COMMENT OF THE DAY: BRINGIN’ DA FUNK EAST 
“The East End is getting Voodoo Queen and Moon Tower while Montrose gets a world-class croissant place, Vinoteca Poscól and The Susanne. The funk and character of Houston still exists but has relocated.” [Dana-X, commenting on Voodoo Queen ‘So Close’ To Opening in the East End] Illustration: Lulu
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East End
This mural of what is presumably a voodoo queen recently went up on the side of Voodoo Queen, that new bar and eatery from the hot dogs at Moon Tower Inn. Also in the East End, Voodoo Queen will be opening soon in the former Joe’s Bar and Grill at 322 Milby St., at the corner of Milby and Preston; that’s just one block north of the Maximus Coffee Group plant and the forthcoming East End light-rail line along Harrisburg.
After the jump, you can see a photo of the entrance facing Milby:
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HOW TO KILL THE GRID IN THE EAST END “What happened when the quiet zone went in in the First Ward? Every street got closed. Holly, Goliad, Hickory, Johnson, Colorado, Sabine, Silver, Henderson, all gone. The neighborhood was cut in two. The grid died, leaving something that looks like the cul-de-sacs-and-thoroughfares of the ’burbs. Now, Cullen could probably use an underpass. Sampson/York too. But what’s gonna happen in the East End when stuff gets value engineered out? Nance: gone. Commerce: gone. McKinney: gone. Milby: gone. Leeland: quite possibly gone. All those little side streets you like to ride your bike or walk your dog on because there’s low traffic, these will all be severed. And for what? So UP can operate remote-controlled locomotives? This is not a positive development.” [Jeff Davis, commenting on Headlines: Waiting for Trains in the East End; Waiting for Dunkin’ Donuts in Montrose]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: STUCK AT THE WEST BELT CROSSING IN THE EAST END “As long as some of those trains take at that awful crossing at Cullen, some people have probably died of old age waiting for the crossing arms to come up (though if you know the neighborhood, all you have to do is get to Milby from behind the old Fingers and you can cross under at Polk. You’re welcome.) That said, while it’s nice that everyone is suddenly so aware of the inconvenience and potential danger of these trains, it isn’t as though this were a new thing. That one Union Pacific line parallel to Harrisburg is just as unpredictable and twice as loud as the one in the article; it runs immediately adjacent to homes for miles. I know; I’ve lived by both. It did this for decades before I got here and no one has done anything about it that I know of, but I suppose that’s the price paid when the neighborhood’s skin isn’t quite as light and its homes aren’t quite as expensive. I understand, though; when the town-home dwelling white folks aren’t happy, nobody’s happy.” [Chris, commenting on Headlines: Waiting for Trains in the East End; Waiting for Dunkin’ Donuts in Montrose]
H-E-B Montrose Market architects (and International Coffee Company Building renovators) Lake Flato designed these 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath Nagle St. townhouses that are going up in East Downtown. They’re coming in at 2 sizes: 3,375 sq. ft. for the endcaps with screened-in terraces and 3,664 sq. ft. for the ones scrunched in the middle. Developed by Lovett Homes, the townhouses face the 700 block of Nagle between Capitol and Rusk, just east of BBVA Compass Stadium. One of the larger townhouses, listed at $549,000, has already gone pending.
The unkempt homes that used to obscure that towering yellow pole on the Gulf Fwy. feeder were undone last month, after 2108 and 2110 Sunnyland St. showed up in the Daily Demolition Report in late April; architect Tim Cisneros, whose firm is named on the variance request, says a 2,000-sq.-ft. law office will be built to replace them. In the East End, the lot faces the feeder between Telephone and Wayside, near where the 2nd inside-the-Loop Walmart is under construction.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THEY GET AROUND IN THAT PART OF TOWN “. . . Welcome to the East End, where humble homes like you are still welcome (for now). And within walking distance of both MetroRail AND Elbow and Nipple. Take a train or fix a drain.” [Dana-X, commenting on Chapter 2: The Little Gibson St. Bungalow Finds a New Home]
From Magnolia Grove to a previously vacant lot with a single sickly magnolia: What a journey it’s been for this little bungalow! After being sold in 2012 and cleared for demo, then suddenly spared last week and trucked away from its home at 4414 Gibson St., the 1,200-sq.-ft., split-pea-soup-green bungalow has finally come to rest. Where? Almost 6 miles away on Hussion St. in the East End. It’s now behind the for-sale Finger Furniture on the I-45 feeder and catty-corner (well, almost) from the Houston Elbow & Nipple Company.
- Previously on Swamplot: The Story of the Little Bungalow at 4414 Gibson St., Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: How Houses Disappear, Finger Furniture Selling Showroom, Old Baseball Stadium Property Near UH
Photo: Allyn West
It’s coming soon, the sign says, that international power trio of donuts, kolaches, and tacos. (In the suite beside El Greco, the Mediterranean restaurant, to boot.) West of Idylwood and Country Club Place at 5420 Lawndale St., this strip center is less than a mile east of the new Oak Leaf Smokehouse on Telephone and that complementary retail activity recently opened inside the Tlaquepaque Market.
- 7838 Baltimore St. [HAR]
LUNCH-ONLY TELEPHONE ROAD SMOKEHOUSE NOW OPEN FOR DINNER 
A Facebook post on Sunday from Oak Leaf Smokehouse says that the Eastwood restaurant — which opened serving lunch only in late February in the old Pete’s BBQ location just southeast of Tlaquepaque Market at 1000 Telephone Rd. — is now serving dinner, too, expanding its hours from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. [Oak Leaf Smokehouse via Facebook; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
Fresh paint in shades of purple is but one of the updates to this 1929 East End bungalow with matching back-lot studio unit. Listed Friday at $115,000, the plummy property is on an otherwise toned-down, mixed-use street located a block north of Metro’s East End rail line on Harrisburg, near Milby St.
As though mandated by some surgeon general recommendation for commercial development, the new neighbors in the Tlaquepaque Market at Telephone and Lockwood are an ice cream shop and a fitness studio. Scoops, the sign for which recently appeared above those window bars, is replacing a nail salon at 724 Telephone; it will share a wall with a Zumba studio, a former dollar store that doesn’t have a sign yet — but it does appear to have been renovated to provide rump-shakers inside the comfort and convenience of opaque window screens. These new interests are just a few blocks from the new Oak Leaf Smokehouse that opened for lunch in late February at 1000 Telephone Rd., and just a few suites from the new-ish Blue Line Bike Lab.
- Previously on Swamplot: Telephone Road Smokehouse Replaces Telephone Road Smokehouse, Heights Bike Lab Expands, Opens Shop Near UH in East End
Photos: Allyn West
TELEPHONE ROAD SMOKEHOUSE REPLACES TELEPHONE ROAD SMOKEHOUSE The low-slung building that used to be Pete’s BBQ has re-opened as a barbecue, reports Eater Houston’s Eric Sandler. Run by husband and wife Brian Lewis and Lisa Kuhfeldt, Oak Leaf Smokehouse had a “soft opening” at 1000 Telephone late last week — and was “slammed,” selling out of meat by 1 p.m., says a February 21 post on Facebook. “Once the restaurant gets things dialed in,” reports Sandler,” they’ll expand the menu beyond the five meats and four sides currently on offer.” For now, the smokehouse is open during lunch hours from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. [Eater Houston] Photo: Allyn West
- 7038 Linden St. [HAR]
