Swamplot’s Candace Garcia sends in these pix of the scene on the north side of Westheimer between Park St. and Dunlavy, the morning after a Halloween inferno destroyed an antique store and the Agora cafe next door. There’s not much left to shop for at Gordon Greenleaf’s Antique Warehaus at 1714 Westheimer, a woodframe residence pressed into used-furniture service more than 50 years ago. That’s where the fire started shortly after midnight Sunday morning. Agora’s brick structure appears to have fared better, and may be rebuilt. Everyone in the 2-story cafe was able to get out safely, but 2 firefighters were later treated for heat exhaustion. “Thanks to the Halloween holiday it was one of the most well-documented fires in recent Houston history,” writes the Houston Press’s Craig Hlavaty, who watched the flames from across the street, dressed in drag, along with a small crowd of participants in the Montrose Costume Crawl — none of them dressed as firefighters.
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- Massive Montrose Fire Burns Agora Cafe and Antiques Store [Hair Balls]
- Fire destroys antique shop, cafe Agora [abc13]
- Blaze destroys popular antique store [Houston Chronicle]
Photos: Candace Garcia
Damn I love Agora and this section of Westheimer. I hope it is all rebuilt.
Wait, are you telling me that something in Montrose was “flaming”?
the agora was great fun-i hope the owners rebuild soon and the new agora has the same ambience as the old.
The antique shop has always been a fun browse- I still have a chair I bought from them 20 years ago- but the agora really lived up to it’s name. It looks like these guys will need to totally rebuild- do we know if these buisnesses are insured? I hope so.