completed in August 1995 shortly after the Google Maps aerial was done. It later expanded with a larger sanctuary in the early 2010s after building a second building in the mid-2000s. For over 10 years since its original opening, it was the only thing on Northwest Freeway until Cypress Chase Boulevard had it not been for...
27236 - ...Metro Mini Storage, which opened in the early 2000s. This is the more "traditional" self-storage place with drive-up garage doors. It has expanded over the years.
27214 - Public Storage opened in 2017, the same year as the extension of East Louetta Road to the freeway. Despite Louetta Road going (in theory) to I-45, the road abruptly ends at Northwest Freeway with just a right-turn only lane. PS is more of what self-storage buildings look like in the inner loop, a big boxy building with no windows.
27200 - Another strip mall that was built in 2016 and quickly populated. While I haven't investigated it thoroughly (not enough car rides with me as passenger) it has The Little Gym, Yokohamaya Japanese Restaurant, and Imperial Vapor Company, possibly others.
27150 - A strip mall is here, anchored by Fairfield OB/GYN (seems it had its sign up for several months before opening around April 2016) and Nikko Dermatology (on the opposite end, also opened 2016). There is also "Medi Pro International Pharmacy", which opened 2017 (likely).
27140 - Goodwill Select Store opened January 2016. This replaced the donations-only storefront closer to Fry Road.
27130 - La Quinta Inn & Suites (badged as simply La Quinta) seems to have opened in 2016 based on real cars in the parking lot.
27210 - Christian Brothers Automotive. Based on aerials, this either opened late 2012 or early 2013. (I know that the addresses seem out of order, but they're listed chronologically as they appear north to south)
27126 - Two tenants were originally in this strip mall (opened 2011): Lucky's Pub and "Cy-Fair Emergency & Imaging Center at 290 & Mueschke 24-Hour Emergency Care", one of these private "emergency rooms" that have been cropping up everywhere. It actually ended up closing early 2017 if the lack of Facebook updates is any indication and soon after Lucky's filed out of this location, replaced by Floyd's Cajun Seafood.
27130 - La Quinta Inn & Suites (badged as simply La Quinta) seems to have opened in 2016 based on real cars in the parking lot.
27106 - Buc-ee's opened late 2008. This is perhaps (one of) the last "traditional sized" Buc-ee's ever built. It has a car wash.
14201 Mueschke Road - Waffle House opened c. October 2015, behind Buc-ee's.
27104 - 2013-constructed strip mall with a few tenants including Universal Smiles and Texas Mesquite Grill.
14102 Mueschke Road - Crossing Mueschke Road, which completed a major rehab (four lanes and even a slight re-alignment near NW Freeway done in 2009), Mo's Irish Pub was the third restaurant built in the "restaurant row". Opened late 2015. It looks like they have a tree permanently covered in Christmas lights, which change colors at night (or at least how it appeared on a Friday night in April). It's attached to a strip mall which we won't cover in this website.
27030 - Gringo's Mexican Kitchen, the first in the restaurant row at the northeast corner of Mueschke and NW Freeway, opened in October 2011. The picture of it above is from me, March 2014.
27040 - Cracker Barrel opened by late 2014. Like many of its restaurants, it is on the highway.

<< Back to Mason Road
>> Next Exit: Cypress-Rosehill Road / Fry Road and Spring Cypress Road

Cypress Rosehill Road / Fry Road and Spring Cypress Road

This is no longer the first new strip center of this intersection.
When I first wrote this page on Carbon-izer, I mentioned that back in May 2013 this was when construction REALLY started and when things start getting rough in terms of traffic. This later became different as traffic was pushed back to Mason Road and eventually construction starting at Buc-ee's (in Waller). I'm not one to post construction updates but for a time (2015-2017) was straight up miserable as the once-wide freeway in the "Outer Parkway" went from a basic semi-rural freeway with a concrete barrier between two lanes with inner and outer shoulders to a dizzying nightmare with four lanes crunched into what was once two lanes and two shoulders just to add another lane (which you can't even drive on--you drive on the old shoulder). West Houston Archives stopped covering construction partially because it got worse and worse--nothing like trying to keep yourself from going into another lane in a narrow, squiggly highway going at 70 mph (especially around FM 1960). Due to this, I don't have a whole lot of newer information on newer strip centers around here, like the one(s) before the picture.

