COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Several businesses in College Station’s Northgate District have been closing recently. The latest: VooDoo Brewing Company.
VooDoo announced on Monday that it had closed its doors for good. In the announcement, owners said the construction surrounding VooDoo has slowed or prevented day-to-day operations so much so that they couldn’t stay in business as they had hoped. VooDoo’s last day was Monday.
This is just the latest business to close its doors in the Northgate District in recent months. Shiner Park, Founders, and Starbucks are a few other places that have permanently closed their doors. The changing landscape of Northgate is something that the owner of The Corner Bar and Grill Barry Ivins said he’s seen before.
RELATED | Uncertainty remains after two Northgate bars close with little warning
“Back in the mid-2000s, we went through a lot of different changes on Northgate; places coming and going. We’re kind of seeing the environment that we saw back in those early 2000s come back again,” explained Ivins.
Ivins told KBTX he was shocked by Starbucks shutting down after almost 20 years at that location on University Drive.
“Pretty wild and pretty sad overall. It’s been very stable in Northgate the last 15, 20 years. Starbucks opened in 2006, right after we did in 2004. So, they’ve been almost 20 years in [that] location,” he recalled.
As construction projects continue in the area, Ivins remembers the impact of construction on his business back in 2011 and sympathizes with VooDoo’s owners.
“For a place that opened last year- like Voodoo- and the access to them, has just been absolutely miserable. So, I mean, it’s, I can’t imagine what they went through,” said Ivins.
College Station’s Director of Planning and Development Services Anthony Armstrong said commercial businesses are driven by foot traffic, and some of the construction projects in Northgate could be wrapped up in the next 18 months.
“Commercial business is completely activated by pedestrian traffic,” he noted. “The voodoo situation is definitely a sad one. It’s a sad one to see go. I know it was a popular place. We’ve had other restaurants right in that area, there was the Dat Dog and some others before that were in that same space.”
Armstrong said the long-term goal of Northgate is to be a pedestrian-centric area.
“The core of Northgate or the bar district area specifically, hopefully long term, when we get all these additional heads and beds over there; you get a lot more pedestrian centric traffic. They can go out and support these businesses and spend their extra disposable income in that surrounding area without having to leave,” added Armstrong.
Copyright 2025 KBTX. All rights reserved.
More Northgate businesses closing doors: ‘A sad one to see go’ – KBTX News 3
