9 Comment

• buck toof November 4, 2014 at 9:01 am

  The Big Boy mascot is a registered trademark, how were they getting away with using it to promote their business I wonder… Big Boys do still exist but not in Texas any more.
• joel November 4, 2014 at 9:14 am

  i must not understand that realtors report very well as I was seeing the opposite conclusion. higher home prices and tougher lending standards through 2015 would mean higher barriers pushing back against continued demand. the Houston chart shows median and average home prices falling with inventory rising. understood that that probably reflects the fact that most of Houston’s growth continues to be the in the outer burbs more than anything, but still, that Q2 2013 is definitely an inflection point in the current data and moving into the winter period I’d expect it to look even more pronounced come Q1 2014.
• commonsense November 4, 2014 at 10:08 am

  Bars are notoriously bad tenants, vast majority of them rely on popularity, which is very finicky and can disappear overnight. The people that open bars, just abandon the property leaving a trail of unpaid bills and just open in a different place to fail a year later again.
• Eric November 4, 2014 at 10:30 am

  @commonsense – I don’t think that’s the case with Barringer Bar. As a tenant, they did 3-4x the business that the owner’s downstairs bar did (http://i.imgur.com/OpfFlvE.png). I wish the Cook’s good luck. They had a classy and enjoyable speakeasy with Barringer.
• Gisgo November 4, 2014 at 10:34 am

  I don’t get this bit about ‘tougher lending standards’. The news is reporting Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac have greatly lowered standards, I suppose all the better to entice lenders into making questionable loans, so after the next big crash, said lenders can be coerced into paying big penalties. Recently these have been a line item in the federal budget, and those cows have to be milked.
• Waller squalor November 4, 2014 at 11:14 am

  The only time I ever went to berringer was the week they opened. There were maybe 5 or 6 people there, and I stood at the bar watching both bartenders on their phones never offer me a drink. So I left and never returned.

  The pictures on the wall were cool, but I never thought this place would last, especially not now with prohibition opening back up downtown
• Mare November 4, 2014 at 1:29 pm

  I can seldom match the picture with the corresponding article in this feature. What article does Bob’s Big Boy go with?
• buck toof November 5, 2014 at 1:20 pm

  Restaurants/bars/hospitality-related businesses have always been here today and gone tomorrow, exceptions being few like family-owned establishments whose business model has always been the same. No surprise that in the trendiest part of town where the competition is the highest that only the strongest survive. Trendy places will always come and go, because the customer base that attracts them are the come-&-go type. Landlords should come to expect this as the new normal and require guarantors to co-sign the leases. Houston foodies who think they can wing it (and fail) are a dime a dozen.
• Memebag November 5, 2014 at 1:38 pm

  I think using “new normal” in every post should become the new normal.