There's a lot to take in to begin with, and so much in-fill. In-bound it starts with an IHOP and two strip centers (the newer one I don't have pictures of). The strip center above (from a video I took, June 2014) has most of the tenants that are still there. Not seen is a vacant space (formerly a Goodwill donation center) and on the west end, a Shipley Do-Nuts. Beyond that is a large shopping center, the Cypress Town Center, which opened around 2005. The PDF is permanently linked here. The changes that I know of follows (this is not all-inclusive but it's what I have):

- Jack's Carpet: The Super Floor Store became Massage Heights in 2013.
- In previous versions of this I had mentioned Bright Now! Dental (originally opened in December 2007) became Castle Dental. Turns out they were the same company--Street View from late 2007 shows Castle Dental, and the companies merged in 2004. The only reason I bring it up is the lease plan mentions it as Bright Now! Dental when in reality that was never the case. The stores to the northern end (closer to Hempstead) almost certainly have changed in 2005 but I unfortunately have no information on them.
- Kolache Factory was originally Quiznos Sub.
- A Boot Barn (25855 Northwest Freeway) opened between Target and T.J. Maxx sometime around 2014 (by that time, Boot Barn had bought Baskin's, a similar store back home).
- The Dress Barn took off for Fairfield Town Center. The new store opened March 17, 2017 at the Fairfield Town Center (28802 Hwy. 290) meaning this one closed sooner. Google shows Texas Floors at this address now.

I only have a few memories of this shopping center. I had unconfirmed information that the Target was originally supposed to be a Mervyn's when it was planned out in 2003 and later became Target after Mervyn's spun off (and eventually left the area before going out of business three years later). The Target got a "P-Fresh" update (with a graphic of fresh produce over the doors) around 2011. I visited the Chick-fil-a in December 2011. It wasn't even a particularly special day (not Sunday, obviously) but it was crowded. We only used the restrooms here, but I'm sure my dad could've gotten a coffee it wasn't packed to the gills. At one time, Spring Creek Barbecue represented just one of the many things that made Houston a more unique place with unusual restaurants (heck, even the Chick-fil-a near it was semi-exotic, as at the time it was built, only one stand-alone CFA existed in town, and that was nine miles away from my house). Anyway, I did finally eat in spring 2013 with my family and cousin. It's okay, and is a hybrid buffet-type place (unlimited rolls, limited meat). Here's a shot from the front of the restaurant looking out, taken April 2013 (it is very blurry).


DSC01501.JPG (looking out toward Spring-Cypress Road and the west end of the shopping center, taken December 2015) and

DSC01502.JPG(trying to catch a glimpse of Best Buy from the freeway, taken December 2015). Otherwise, the list below follows.

Eastbound (South)

14128 Cypress Rosehill Road - The Lowe's opened around 2006 and difficult to catch in one shot. Here's a screen-grab from June '14.
26003 - Panera Bread opened in the Lowe's parking lot no earlier than fall 2012. Check out the screen grab from June '14 here.
25957 - One of the few Arby's left in the Houston area, as they've closed a lot in the last few years, to the point where they are completely extinct in the Inner Loop and down to three inside the Belt (though a fourth is opening just outside the Loop, AND in the west part of Houston too).
25901 - Target opened as a charter tenant for the shopping center, though I heard (unconfirmed) that it was supposed to be a Mervyn's that was to open here originally, presumably when it was planned around 2003. I'm guessing it was changed after Mervyn's spun off from Target (smart move, seeing how Mervyn's pulled out of the area in January 2006 and is now totally dead). Anyway, the Target got a "P-Fresh" update (with a graphic of fresh produce over the doors) around 2011.

