AN UNDERCOVER BARFLY’S REPORT FROM DOWN THE STREET 
From the report of former Texas peace office and expert bar witness Darren K. Coleman who recently performed an assessment of Cottage Grove bar Down the Street at 5746 Larkin St.: “On April 20, 2018, Mr. Coleman made an anonymous visit to the Bar to make personal observations. During his visit, Mr. Coleman observed numerous cars parked along the street, some being cars belonging to Bar patrons and some belonging to residents and/or residents’ guests. He observed that traffic was not impeded by cars parked along the street; however, two cars could not pass at the same time. He assessed that this was not uncommon for any neighborhood where cars are parked along the street. Mr. Coleman did not observe litter in the area. Additionally, he observed the patrons to be well-behaved and polite. No one was intoxicated or displayed belligerent, loud, aggressive, or lewd behavior. The indoor music was at a moderate volume and was not loud enough to interfere with normal conversation.” Coleman’s report was included in testimony presented to a state judge after a group of neighbors protested the bar’s request to renew its TABC license. Based in part on Coleman’s outside opinion, the judge found Wednesday that the bar wasn’t violating any TABC rules and recommended the TABC approve its requested renewal. [Texas Office of Administrative Hearings] Photo: Down the Street
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Cottage Grove
The District at Washington Apartments at the corner of T.C. Jester and Schuler in Cottage Grove now feature apron-like attachments of plastic sheeting meant to provide cover to select masonry-stucco intersections on the façade. The reader who sent the photos to Swamplot says the tarps have been up for a few weeks now, and that repair work appears to be underway:
Flashing News
For now, this is the new order of things on the block between Shepherd and Durham drives along the northern I-10 feeder road. The former Fresh Car Wash, whose owners appear to be the ones behind that combo car wash and hookah bar at the corner of Dallas and Taft now going by the same name, was knocked down some time after it showed up on the demo roster last month (paired with the nextdoor branch of Big 10 Tires). In their places will go what could well be the third Inner Loop incursion of Raising Cane’s, which has now staked out more than 20 spots around Houston for its steadily creeping chicken fingers.
Nesting on I-10
The multinational dalliances of the restaurant building at 1500 Shepherd Dr., a parking lot away from the corner of Maxie, have come to an end — for now. The management of the outpost of British restaurant chain Mascalzone Ristorante Italiano announced the closure of the location over the weekend, not long after rumors of the shutdown were reported on Houston Food Finder. According to a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, the Shepherd location will be “merging” with the still-operating Mascalzone location in the shopping center at 12126 Westheimer Rd., west of Kirkwood and across from the Phoenicia parking lot.
Arrivederci, British Italian Style
Behind the window bars and No Trespassing sign at 5734 Larkin St., a TABC application notice has been hanging out lately, a reader notes. The posting, which mentions the trade name Hidden Goods and denotes a request for late hours and beer and wine sales in the former home, is 2 doors down the street from residence-turned-cocktail-bar Down the Street at 5746 Larkin; other nearby hotspots on the block include the Iglesia Bautista Hosanna and the Larkin Street Baptist Church. The bar-to-be’s published legal notice from mid-December sports the name of Down the Street owner Cheryl Crider, who also opened opened bar-slash-coffee-shop Around the Corner in East Downtown back in 2015.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Down Larkin St.
Over Thanksgiving weekend city workers opened a portion of the proposed hike-and-hike trail that will one day link downtown and Acres Homes.
Work began last October on this new section, one that heads west from the MKT hike-and-bike trail’s former official western terminus at Lawrence Park, under the N. Shepherd Dr. and N. Durham Dr. overpasses, and over White Oak Bayou, west to Cottage Grove and north towards an eventual link with the existing White Oak Bayou trail.
This link legitimizes a an unsanctioned though fairly popular “ninja route” long used by off-trail cyclists, who had been pedaling the gravel path from the park to a rickety, burned-out White Oak Bayou railway trestle known to as the “Bridge of Death,” seen below in a 2012 photo.
That’s been demolished and replaced with a sturdy span of of concrete and steel, complete with fancy, built-in insignia, and skyline and AIG building vistas.
Bike Path Breakthrough
Here’s a look at Houston’s upcoming second location of the New Orleans-based PJ’s Coffee chain. The banner is up and workers are inside the new mini-strip mall at the Cottage Grove corner of Larkin St. and Durham Dr., just south of Yuppie Dog pet care, and just north of a taco truck-friendly parking lot and a Wendy’s, and just across the Katy Fwy. from looming competition in the form of a strip-mall Starbucks.
