 | | Another Time Soda Fountain (Staff photo by Russell Autrey)
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| (Editor's Note: Rosenberg was founded in 1883 and the Fort Bend Herald is salting the city with a weekly story or photo about its past. This week's story runs well into the present, also.)
Originally constructed around 1910, the building that's now home to Another Time Soda Fountain first housed E.W. Cumings Drug Store, then Meyer and Forster Land and Loan Co., and was later home to Pickard and Huggins Pharmacy and then Frank's Pharmacy.
Located on the corner of Third Street and Avenue F in downtown Rosenberg, Another Time pays homage to its history in the form of not only old-time favorites such as phosphates and authentic ice cream sodas, but in the ambience of the restaurant as well. An awning spanning the length of the building in both directions is as close to the original as possible, and it beckons visitors to step back in time. Inside, V-groove boards and an embossed-tin ceiling combine with antiques in the form of everything from restaurant and pharmacy memorabilia to a 1935 sign heralding Coca-Cola for 5 cents.
Sister and brother Renee Butler and Michael Barcak opened Another Time Soda Fountain in 2003. The building is owned by Renee's husband, Bill.
The trio used photographs from 1912 to make the building as authentic as possible and did such a great job that the Meyer-Foster-Mulcahy Building & Another Time Soda Fountain received the prestigious statewide award for Best Physical Improvement: Best Commercial Interior in 2005 from the Texas Downtown Association. The organization has more than 400 members from hundreds of Texas downtowns, and Another Time Soda Fountain competed with businesses from small towns to cities such as Austin.
Upon receiving the award, Barcak and the Butlers said it belongs to the community all three natives call “home.”
Its restoration is just one of more than a couple dozen buildings Bill Butler has purchased in Rosenberg's historic Downtown District in a an effort to revitalize the area. He credits his mother, the late Mayde Waddell Butler, for his decision to tackle such a daunting task. She was a lifelong resident who loved the town, as did her father, C.H. Waddell, who was involved in both city and state government, serving as tax collector and state representative.
An entrepreneur as well, Waddell was involved in real estate and was the founder of Fort Bend Telephone Co. When Mayde remodeled the phone company building at the corner of Fourth Street and Avenue G decades ago, the seed for her son's vision concerning the future of his hometown was planted, and he eventually decided downtown Rosenberg should become a destination again, as it was in the days of old, rather than a “pass-through,” as it had become.
“With these buildings, I'm trying to go back to the old but incorporate the new, also,” he has said. “My reason, also, for doing this downtown is that Houston is coming this way, and I feel like the population continues to grow here, and they're going to want quality entertainment and shopping. And I'd like to see that happen here. It's a labor of love.”
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