25835 - I visited this Chick-fil-A in December 2011. It wasn't even a particularly special day (not Sunday, obviously) but it was crowded. We only used the restrooms here, but I'm sure my dad could've gotten a coffee it wasn't packed to the gills.

25955 - This Taco Cabana (here since 2005-2006) was originally 24 hours (as the chain famously was) but is now open only 6 am to 1 am.

25831 - At one time, Spring Creek Barbecue represented just one of the many things that made Houston a more unique place with unusual restaurants (heck, even the Chick-fil-a near it was semi-exotic, as at the time it was built, only one stand-alone CFA existed in town, and that was nine miles away from my house). Anyway, I did finally eat in spring 2013 with my family and cousin. It's okay, and is a hybrid buffet-type place (unlimited rolls, limited meat). Here's a shot from the front of the restaurant looking out, taken April 2013 (it is very blurry).

25425 - Located just beyond the shopping center, Angel's Auto Center dates back to at least 2001 but not back to 1995. It is just beyond the Best Buy on the east end.

Westbound (North)

26326 - Alicia's Mexican Grille opened sometime around 2008 and is often seen emitting smoke from cooking. It certainly looks like it smells good, and I do think I caught a whiff of it once.

26302 - Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers says that this store opened in November 2011. If only more businesses had pages like that!

26270 - Originally badged as Wal-Mart Supercenter and opened in May 2004, this has since been rebranded just to "Walmart" (around 2011) and received interior updates since then. It has a McDonald's inside.

26230 - Panda Express opened May 2012 in Walmart's parking lot.

26044 - Sonic Drive-In opened sometime around December 2003 or January 2004, based on aerial images.

26040 - Whataburger probably originally opened in late 2003. It kept its original blue accents until the early 2010s.

26060 - Hobby Lobby sits behind Whataburger and opened around the time Sonic and Whataburger did.

17928 Spring Cypress Road - The Home Depot opened (probably) in 2003.

17525 Spring Cypress Road - Taco Bell opened first sometime in late 2005. In 2017 it was renovated to a new prototype featuring the new purple-and-white logo.

17455 Spring Cypress Road - The anchor tenant of Cy-Fair Town Center (PDF perma-copied here) is a Kroger Signature grocery store. It was built around 2005 but between 2011 and 2012 received a physical expansion that made the store about 25% bigger. I should also make mention here that one of my favorite strip center store-names ever, "The Great Frame Up", located at 17515 Spring Cypress Ste. F, is now closed (spotted 2012-2013). Too bad. One more thing to note--one of my memories I have of this strip back IN 2005 was noticing the "Fry Road" and being reminded of Futurama which I had seen only some episodes of at the time.

25686 - Originally opened around 2006 as an On the Border this was closed by August 2014 and soon torn down and replaced by a new build PDQ fried chicken restaurant (more along the lines of Chick-fil-a than Church's) which opened in July 2015. The restaurant closed in 2019, ultimately being one of the shorter-lived restaurants in the corridor.

25666 - This McDonald's featured a Playplace and a silver mansard roof when it was built in 2006. In January 2018 work began to remodel the exterior (and likely the interior too) to McDonald's current prototype.

25660 - This might be the last Luby's (that wasn't attached to a Fuddruckers) ever opened. Many of the older locations have closed and have not been replaced.

25618 - Originally TGI Friday's, which closed late summer 2013 after opening with the rest of them around 2006. From January 2014 to December 2017 it was Baker Street Pub & Grill. In September 2019, this became the second Corky's Ribs & BBQ restaurant in the Houston area, serving Memphis-style pork barbecue rather than the brisket we all associate barbecue with.

25646 - Besides a movie theater, the other major tenant in this shopping center is a JCPenney department store.

25632 - Located on the south end of the shopping center, the only thing noteworthy I remember about this 24 Hour Fitness was seeing some construction next to it some years ago and wondered if it was to become a 24 Hour Fitness "Super Sport", the largest facilities with a pool. It was just other strip center-type stores, and it remains a 24 Hour Fitness "Active", the smallest of the formats (just free weights and cardio equipment).

