maroon barchetta said:

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When you said Purple Cow I immediately thought of Kitty's in Surfside.

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I've been there too.

My favorite attraction!

RC_57 said:

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So what y'all are basically saying is Westbury Square was ahead of its time.

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It really was. Way too far ahead.

drumboy said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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By the time I graduated from A&M at the end of the 80s, I would not have stepped foot into Sharpstown.

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You would've missed out on the legendary NATHAN'S PHYSICAL WHIMSICAL.

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I remember the disgusting chewing gum arch where they made all the kids stick their gum so they wouldn't stick it in the play area. Puke face emoji.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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That place stands out along with a place called the Purple Cow, that was on Hillcroft fairly close to our house in Sharpstown when I was real young. Dad would take me there for a chocolate ice cream cone.

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Oh man ... the Purple Cow was awesome!!! We used to ride our bikes there.

I was just a kid, third grade maybe? But in those days, everything was cool as long as we were home by dark. LOL. I lived near Jane Long Junior High so that was a long way to go for a little kid.

I took my grown kids through the neighborhood not long ago. A lot of the neighborhoods have held up considering their age, but Hillcroft and the commercial sites are really run down. They kept asking me, "You LIVED here?"

I had to remind them that it was a long time ago, and everything was new back then.

Original Brothers pizza location and prime James Coney Island. Steamed buns. Loaded up with chili and cheese.

Baybrook is good for an uncomplicated date night with free parking ....Bar Louie, Whiskey cake, yard house..... good for those times when nobody wants to decide where to go

Or a real easy Uber if you want to enjoy yourself.

grew up in League City. Our mall of choice (until Baybrook) was Almeda.

Samperi's Italian grocery shop for the best po boy sandwiches all-time. The Pirate ship at Foley's when Mom wanted to buy is school shoes. Bought my first concert tickets at Foley's

Worked at the Sports Spectrum in Baybrook in the summers of high school. Great job - selling jogging shoes to the mom's, and shooting baskets when the store was slow in the afternoons.

I remember the pirate ship.

randy828 said:

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Willowbrook Mall was really nice when it was built in the 80's. Now I try and stay away from it as much as possible. Head to either Memorial City or The Woodlands instead.

Another downfall of malls I think is all the shoplifting that occurs and the trend that the store employees are to do nothing if it happens. My wife briefly worked at the Banana Republic in Willowbrook when we moved to our current house in 2008 and that is exactly what they told them...do nothing.

When I was a kid (1970's), we lived at Pinemont/290 and went to Northwest Mall all the time. Farrell's birthday parties! Lotus restaurant nearby. Good times!

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NW Mall went downhill fast in the mid 80s. The oil bust in Houston killed a lot of retail, and the location was just not good into the last 80's and early 90's. I remember it being a no go zone when I was in HS in 1988. Willowbrook was a lot closer so we just went there anyway.

I did see Raiders of the Lost Arc there when it was originally released in 1981.

jetch17 said:

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Man days at west oaks - brothers pizza, OG JCI line service, we beat up that wing with Gadzooks, journeys for those little hand stickers, Spencer's & blockbuster music for CD's

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Joe, over at Brother's Pizza, said years ago, only reason they left West Oaks mall was because they wouldn't renew their lease, due to Brother's destroying the other food places in the food court.

That was when West Oaks, was still fully operational.

Grew up West Side, so Memorial City and Town & Country were our spots. Occasional trips to Sharpstown to Good Time Charlies food court and arcade.

I'm 5 minutes from the Galleria and will drive right past it to go somewhere else. Took my daughter and her friend to Memorial City just a couple of weeks ago to go to Miniso (ugh) and other places. It is still nice and has a great food court.

HtownAg92 said:

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Occasional trips to Sharpstown to Good Time Charlies food court and arcade.

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Good Time Charlie's was pretty cool back in the day.

Used to go to the Chelsea Street Pub there.

EclipseAg said:

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HtownAg92 said:

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Occasional trips to Sharpstown to Good Time Charlies food court and arcade.

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Good Time Charlie's was pretty cool back in the day.

Used to go to the Chelsea Street Pub there.

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Chelsea was very loose in their enforcement of IDs, so it was a favorite in several malls throughout my formative years. Most often frequented was in the Mall of Abilene. Then I would search them out in malls throughout the state.

Mountain of Nachos and $1 drafts (large ones during HH). Awesome.

I notice nobody has any experience/ stories about Greenspoint Mall

I ****ing loved lil Monterey growing up

AgCPA95 said:

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digging tunnels said:

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I notice nobody has any experience/ stories about Greenspoint Mall

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They are all dead.

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POTD

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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AgCPA95 said:

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digging tunnels said:

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I notice nobody has any experience/ stories about Greenspoint Mall

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They are all dead.

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POTD

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After the gangbangers officially killed off Gunspoint Mall, they turned their sights to Willowbro Mall and killed that one too. Was probably different factions, though. Gunspoint is OG Tine hood, while Willowbro was Katrina refugee hood.

I used to work with a lady who had been head of real estate for a mall jeweler. Mall retail is very different from normal shopping center retail. Malls and mall retailers are basically judged (and rented accordingly) based on their $/sf in sales. At one point in the early 80s, Greenpoint was one of the top 3-4 malls in the country based on $/sf sales.

A few mentions of First Colony- this week I went there for the first time in serveral years and was surprised how much the store selection has declined. The outside of the mall has a number of nicer stores- Sephora, Kendra Scott, Lululemon, Barnes and Noble, and they're adding a Little Woodrows by Cheesecake Factory, so the outdoor portion appears to be doing ok, but as mentioned aside from the Apple Store, most of the inside stores are Asian collectibles, toy, and dollar stores.

It'll be interesting to see how the Little Woodrows affects the area and if it survives. It could become somewhat of an entertainment area with Flying Saucer and Rouxpour on one end and Cheesecake Factory and Little Woodrows on the other with Bar Louie, Baker Street, and PF Chang in the middle.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/greenspoint-mall-closing-19609205.php

New to the tine board, I see.

Pour one out for dying dreams.

Monterey house had its own chip and tortilla factory. Used real cheese. Hot sauce solid. Had those pralines.

Somehow goes out of business in the late 80s.

Los Tios with their cheese puff lives on but Monterey house might have been better.

What was the name of the Mexican restaurant at the entrance to Willowbrook where Miguel's was? Two pesos? Man that takes me back.

Sea Speed said:

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New to the tine board, I see.

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This dude gets it.

Monterey House lives on as Monterey's now.

I'm sure it's nothing similar, since it was bought by the parent company of Showbiz Pizza