Lower Westheimer

Comments, Commercial Real Estate, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Parking, Quicklink, Restaurants

1 Comment

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE UCHI HOUSTON PARKING PLAN “They have the whole 40,000 sf under contract, which includes the Prive building and the 12,000 sf lot across the street. The Prive building probably wont be leased to a bar or restaurant, thus freeing up more parking for the peak hours.” [Adam Brackman, commenting on Montrose Uchi To Be an Uchi; No Plans To Crush Felix]

77006, Buying and Selling, Comments, Commercial Real Estate, Lower Westheimer, Openings and Closings, Parking, Restaurants

Buying and Selling

06/17/10 8:53am

Montrose Uchi To Be an Uchi; No Plans To Crush Felix

Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants

20 Comments

Austin sushi dude Tyson Cole is planning to name the new restaurant he’s eyeing for the longtime location of Felix Mexican Restaurant at Westheimer and Grant “Uchi” — just like his Austin original. The new owners “do not intend” to tear down the building (if they did, current development regulations might make it difficult to rebuild so close to the street). Cole’s publicist confirms to Swamplot that Austin restaurant designer Michael Hsu “will be involved” in the project, but notes that the sale of the building hasn’t been finalized. The restaurant wouldn’t open until late 2011.

77006, Buying and Selling, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants

Demolitions

06/15/10 2:56pm

Lost Felix, Discovered Sushi: Austin’s Uchi Coming to Montrose

Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants

23 Comments

In other Montrose Tex-Mex news, MyTable reports that the building on the corner of Westheimer and Grant that for 60 years housed Felix Mexican Restaurant is likely toast. Famous white-guy sushi chef Tyson Cole and the owners of his standout Austin restaurant, Uchi, have bought the building and are planning a new restaurant in that location. The structure will “probably be torn down,” MyTable reports. Both Uchi on South Lamar and Cole’s about-to-open restaurant on North Lamar, called Uchiko, were designed by Austin’s Michael Hsu Design Office. Hsu’s best-known work in Houston: Sushi Raku in Midtown.

Late Update: Not so fast with the Felix building obits, please.

Heard on the Street [My Table SideDish]
Tyson Cole [Uchi]
Brett Anderson on Sushi’s Great White Hope [Oxford American]
Uchiko on the horizon [Austin360]
Previously on Swamplot: Goodbye, Felix, A Look at the New Midtown Restaurant in the Mix

Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer

77006, Demolitions, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants

Comments

05/03/10 3:50pm

Comment of the Day: The Tower Theatre, Back To the Future

Leasing, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Quicklink

3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE TOWER THEATRE, BACK TO THE FUTURE “But if we donâ€™t get the sign from 1955 to 1985 before the lightning storm, Annise Parker will never be born!” [Evan7257, commenting on The Tower Theatre Puts No Name in Lights] Photo: Swampot inbox

77006, Comments, Leasing, Lower Westheimer, Mayor Parker, Montrose, Movie-Theaters

Leasing

05/03/10 10:45am

Look Out Bello: What Could Possibly Take the Place of La Strada?

Lower Westheimer, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

7 Comments

The new wrapper on what used to be a For Lease sign in front of the former La Strada restaurant building at the corner of Westheimer and Taft mentions lunch and dinner, but not brunch. The name of the new tenant: Caffe Bello.

Previously on Swamplot: Arrivederci, La Strada

Photo: Swamplot inbox

77006, Leasing, Lower Westheimer, Openings and Closings, Restaurants

Leasing

05/03/10 10:01am

The Tower Theatre Puts No Name in Lights

Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Renovations

A reader reports on the newest bright spot on Lower Westheimer:

My photo isn’t terribly good, but it will at least give you an idea of what they’re up to with the new marquee.Â Half of the upper neon is working and the marquee is completely operational.Â Even without everything functioning, it already puts the River Oaks to shame. It’s still not going to be as outrageous as the original setup with the taller spire and even more neon, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Previously on Swamplot: Drive-By and Walk-By Reports on the Tower Theatreâ€™s New Headliner, Whatâ€™s Playing at the Tower Theatre?, and Going Attractions: Hollywood Video Gives Up on the Tower Theatre

Photo: Swamplot inbox

77006, Leasing, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Movie-Theaters, Outdoor Lighting, Renovations

Briargrove

12/07/09 9:05am

Openings and Closings: Lost Outpost of the Space Cowboys

CityCentre, Dearborn Place, Deer Park, Johnson Space Center, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Sugar Land, Town and Country Village, Webster, West University

No Comments

A quick roundup:

