Austin-- Gone But Not Forgotten... (Alice, Liberty: hotel, house, school)

[Cha Ching]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Shhhhhh. It's already moving, but I'm not telling anyone where!

Do you remember Grok Books? In the old house on 17th Street, before it moved to Brodie Oaks and eventually turned into BookPeople?

I don't. I discovered Book People when they were in Brodie Oaks. I spent quite a bit of the 80s either in San Antonio (up to 85), or in Denton during the semesters, so I missed bits here and there.

CA, I miss Les Amis too. I was only in there a few times (worked at the University Co-op for awhile), and my boyfriend that I met working there and I would go there for lunch. Loved the French Onion soup!

[TexasHorseLady]

Ack! Les Amis! That was a true loss. To be replaced by chains - sheesh!

[Cha Ching]

Some other memories...

* Edison's on Anderson Lane...kind of an early version of Service Merchandise. Small appliances and jewelry.

* I remember about 1979 when the NEW wing of Highland Mall opened. Some of the stores were the Foley's, ChickFil-A, Storehouse, Crabtree and Evelyn, Visible Changes hair salon, and Musicland.

* After mom got her hair done at Penney's, we'd sometimes go to the little restaurant at the Hilton behind the mall (not sure what type of hotel it is now). I think their restaurant used to be called the Peachtree Pantry. They had this amazing apple crumble dessert thing. Yum...

* Frostex on Burnet Road had an amazing peanut butter icebox pie. I think they were either a catering company or a restaurant supply biz or something.

* Anyone remember Gibson's on Burnet Road? Kind of an early Wal-Mart sort of variety store.

* I remember about 1979, my parents were trying to get me a scholarship to St. Stephens school so I had to take a qualification exam. The Mo-Pac bridge over Town Lake was still not finished, so we ended up driving all over the place to get over it. Don't ask me where. Wasn't my neighbohood, so I had no idea where we were going!

* My mother and I used to go to plays at Zachary Scott and St. Eds all the time when i was young. One of the ones I relly loved was actually seeing Broderick Crawford in his original role at St. Ed's in "Born Yesterday."

* Seeing the Clash on their last tour at the Coliseum. The video for "Rock the Casbah" was actually filmed in Austin!

* There used to be a bar/cantina at Anderson and Burnet called Fandango's. My mom worked for a plumber in town at the time, and the plumbers came back and told us horror stories of how filthy the place was in the back, and i think they got health code violations up the kazoo. Ergo, we NEVER ate there.

[Cha Ching]

Anybody know if they've done anything with the old Sound Warehouse/Wherehouse building across from The Omelettry? I'm curious if anyone plans to do anything with it. I went by about 2003 or so I think when Wherehouse was shutting up for good.

Actually ran into my friend Russell, who used to run the classical room. It is so sad to see a beautiful, cool industry just DIE. Anybody know if Sound Exchange is still there? Everything else has closed. Even CD World in Dallas recently closed, i heard.

[NC_newcomer]

Ah, Les Amis. I lost a lot of grey cells there during my years at UT.

I'm moving back to Austin in two months, having left 30 years ago.

I go back several times a year as my parents, now in their 80s, still live in Tarrytown, but I must say, I have very mixed feelings about returning: I liked the "town of Austin" but it's the big, sprawling high-tech "city of Austin" that I don't care for. Most of the time I just can't find what I think of as "Austin" there!

Ah, well. Maybe I should just admit that Austin was changed forever when they opened the Mopac...

[mimimomx3]

Grok Books!
Les Amis.
The end of Mopac right before Barton Creek Mall.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by NC_newcomer

Ah, Les Amis. I lost a lot of grey cells there during my years at UT.

I'm moving back to Austin in two months, having left 30 years ago.

I go back several times a year as my parents, now in their 80s, still live in Tarrytown, but I must say, I have very mixed feelings about returning: I liked the "town of Austin" but it's the big, sprawling high-tech "city of Austin" that I don't care for. Most of the time I just can't find what I think of as "Austin" there!

Ah, well. Maybe I should just admit that Austin was changed forever when they opened the Mopac...

ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!! It's "Mopac", not "the Mopac"! You've been gone WAY too long!

I remember seeing the Velvet Underground at The Vulcan Gas Company, and who knows who all at Armadillo World Headquarters (well, it WAS the 60's and I'm not really supposed to remember, because I was there!).

I remember the little taco stand downtown where Little Mama made the most amazing Mexican food until the owner (I think it was her Dad) sold the land out from under it (well, when you own the land at the corner at 1st and Congress, you are going to eventually get an offer you can't refuse).

I remember Eeyore's when it was in Eastwoods Park.

[AustinExPat]

Originally Posted by Cha Ching

CA, I miss Les Amis too. [...] Loved the French Onion soup!

My favorite Les Amis dish was the hot bagel sandwich with tomatoes, ham, and swiss cheese. I think it was called the Yardley Bardley. Had that for lunch my first day of class at UT. In...yikes...1976.