25310 - Pluckers Wing Bar opened here in May 2018. I ate here not long after it opened and rather average.

<< Back to Mueschke Road
>> Next Exit: Skinner Road

Skinner Road

Another picture not mine, this time from Cypress Village Station's website

Continuing the theme of "characters from Matt Groening TV shows" what with Fry Road last, Skinner Road only has a few items of note. It doesn't cross the railroad, though Greenhouse Road is on the other side and (allegedly) "stubbed out" for expansion. Should they be connected, it would add a relief route to Fry Road. This section, for reference, covers Skinner Road proper to Cypress Creek.

Eastbound (South)
24815 - Although it seems like an anachronism with every passing year and the continued development of the area, there's a shooting range called Hot Wells Shooting Range. Hot Wells has a natural lake, and I read it used to be a public swimming hole for a while. It's also one of the few unprotected crossings along 290, and if Greenhouse/Skinner goes across the railroad, the crossing would probably be closed, with access gotten from the expansion. [UPDATE: Sometime around summer 2018, this became "HW Shooting Range" for reasons unknown. There's no official reason surrounding this, and the only reference I could find was this forum post which happened months after the fact]

Westbound (North)
25210 - The Cypress Park & Ride is part of the Cypress Village Station complex. The building was built on the site of a Chevrolet dealership off of Skinner (demolished in the early 2000s but looked to be closed by the 1990s).

25222 - The main Cypress Village Apartments component of above. For the rest of this, at least what it looked like as of 2015, check this out.

24500 - Built c. 1979 by Texas Instruments, this building was spared the cuts in the mid-1980s, but closed in 1993. Hewlett-Packard picked up soon after for use as a call center but it closed sometime in the early 2000s, and in February 2007 it became the first new 290 park and ride since 1989. After a permanent park and ride facility was built next door, it remained empty again for a short while before 2010 when Sysco purchased it.

<< Back to Cypress-Rosehill Road / Fry Road and Spring Cypress Road
>> Next Exit: Barker-Cypress Road

Barker-Cypress Road

Unfortunately, the Randalls here closed in June 2018.

This is a bit of a weird intersection. The frontage road used to have a somewhat unique feature where the main frontage road would continue and bypass Barker-Cypress with the stoplights being on a "loop" that bulged outward. It also built up the frontage roads to build a bridge over the railroad. (This also used to be the case with I-10, sans a bypass frontage road, until the reconstruction). The "loop" still caused congestion, so a partial cloverleaf was added later (not until 2013 or so), to avoid a stoplight. Unfortunately, this all happened right before the entire bridge was demolished and rebuilt (I actually don't remember if it was demolished entirely and the structure is almost identical, but the bridge was partially rebuilt, and the columns don't show an obvious add-on). So much for convenience, huh? There's no Eastbound businesses listed, as Hot Wells (once accessible from the Barker-Cypress exit, if you changed lanes fast) was listed under Skinner Road, and because of the way intersections work, we'll cut this off north of Cypress-North Houston Road. By April 2019, a new At Home store is currently being built west of H-E-B, however, the address couldn't be located at press time.

Westbound (North)
24324 - A strip mall building with four tenants built in 2007. I always found it interestingly NOT interesting, even though it had some unusual names, they were all in the same typeface (originally). These include Tru Tri Sports in suite 400 (now closed, it had its Grand Opening in March 2012 after opening in 2011 according to their website, and moved out in September 2016), Made Ya Smile Dental (that one always makes me grimace for some reason) in suite 300, First American Title Company in suite 200 (invisible from the freeway), and suite 100, which has Sandy's Hair Studio, and before that, Shapes Threading Studio (unless I'm wrong on the dates). As of August 2018, Suite 400 now has "Hammer & Nails" open, a "Grooming Shop for Guys".

24326 - Willie's Grill & Icehouse opened sometime in 2010.

24230 - A Chase bank opened sometime after H-E-B (possibly 2008).

24224 - A mega-popular H-E-B that opened in 2007, replacing a 1999 H-E-B Pantry (even though it had renovated at least once) several miles away. It has a gas station outlot.

