Here lies Peggy Sue BBQ, Logos Bookstore, Lane Florist, OK Alterations and a few other longtime University Park businesses with several decades of history in the Snider Plaza shopping center.
A demolition crew bulldozed the six structures that once housed those stores near the corner of Hillcrest and Daniel avenues in University Park on Monday, Jan. 10, 2022.
Developer Jim Strode, who built the glass office tower across the street, plans to build a three-story, $12 million structure where Peggy Sue and its neighbors were.
The shopping center is the nucleus of University Park and Southern Methodist University. It’s a patchwork of mismatched buildings with dozens of owners, and so far, Strode has been one of the only developers to finish a new, large construction project.
“We can’t stay stuck in the ‘50s and ‘60s, as much as I’d like to see it remain mom-and-pops,” says longtime Park Cities resident Jerry Washam. His grandfather, Ralph Porter, developed Snider Plaza in the late 1920s, and Washam remains the president of Ralph Porter Co., which oversees the leasing and management of properties in Snider Plaza.
The buildings housing Peggy Sue BBQ and its neighbors aren’t Washam’s family properties, but Washam says he supports Strode’s efforts to bring new life to Snider Plaza.
In the new building, Strode expects to house two restaurants on the ground floor and offices on the second and third floors. Strode purchased the six buildings in one deal that closed in 2021.
The three-story structure will likely take 12 to 14 months to build, Strode says.
Several adjacent retail stores remain standing near the construction zone. Clothing store Cotton Island and cookie shop JD’s Chippery are still at the corner of Hillcrest and Daniel. Around the corner, in the interior of Snider Plaza, Cisco Grill is still there.
Four of the displaced businesses in the project have signed new leases a block or two away. Lane Florist, the longest-tenured tenant in that section, has been in Snider Plaza for 73 years. It was relocated nearby, as were Logos Bookstore (48 years old), OK Alterations (35 years) and Arman Jewelry (25 years).
The old Peggy Sue BBQ building was probably the most iconic of the demolished buildings. It was best known as the Beef Bar, run by restaurateur Peggy Rogers. Decades later, new owner Marc Hall changed the name to Peggy Sue, which combined the name of the original owner and his wife’s name.
Long before staffers sold chopped beef sandwiches to customers eating on red checkered tablecloths, 6600 Snider Plaza was a Sinclair gas station.
“There was a gas station in every corner,” Washam recalls. “Where Cotton Island is, that was a service station. I used to take my car in and get my brakes worked on there. Where Bubba’s is, that was a Texaco station. And where Buff City is, the soap place, that was a Texaco station.” And so on.
Snider Plaza was also famous for its movie theater, which showed motion pictures with sound — a rarity when it opened in 1929.