Closing in January: NASA hangout the Outpost Tavern, an army barracks building turned spacesuit-and-bikini-festooned party site, down NASA Rd. 1 from the Johnson Space Center at 18113 Kings Lynn St. Memorialized in the appropriately named Clint Eastwood “one last time for the has-been astronauts” flick Space Cowboys, the bar and burger joint had to be partially rebuilt in early 2005 after a short in a neon sign caused a small fire. Second-generation owner Stephanie Foster reports the property has been sold to new owners who “plan to build something new on the site, perhaps a service station or shopping center.” Fans of the Outpost Tavern’s many good ol’ days will drown their sorrows on-site in a 3-day-long goodbye-party bash, January 8-10.
Closed, Just a Month After Opening: The new 7,000-sq.-ft. prototype Bailey Banks & Biddle store in CityCentre. The new owners of the former Zales mall mainstay declared bankruptcy in August, but went ahead with the store’s planned move from its old location across the street at Town & Country Village anyway. Other local Triple Bs didn’t get the grand-opening treatment before going dark: “The Galleria and Willowbrook Mall locations are in liquidation, while The Woodlands Mall store and the new CityCentre location are expected to go dark on Dec. 24 following liquidation sales, according to store employees.”
Open Only for One Last Big Sale: Brian Stringer Antiques, strung along West Alabama just east of Shepherd in a few separate buildings for the last 40 or so years. Stringer and his wife will retire to their turreted 14th century chateau — a former fortified hospital built by monks for victims of a mysterious skin disease — in the French countryside between Bordeaux and Gers. But lucky us, they’ll stick around Houston long enough to sell the majority of their stock of European antiques, reproductions, and fabrics at 40 percent off, Joni Webb reports: “The French house is so charming â€“ you really feel like youâ€™re in the South of France, except for Houstonâ€™s traffic out the front window!” When you’re done shopping there, Webb commands:

be sure to also stop in at Ginger Barberâ€™s Sitting Room which is next door. Further up the street is Tara Shaw and Heather Bowen Antiques. Continue up W. Alabama to Antiques and Interiors on Dunlavy, Boxwood and The Country Gentleman, then hit up Foxglove and Alcon Lighting.

If you havenâ€™t passed out from exhaustion yet, turn around and head back to Brian Stringerâ€™s and go the other way on W. Alabama. Stop at Jane Mooreâ€™s, then at Ferndale, go to Brown, Bill Gardner, Made in France, and Objects Lost and Found. Back on W. Alabama, continue on to Thompson and Hansen, The Gray Door, Chateau Domingue, Indulge on Saint Street, and 2620 on Joanel.

More openings and closings:

Attractions

11/17/09 2:46pm

The Block Party’s Over

Lower Westheimer, Streets

18 Comments

Organizer (and Free Press Houston editor) Omar Afra calls it:

This will be the last Westheimer Block Party. However, the next one will be the return of the Westheimer Street Festival. It may take 2 months or it may take 2 years but this festival has outgrown our singular capacity. There can only be a return of the Westheimer Street Festival. The streets must be shut down, the city must get behind the event, and I can no longer personally foot the bill. Our staff can no longer handle the capacity of the growing festival and squeezing all of these people into the same block is becoming hazardous. The streets must be shut down. We have an on camera commitment from Annise Parker, that if elected, she will support street closure if we can find financing for necessary portopotties, police, and clean up. She even shook my hand on it. But we need the community involved. So whoever is elected, we are asking for a big community turnout at the first city council open session the new mayor presides over. We need 500+ people to swamp city hall and show city officials that there is indeed a large constituency that supports arts and music. We will let you know when this transpires but we NEED your support. We love this community so much and want to see WestFest grow but it cannot in it’s current form. We will be forming a non-profit to meet this challenge which will be made up of only Jedi’s who have an unyielding love for arts and music. It is time to take BIG steps and we will do whatever it takes to shut down the streets. . . .