12220 Barker Cypress Road - Originally the Randalls convenience store and gas station, this became a Timewise and Exxon (with the new Exxon logo) in September 2018 following the closure of Randalls.

12312 Barker Cypress Road - Part of the Coles Crossing Shopping Center, Randalls opened in September 2001. Sadly, this was one of the last new-build Randalls ever built, especially as Kroger and H-E-B continue to march onwards, and in June 2018 closed permanently, ending the Randalls legacy on Northwest Freeway. (More on Randalls when we get to Telge). The fact that there is a former original SAFEWAY just two and a half miles away, shuttered (or at least built) around the late 1980s shows how lethargic Safeway was the second time around. In November 2018, Star Furniture & Mattress was announced to take the space.

12304 Barker Cypress Road - LA Fitness is the other anchor of the shopping center. You can see it through the trees in my 2015 picture but it leaves out the distinctive facade.

24002 - Marvino’s Italian Kitchen opened early 2015.

23952 - Saltgrass Steak House opened in August 2012.

23948 - Chain restaurant Cheddar's Casual Cafe opened in 2011, though within in the last two years as of this writing was rebranded to "Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen" as part of a chain-wide upgrade.

23922 - Texas Furniture Hut Showroom & Outlet opened in late 2011 or early 2012.

23900 - Brake Check opened between October 2012 and October 2013. Given the plot of land was empty in October 2012 and the Brake Check further up near Beltway 8 was already shut down by April 2013 (I think it closed the previous fall with the others) I'm not sure if this Brake Check officially "replaced" that location.

23738 - There used to be a tractor dealership, Lansdowne-Moody Co., which opened in 1985. Of course, back then the area was very rural, and packed up and moved to Hockley at 32804 U.S. 290 sometime around 2016 or 2017.

23550 - A CubeSmart self-storage center operates here. It opened sometime after 1995 but almost certainly had a different name originally.

23260 - A branch of Houston Garden Centers opened here by 2005. It was still native ground in January 2004, which means it probably missed the 2004 spring season.

In January 2015, I visited the Randalls at this exit, as I wanted to experience one for myself as I had never done so up to that point. Despite being built in the Safeway era, Randalls was renovated to the "Lifestyle" prototype, and I have to admit, it still does look nice despite having received little changes to the design since 2005.
I did take some pictures of the shopping center surrounding it, which is less visible from 290. (Jan 2015)
IMG_1915.JPG - Looking out at the first row of strips, looking east.
IMG_1916.JPG - Looking straight ahead. I was a bit surprised to see an Aggie gear shop in Houston. While these are a dime a dozen in my neck of the woods, it was a bit of a shock to see one here. Must be those graduated expatriates. (Later I found this closed just a few months later)
IMG_1917.JPG - I think these are directly to the west of Whoop U.
IMG_1918.JPG - Looking west. I didn't mean to take a photo of this woman, so I blurred her face out.
IMG_1920.JPG - Looking east, from the vantage point of the previous picture.

<< Back to Skinner Road
>> Next Exit: Telge Road

Telge Road

The tank still says Randalls Distribution Center for now... (9/18)Starting from the point where Cypress North Houston splits off from 290 at a forty-degree angle, this section of 290 was the "distant rural developments" in the 1970s and not even becoming fully developed until the end of the 1990s. It also starts a point where it is primarily industrial west of the railroad, though this continues primarily along the original Hempstead Road corridor.

It also definitely looks like extending Cypress North Houston was on the books at one time, with the stubbed-out section on the other side (built in the late 1990s) with space for an underpass or something, but eventually the extra right of way just became a small park, and when the 290 widening plans were drawn up, they didn't include an additional bridge.

This section continues to Ladino Road and North Berwick Road (the exits and entrances to Huffmeister were switched in the 290 redevelopment).

Westbound (North)
23240 - This Valero just has a generic food mart, and is listed as "Mini Mart Valero" in many listings. In 1995, this was under "Mini-Mart Texaco", but that doesn't mean it might not have served under a Diamond Shamrock (or another brand) prior to Valero in the mid-2000s.

