FERTITTA: THAT WAS NOT ME IN THAT STUDEWOOD ST. DIVE 
Billionaire Landry’s CEO Tilman Fertitta categorically denies that he was recently seen in venerable Houston Heights dive bar the Shiloh Club, knocking back cocktails and peppering regulars for local information. “I was not there,” the world’s richest restaurateur tells the Houston Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff. He also denied rumors of a pending Landry’s land invasion of the Heights. (His Shepherd Dr. Saltgrass-and-Cadillac-Bar mini-stronghold will stay in Cottage Grove south of I-10 for now.) He’s about volume, something the Heights can’t provide him in ample measure: “The way that I’m set up, I have to do a lot of business, and they’re more smaller restaurants.”  With one potential exception: “Brenner’s on the Bayou could be there. But that’s probably around here the only (Landry’s) restaurant that could be in the Heights.” Fertitta went on to reiterate and expand on a bearish short-term real estate market forecast he first delivered on Bloomberg TV earlier this month. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Bloomberg TV
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My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Tilman drinking at Shiloh last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.
@ Walt – Haha nice Ferris Bueller’s Day Off quote :)
287 angry Swamplot comments later…
I can see it now. “SHILOH’S” in big letters above some rusty sign filled dump on the boardwalk. Just charge $25 for 8 fried shrimp on a pile of fries and the Wal-Mart crowd will come.
Oh just go ahead and plow down a few dilapidated bungalows and gives the Heights a nice big suburban-style restaurant. The comment threads will be gold.
Haha why does he feel the need to address a rumor about him stopping in at a no-name bar? If he’s planning to develop something there, he will just do it one day. If not, let the rumor mill swirl and enjoy the free PR.
With WTI Crude now at $66/bbl., are there still those among you that believe that Houston is doing just fine? Or was it still grossly irresponsible of me, several months back, to start make negative economic prognostications?
Well here’s another one that you won’t like. The worst hasn’t come yet. There’s a global financial shakeout coming too, and part of those expectations are already built into the price of oil but a lot of it won’t get priced-in until the worst is over and done with. (Watch the high-yield bond markets closely, as they’ve expanded tremendously, have become crowded with wildcatters, and are already trading in low-enough volumes that the specter of a liquidity crisis is looming.) It’ll be a double-whammy for Houston, and that’s one that even the downstream energy sector and likes of Landry’s and Sysco and Insperity and the remnants of United Airlines won’t be able to dodge.
Batten down the hatches. This too shall pass, but it’s going to be a rough couple of years.
Longer-term though, I agree with Tilman. Houston will do fine. In fact, oil prices at this level go a long way to stop demand destruction and alternative energy R&D. A painful correction now prevents an even harder bust that could have come later. It’s healthy and desirable…unless you’re trying to retire in the next few years, I suppose.
“But the Heights is a great treasure. I’m glad they kept the building restrictions there.”
-T. Fertitta
I can’t wait until oil hits $30. That’s when the party will be on. LoL.
As far as Tilman F., he’s just a whiny little bitch.
I can’t see past, “More smaller.”
So it is possible to embarrass a slum lord restaurant destroying scum? Wow who knew..