Tony Mandola Plants His Own Restaurant on Waugh

A roving reader-photographer sends in pix of the action on the corner of Waugh and West Dallas, planned site of the new Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen. Mandola told CultureMap last year his new restaurant will be larger than its current space in the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray and will be “very French Quarter, with lots of brick, wrought iron, and courtyards.” His GC for the project is a noted builder of fast-food restaurants. Whatever the building ends up looking like will likely mix up this little stretch of Waugh, which includes a brick CVS and Pei Wei in a strip center across the street, the modern Houston Area Women’s Center building directly to the north, and — across West Dallas, the eternal faceoff between Jack-in-the-Box and the brand new Whole Foods Market. The earth-shaking — or . . . well, at least earth-moving — news from the scene: “Ground is being re-graded slightly, sticks with colored ribbons have been planted and there’s quite a bit of construction equipment on the lot.”

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