23138 - Tex-Fab Inc. has been here in some form or another since 1973 but expanded in the 1980s. They fabricate pressure vessels for the petrochemical industry and around 2017 did a repaint, though their logo didn't appear on the building for nearly a year afterwards.

22910 - Family Golf Park opened in June 2008, primarily a driving range.

22602 - One of the oldest surviving structures along the Northwest Freeway corridor, Cy-Fair High School opened in 1941 and was dedicated by Eleanor Roosevelt, though it's been modernized and expanded several times.

11111 Telge Road - At some point Arnold Middle School opened adjacent to Cy-Fair, and it appears that there's an elevated walkway connecting both schools, though this is probably just a utility line.

22250 - This Chevron was built in 1996, it has a small Blimpie inside the convenience store.

22224 - A strip center completed in 2008 (apparently "Telga Plaza", at least 22222) is here, just east of the Chevron. Even in 2011, the only tenant was suite A (1/2 Price Boxes), but eventually filled out with other tenants. By 2017, tenants included Tacoland Mex-Mex Tacos (suite B), U.S. Floors & Remodeling (D), Fast Signs (C, despite being to the right of D, likely having opened earlier), and Mint Dentistry in E.

22222 - This strip center was built at the same time, and filled out faster than 22224 did. It contains only Red Wing Shoes (suite A-1) with much of the space being taken up by Houston's First Baptist Church, which moved out in August 2017 to a full campus, with Loopnet advertising the space soon after.

21904 - Weiser Air Park is a small airport for smaller aircraft, and it is clearly grandfathered in from another time. The edge of the runway is just 830 feet away from the westbound mainlanes of 290 and 630 feet to the westbound frontage road.

21920 - The website of Carl's BBQ says that "Carl's BBQ got it's (sic) start in 1951 but has long been a Cypress institution since it settled here in the 1970's". The building, according to HCAD, is from 1954, but the building doesn't seem to appear in Google Earth until the 1990s, and it's 1995 when it is fully visible (and 1995 was the year of improvements in terms of "canopy roof and slab"). Did they move the building here?

21902 - The Cypress VFW Post 8905 has been here for years, and it looks like Gentry Road (which should've started about where their driveway is) was never built out to begin with.

Eastbound (South)
22770 North West Lake Drive - It's a bit hard to see, but 84 Lumber was built in 2007 with a functional rail spur. The question is what used to be there before. There was a lake on the other side of the railroad with a small dock that was drained in 2016 (and a building constructed in 2017) but the site of 84 Lumber appeared to have (prior to 2001) a swimming pool (not quite Olympic-sized). Access to this area (and later 84 Lumber) included a railroad crossing complete with lights and gates, but this was removed in 2008.

10750 Telge Road - The Stewart & Stevenson plant started building facilities here in 1996 with the last facilities being built in 2003, the same year it completely replaced Stewart & Stevenson's Harrisburg area plant. (link)

10700 Telge Road - For years the Randalls Distribution Center was here with a large visible tank with a Randalls logo, though as of August 2018 has been partially covered up and may disappear in the near future. This was the Randalls Distribution Center, which had been operating since circa 1983 and expanded in 1999, adding a large traditional warehouse to the south and a freezer addition to the north (the old building had just perishables). Unfortunately, in spring 2017, it was shut down as part of consolidating the Houston Division with the Southern Division of Albertsons. This ended more than a decade of rumors whether Randalls would be sold or shut down, and while the stores continue to operate, the distribution center under the Randalls name has reached the end of the line. I always thought the trucks were going strange ways...they actually exited Highway 6 at 290 and went through Bryan-College Station instead of going straight toward Austin via 290, and they did this to the very end. They also supplied the Louisiana stores and very briefly, Albertsons stores in Florida. Following the merger, Albertsons trucks could actually be seen going in and out of the plant, though I was told the drivers going to Louisiana were still part of the residual SuperValu ownership that Albertsons is trying to phase out. As of early 2018, the former distribution center has been sold with the new owner going to sub-divide it. Randalls, of course, still operates in Houston despite closing down even more stores since Albertsons' ownership. It is a shame, especially as Albertsons' time in Houston was known for large stores and heavy expansion, and the fact that they are trying things very similar to the way Randalls used to do it (like "Market Street Idaho"). The future plans for this center, as of this writing, are to demolish the tank and part of the 1983 building (to make the southern 1999 addition a separate building), and then add three new buildings under the name "Highland Grove Business Park". [UPDATE: In January 2019, the Randalls tank was demolished.]