The Last Westheimer Block Party [Free Press Houston]

Photo of Behind Buildings performing at last weekend’s Westheimer Block Party: Ramon Medina [license]

77006, Attractions, Lower Westheimer, Streetlife, Streets

Lower Westheimer

09/14/09 12:10pm

Sweet and Fruity Afterlife of the Montrose Taco Cabana

Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail

13 Comments

A reader snaps this photo of the former pink Taco Cabana drive-thru at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer, “now painted white w red stripes at the bottom” — and asks if we know what’s going in there. Fortunately, another reader has the answer:

77006, Fast Food, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail

Avondale

08/31/09 2:18pm

Brushed Away: Lower Westheimer Lot Clearance

Landscape, Lower Westheimer, Montrose

6 Comments

“Looks like someoneâ€™s getting ready to build,” reports a Swamplot reader about this lot on the corner of Westheimer and Helena, at the very lowest end of Lower Westheimer:

All of the brown earth you see in the photo was formerly a tree or bush of some type. See the steel gate I’m taking the picture through? Just on the other side of it (about 3 yards from the steel gate), there was a chain link fence that provided shade, shelter and ‘hideability’ to local bums. If I had taken that photo the day before, you would have seen a lot of brush, bums and beer cans.

Even the bushes in the ‘sidewalk’ area (the sidewalk stops at this lot) were removed.

It could just be a beautification or bum-preventative project, but due to the midtown/downtown/Montrose location, I’m guessing that someone plans to construct a business there.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

77006, Avondale, Landscape, Lots, Lower Westheimer, Montrose

Houston History

08/13/09 3:41pm

When Westheimer Was for Cruising

Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Quicklink, Streetscapes

WHEN WESTHEIMER WAS FOR CRUISING John Nova Lomax reminisces: “This was Oil Bust Houston, and it looked then like Montrose might become a full-on slum. There were no condos along ‘Theimer (as it was often called by the mullet set) and few fancy restaurants. From Montrose Boulevard all the way to what is now called Midtown, Westheimer was lined with little more than one “modeling studio” after another, and it seems like there were even more tattoo shops than there are now. The denizens and visitors to these businesses (not to mention the street hustlers, drag queens, punks and Guardian Angels that still lurk in the area) provided plenty for the hordes of suburbanites — getting their first taste of freedom and big city life — to gawk at from the safety of their Blazers and Cutlasses. . . . on weekend nights, Westheimer would be bumper-to-bumper from Bagby to well past Buffalo Speedway, and sometimes all the way out to the Galleria, a phantasmagoria of teenage hormones and sound-collisions: car-horns, engines revving, and squealing girls, the hiss-and-almost-subsonic bass rumble of ‘Paul Revere’ booming from a Jeep Cherokee interlocking with a Honda CRX chirping out that inane ‘Two of Hearts’ pop ditty or the root canal Teutonic skronk of that ‘Warm Leatherette’ monstrosity.” [Hair Balls]

77006, Houston History, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Streetscapes

Lower Westheimer

03/24/09 6:02pm

Openings and Closings: Bars and Barbecue

Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Rice Village, Riverside Terrace, Sugar Land

An update on recent comings and goings:

Now Open: “A small group of cocktail freaks,” including former Beavers bartender Bobby Heugel, have at last opened the doors of Anvil Bar & Refuge on the Westheimer Curve. The location was originally a Bridgestone-Firestone tire shop, but was known more recently as the home of the Daiquiri Factory and Sliders.
Closed: In advance of that new 25,000-sq.-ft. Spec’s opening up in the former Linens â€™N Things in Weslayan Plaza, owner Christopher Massie decided to shut down Cepage Noir, his considerably smaller wine shop on Times Blvd. in the Rice Village.

More twists and turns:

77004, 77005, 77006, 77479, Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Rice-Village, Riverside-Terrace, Sugar-Land

Little York

01/19/09 2:53pm

Airline: How You Say Westheimer in Spanish

Lower Westheimer, Quicklink, Streets

No Comments

AIRLINE: HOW YOU SAY WESTHEIMER IN SPANISH Stopping briefly at the Sunny Flea Market and the Cedar Lounge, and passing by Dance Town USA, John Nova Lomax decides a weekend evening on Airline Dr. is a familiar scene: “Even on a Sunday, the street is livelier than most in Houston – in fact, it reminded Beebe and I of nothing so much as lower Westheimer circa 1986, albeit en espaÃ±ol. Teenagers still cruise the northern stretches of Airline in their cars, many of which sport speakers mounted in their grills, the better to share their norteÃ±o tunes with all those around them. (It’s loud, but since norteÃ±o is pretty much devoid of resonant bass frequencies, it doesn’t bulge glass or rattle your fillings.) There’s near gridlock at some intersections and the same sort of fleeting, duration-of-a-stoplight sexual tension (and thus its traveling partner — potential violence) ‘Theimer was known for back in its teenage hormone-drenched alleged heyday.” [Hair Balls; previously]

77037, Airline Dr., Little York, Lower Westheimer, Streets

Lower Westheimer

11/21/08 9:17am

Montrose’s Late-Night Restaurant Row

Montrose, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Restaurants