Not a whole lot has been going on at the former Chili’s at 1040 West Sam Houston Tollway next to the HCC Spring Branch campus, a reader notes. Last September, Montrose-born Greek restaurant Niko Niko’s announced it would be opening its fourth Houston-area location there, near the overpasses connecting I-10 to Beltway 8.
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“There has been no action whatsoever at the property in the last two months,” the reader notes. Signs on the building announce a summer 2015 opening; a restaurant representative tells Swamplot the opening is still months away.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Not There Yet
Perhaps the recent meltdown in oil prices has made an Energy Corridor location no longer desirable. Of course, the HCC Students in the same parking lot are a captive audience looking for a lunchroom…
might as well cancel contract and hold out for a few months for leases to bottom out.
This location should do well. This area is immediately adjacent to the HCC parking lot which gets lots of traffic. Additionally, it is just across the freeway from CityCentre which is a proven strong location, and it is very close to memorial city office buildings. Just because Chili’s can’t make it work doesn’t mean it’s a bad location.
Announcements are free, following through, not so much…
I’m pretty sure Chili’s did make it work. They relocated to much better real estate along I-10 once their lease was up. The original location was a great site many years ago before the beltway over passes were constructed.
They’re going to have to hire full time security guards to keep the HCC parkers out of their spots.
Back in the day, this site had side-by-side Chilis and Bennigans, with a Furrow home center in the rear. The parking lot was large and wide, with easy access from I-10.
At some point they took out Bennigans and large chunks of the parking lot via eminent domain to expand a freeway (can’t remember which – maybe during BW 8 creation/construction). Then the home center succumbed to Home Depot, went vacant, and resurrected as an HCC campus with its ungodly amount of cars during the day.
I went to this Chilis just last year for lunch, and found the parking situation horrible. Students and restaurant patrons were doing parking lot death circles (like buzzards) waiting for any spot to open up anywhere. Even though the restaurant was hopping, I bet they are moving somewhere that has a better parking setup.