Two of my favorite places to eat back then were Holiday House (for the hickory sauce double-burger) and Nothing Strikes Back (the iconic but long-gone psychedelic ice cream parlor).

For a nice weekend meal out, my parents would put me in the car and head over to the Villa Capri for a bacon wrapped filet. The grill was in a little gazebo area in the middle of the dining room. Our other weekend destination was Christie's seafood on Town Lake. The Villa Capri closed before I left town in 1979; I'm not sure when Christie's closed. Packer Jack gave the Villa Capri a plug on TV every weekday on the Uncle Jay Show, which was an afternoon cartoon show in the 1960's. I was too young to appreciate Jack's contribution to the Cac and Jack radio show.

I didn't see much of Austin from 1985 to 2003. What ever happened to Garner and Smith bookstore? And when did Inner Sanctum Records close?

[NC_newcomer]

Mea culpa...definitelyl not "the" Mopac. That's what 30 years of absence will do.

Uncle Jay and Packer Jack. Yep, definitely remember that show! Cactus Pryor (who had a black lab named "Ol' Yeller") and John Ramsey opened the Canine Hilton boarding kennel waaaaaay out of town, about 1970.

Several years later, as students we used to go to the UT gym (Speedway and 21st) to drop in and watch a UT basketball game (Abe Lemons was the coach?) -- right there on campus. Seats were so close to the floor that you could throw ice on the opposing players. And you could wander down to the baseball diamond and watch a few innings: UT fielders were drilled in scaling the quarry walls to snag fly balls, which definitely gave them a home team advantage. Imagine that: college sports, on campus, that students could just stop by and watch.

Up in the brand new Arboretum, Simon David grocery store tried to launch the high end grocery market in Austin (not very successfully -- it was a branch of the recently-sold-to-Dallad Rylanders chain). At that time, Whole Foods was a funky little food store in a tiny little store front on Lamar at about 11th, next to the music store, I think. JR Music? Straits?

Whole Earth Provisions Company, founded by the Jones family down the street from us, had a flagship store by Les Amis, and eventually one way out north at Burnet/183, and another down south (Brodie Oaks?) -- REI hadn't come to Austin yet.

Is Academy Sports the evolution of what used to be Academy Surplus, tucked under I-35 around, oh, 50th?

And the Broken Spoke and Silver Dollar. The Spoke is still around, but isn't the Silver Dollar long gone? We went to the Spoke to hear "Frieda and the Firedogs" among others.

[Cha Ching]

Originally Posted by NC_newcomer

Mea culpa...definitelyl not "the" Mopac. That's what 30 years of absence will do.

Uncle Jay and Packer Jack. Yep, definitely remember that show! Cactus Pryor (who had a black lab named "Ol' Yeller") and John Ramsey opened the Canine Hilton boarding kennel waaaaaay out of town, about 1970.

Several years later, as students we used to go to the UT gym (Speedway and 21st) to drop in and watch a UT basketball game (Abe Lemons was the coach?) -- right there on campus. Seats were so close to the floor that you could throw ice on the opposing players. And you could wander down to the baseball diamond and watch a few innings: UT fielders were drilled in scaling the quarry walls to snag fly balls, which definitely gave them a home team advantage. Imagine that: college sports, on campus, that students could just stop by and watch.

Up in the brand new Arboretum, Simon David grocery store tried to launch the high end grocery market in Austin (not very successfully -- it was a branch of the recently-sold-to-Dallad Rylanders chain). At that time, Whole Foods was a funky little food store in a tiny little store front on Lamar at about 11th, next to the music store, I think. JR Music? Straits?

Whole Earth Provisions Company, founded by the Jones family down the street from us, had a flagship store by Les Amis, and eventually one way out north at Burnet/183, and another down south (Brodie Oaks?) -- REI hadn't come to Austin yet.

Is Academy Sports the evolution of what used to be Academy Surplus, tucked under I-35 around, oh, 50th?

And the Broken Spoke and Silver Dollar. The Spoke is still around, but isn't the Silver Dollar long gone? We went to the Spoke to hear "Frieda and the Firedogs" among others.

Well for the music, there was JR Reed AND Strait. But I think Strait is the one on Lamar that got flooded out virtually every spring.

I always remember the Academy Surplus that was on 183 right at the junction of that road that goes behind where Mervyns used to be. The name is escaping me after all these years.

Wow...Rylanders....there's a blast from the past. I think there used to be one across Peyton Gin from where the Handy Dan was...where Target is (or did they close that location?).

Not to confuse the newbies, but different from the Handy DAN hardware store, there was also Handy ANDY the grocery store. There used to be one on Parkfield at Rundberg, across from where the Stop and Go is/was. I don't know what flavor of convenience store it is now.

There used to be a city limits sign on Parkfield at Kramer, just up the street from our house in the late 70s/early 80s. The population was something like 258,000.