<< Back to Barker-Cypress Road
>> Next Exit: Huffmeister Road

Huffmeister Road

August 2014 from West Houston Archives, used with permission.

As we approach Huffmeister, we see the large North Cypress Medical Center, which contains some medical offices on the lower level of its parking garage, mostly medical tenants with (at least) one notable exception: a Spanish-Italian restaurant called Merche! on the lower level. The construction of the hospital made the area much busier and much more urban feeling. It was also here where we were in the HOV lane (spring 2012, before construction) and got into a pinch when a motorcycle was stalled in the HOV lane (and luckily, it was the part that had been restriped and not the "concrete canyon" later on). Some honking, and we got out (hopefully that motorcyclist got out okay). (This is why HOV lanes need to be two lanes wide by default). This section will include everything from Ladino Road to a large power line right of way located between Huffmeister and FM 1960.

Eastbound (South)
There was nothing here for years, just the frontage road splitting away from Hempstead Road, intersecting with Huffmeister, and then merging directly back onto 290, with only a huge swath of trees survived until 2013, when it was torn out for a business park (and an Exxon)...or was there? One of my references cites "Texas Tee Golf Course" at "20454 Northwest Freeway" listed near Hampton Inn, and while the address doesn't really work, replacing Northwest Freeway with Hempstead Road does, and indeed, there is a small golf course there in 1995. At some point this closed and it became overgrown.


20621 - Exxon with Timewise. Possibly the last Exxon I've seen built new that has the full capital EXXON lettering and blue stripe under the logo before they switched to lower case lettering akin to the full ExxonMobil logo.

20710 Hempstead Road - One of the three large buildings that compose the business park, McKesson is a medical supply distributor.

20702 Hempstead Road - Headquarters and distribution center for RTIC.


Westbound (North)
21202-21210 - Three businesses on one lot operate with similar businesses, 290 Grass at 21210 (sod), Beyond Paradise garden center at 21206, and The Yard Depot (rock, etc.) at 21202.

21208-21214 - The North Cypress Medical Center at 21214 with a few medical offices adjacent. Of note was Merche!, an Italian-Mexican restaurant that closed a few years ago (even if the signage remains). It operated in the lower level of 21208 (parking above) from December 2009 to sometime around 2017.


20600 - Exxon with Timewise, something not uncommon along the 290 corridor, and not even unique to Northwest Freeway and Huffmeister. The gas station was one of the earliest buildings at the intersection, dating back to 1999, but as of 2005 it was an On the Run gas station. (Most of the On the Run stores were sold to Star Stop, but this one became a Timewise presumably before that).

20432 - Top Dog Fireworks Warehouse, formerly Black Cat Fireworks Warehouse until the mid-2000s, is here. Not only does a giant fireworks warehouse behind a subdivision sounds like a horrifyingly bad idea, you can't even possess fireworks in the area. It had to be grandfathered in, obviously. During the Halloween season, it becomes orange and becomes a large Halloween store.

20350 - SpringHill Suites by Marriott opened 2016.


<< Back to Telge Road
>> Next Exit: FM 1960 / Highway 6 South

FM 1960 / Highway 6 South

From Texas State Archives via Houston Freeways
If you want to read more about this road, I should note that a lot of this is covered over at West Houston Archives, a site which I love, links to this one, and one that I deliberately try to not overlap (for buildings near this intersection, visit the SH-6/Addicks-Satsuma section), even if it regrettably no longer updates. This section covers from the power line right of way to the north and to a second power line right of way right where Hempstead Road re-joins again.