Caffeine Fix
A source tells Swamplot that the Samurai Noodle restaurant that’s scheduled to open in the former Sprint spot in the Durham Shopping Center facing the Katy Fwy. feeder road (at center in the photo above) is in fact a first out-of-state venture for the acclaimed 3-location Seattle ramen shop of the same name. The I-10-facing spot in the strip center at 1801 Durham Dr. is wedged between Golden Hunan restaurant and the SNAP Spay-Neuter and Animal Wellness Clinic (not to be confused, we earnestly hope, with SNAP Kitchen). In Seattle, Samurai Noodle offers non-pork broth options for non-traditionalists, and allows customers to specify their preferred level of noodle firmness.
By the Katy Feeder
MAYBE WE SHOULD ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS 
What’s happened to the bar building by the Cottage Grove railroad tracks at 5519 Allen St. at the corner of T.C. Jester since lesbian bar The Usual shut down there in February? Perhaps a sale of the property and something new going in — but what? “Looks like someone bought the former home of The Usual,” reports a reader who drove by the site Friday and sent in this photo. “For sale sign is gone and there were workers in there today.” [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
A 2-location British restaurant chain specializing in Italian pizza and pastas has plans to open in the former spot of Solea (pictured above) at 1500 Shepherd Dr. at the corner of Maxie, just north of Washington Ave in Cottage Grove. Solea shut down a 14-month stint in that location last September, its owners hinting at the time of plans to reopen an entirely new restaurant in the space after a break, with perhaps a more focused menu than the one offering Mexican, Cajun, and Middle Eastern delights previously. Swamplot readers had noted the building’s construction back in 2010, when it was slated for a location of Bullritos.
No opening date is listed on the website of the Italian replacement, called Il Mascalzone. But the company site does list a second planned location in Houston, to supplement its Edgware and Putney spots in the UK: in a strip center at 12126 Westheimer, between Kirkwood and Dairy Ashford.
International Attention
LATEST EXPLETIVE-LADEN, LANDLORD-BLAMING, BAR-CLOSING TIRADE COMES FROM THE USUAL 
Cottage Grove lesbian bar The Usual shut down its patio-by-the-railroad-tracks location last week, and marked the occasion with a Facebook announcement declaring enough was enough: “We planned on remodeling but our landlord refused to pay for all the roofing and electrical needs (as most of you know was much needed) . . . we decided to say fuck it and we will do it and make The Usual look better than ever . . . but then we got news that our renewal would double our rent and our landlord is such a dick he knows we can’t afford that and he is so greedy and wanting to sell the property and could not because we were still there, he knew he had to get us out . . . well . . . we fought and fought but unfortunately had to make the decision to move . . . we will be absent for a short while but will return soon and can’t wait to see all of you!” A mysterious post on Yelp from a first-time reviewer points to an alternative — or perhaps additive — explanation for the sudden closing of the bar at 5519 Allen St., facing onto T.C. Jester: a TABC license that had expired at the end of last November. A more recent Facebook posting declares The Usual is “On the hunt for our NEW location!!! Only going bigger and better!!” [The Usual on Facebook, via Culturemap] Photo: LoopNet
“Interesting to see,” writes a regular Swamplot reader, “what appears to be two identical models of house built a couple years apart and a couple miles apart for sale at the same time.” Though the the 3-story, 5-sided brick design they share is distinctive, there are a few differences between the models — most obviously the fact that one is listed for almost twice the price of the other. Over in Norhill, 935 Algregg St. (pictured at top) was built in 2001 on a 5,000-sq.-ft. lot. It’s listed for sale for $585,000. Two years later in Cottage Grove, 5018 Darling St. was built a 2,796-sq.-ft. lot. It’s now asking $300,000. But there appear to be some differences in the interiors as well.
Here are views of the living room and kitchen of the Norhill model:
Which One of These Is Not Like the Other?
Reader Seán Judge notes the recent transformation of a warehouse property on Larkin St. near the corner of Sherwin in Cottage Grove, where something that “LOOKS like a little restaurant” is taking shape from a once-ramshackle property presided over by a metal building: “There’s a bunch of ‘parking lot’ space on one side, and what look like bistro tables sitting outside the building,” he notes. “It is definitely looking at least bar/loungey with a lot of liquor, cushy seats, tables outside. And a sign on the door saying ‘Private Party: Thank you. Management.’ . . . Any idea what may be going in there?”
Light Metal
- 5809 Darling St. B [HAR]
