Hearsay: Market Square Gastropub Rehab . . . and More

Former Twelve Spot Bar on Travis Street, Downtown Houston

Former Ibiza and Catalan investor Rhea Wheeler and two partners have bought the shuttered Twelve Spot bar on Travis St. — just around the corner from Market Square downtown — and will be turning it into a gastropub called Hearsay.

218 Travis is Houston’s second-oldest building, and originally served as a Confederate Army munitions depot. It’s a dramatic space inside: There are three stories, but the upper floors have been removed and a mezzanine placed in the back.

Wheeler told Jennifer Dawson of the Houston Business Journal he’ll open the new restaurant in the first half of next year.

After the jump: More Wheeler restaurant plans! In actual old buildings!

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A big white house dating from 1913 at 3208 Austin near Elgin in Midtown will house Wheeler’s second new-restaurant-in-old-digs, named White House. It’s the former home of Trinity Foster Care. The new restaurant will serve Texas cuisine, but won’t open until later next year, after a kitchen is added to the back of the building.

Details about the third restaurant Wheeler is planning — also in an old building in Midtown — are coming in a separate post.

Special note to restaurant entrepreneurs: call your restaurant a gastro-anything, report it to us, and we’ll be sure to write about your new venture lickety split.