Eastbound (South)
As the frontage road wasn't continuous until the 290 rebuild starting in the early 2010s, the first business at this intersection is a Hampton Inn.

20035 - My references say this modest Hampton Inn was built in 1996.

13250 FM 1960 - The Shell is branded "Select" which I believe is an in-house brand used on a (very) "Select" number of stations. One of those conversations I've had with family members is as follows: "Oh! It's a Shell with a 'Select' gas station. I remember I had a LEGO gas station with that brand as the convenience store...or at least really wanting it," as I realized I never actually owned it.

13335 FM 1960 - The IHOP was built in 1996. Sometime in the mid-2010s, I saw this change from "IHOP Restaurant" to "IHOP" with the "red smile" underneath.

19865-19841 - The strip center here has seen a variety of tenants. The Subway at the north end (19865, just behind the Starbucks) closed May 2016, with the restaurant on the south end going from Kim Kim Vietnamese Cuisine to eT Craft Burgers & Beer to currently a seafood restaurant named "The Catch". Mattress One was formerly Busy Body, a home fitness equipment retailer, and a Subway was here until around May 2015.

19825 - HCAD says this Chili's Grill & Bar was built in 1999.

19821 - The Applebee's was built in 2004. However, a trip through the area in April 2019 revealed that the restaurant had closed. Was it leased?

19811 - There were many other restaurants in this section built over the years, but the last one to be built to my knowledge was 2015's Harris County Smokehouse. It moved from an old Kettle located in front of the La Quinta Inn (behind the Hampton and the Shell).

19820 Hempstead Hwy. - The first Gander Mountain store in Houston opened in October 2004 (link) and closed in spring 2017. It never had direct access to the Northwest Freeway frontage road since it didn't exist at the time (you had to use the driveway between Chili's and Applebee's, then use the parking lot access roads). In late 2016, this was fixed with the construction of a new continuous frontage road but it didn't help Gander Mountain's fortunes much.


Eastbound (South)
20102 - Goode Company BBQ was built around 2008. Despite the development of the FM 1960, most of the northeast corner still remains fairly undeveloped (though this, of course, is changing).

13155 FM 1960 West - The southeast corner was a Chevron for years (it rebuilt around 2007 with a full "Speedy Stop" instead of its under-the-canopy "Food Mart"). I believed for months that the Speedy Stop would be converting to TETCO or 7-Eleven due to 7-Eleven acquiring most of their stores, but this store wasn't one of them. Instead, by December 2014, the Speedy Stop was still there, but Mobil took over the station. You can see the station in its original form here (at WHA, of course).

13145 FM 1960 West - Until I traversed the FM 1960 corridor to Willowbrook Mall in January 2017, I had little experience of FM 1960. I remember stopping at the McDonald's (for coffee and snacks) en route to the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2008. I remember commenting on the incredible shrinking apple pie (and why they were so cheap). It was also one of the first "new-style" yellow-eyebrow McDonald's before they started to rapidly tear down or renovate older "mansard roofs" en masse.

19720 - The Academy Sports + Outdoors was built sometime before 2004.

19968 - The Luby's was built before the Academy, sometime in the late 1990s.

19630 - The new Baker Nissan North opened here in 2013, replacing Champion Lincoln Mercury Isuzu, and moving from a location further down the street.

Just south of Luby's is a row of car dealerships, which define 290 for the next mile. Before the recession (and an ordinance that largely phased them out), there were usually giant balloon structures on top of these dealerships. Only one actually closed, Jim Archer Chrysler Jeep, but that's described in the next section...

The FM 1960 interchange was particularly nasty in January 2015 because I exited there out of panic from a crash ahead--and then found out that there was no way to get back onto the highway safely, because both the southbound entrance ramp and southbound Hempstead Road (which at least used to become the new SB frontage road) were both closed. It's still a disaster area, and it's not getting any better.

As of this writing, they're building an even bigger overpass over 290 which is higher than the elevation the FM 1960 bridge goes over the railroad.


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