- 1123 W. Gray St. [HAR]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Montrose
UPDATED: JEANNINE’S CLOSING IS ONLY, UMM, PERMANENT, SAYS JEANNINE’S 
Why has the Belgium-by-way-of-Montrose Jeannine’s Bistro stopped serving those moules-frites? Culturemap, it appears, has been following the Westheimer Rd. restaurant’s self-demotion on Facebook: “Earlier posts,” reports Whitney Radley, giving a breathless blow-by-blow, “indicate gradually waning hours — the restaurant temporarily dropped lunch service on April 10 — and chronic staffing issues — it issued a call for ‘good waiters and kitchen helpers’ several days after — before warning . . . that the bistro’s kitchen would temporarily close altogether to ‘make some decisions.'” Update, 12:50 p.m.: Another Facebook post from Jeannine’s says that the restaurant has decided to close for good. [Culturemap] Photo: Allyn West
Last week, this sign showed up in the window at the old Sophia restaurant on W. Main and Mandell, indicating that something or someone called Faustian Bargain intends to serve Montrose some devil juice — er, liquor. Sophia closed here at the end of February, you’ll remember, and Café Artiste mysteriously disappeared several years before that. Some sleuthing by a Swamplot reader — later echoed by Eater Houston and Culturemap — turned up that 2 of the likely new owners of the 2,400-sq.-ft. standalone near the Menil Collection are Omar Afra and Jagatjit Katial of Free Press Houston and Fitzgerald’s fame. Inquiries for more information haven’t been returned.
- Is the Free Press Crew Opening a Bar in Montrose? [Eater Houston]
- A new bar with major music cred is opening by The Menil: Want to drink to Free Press? [Culturemap]
- Previously on Swamplot: West Main Standalone Now Available for Next Restaurant, “Dude, What Gives?â€: Cafe Artiste’s Disappearing Act
Photos: Allyn West
The other tenant in this new retail center at Westheimer and Dunlavy will be Space Montrose. Owner Leila Peraza says that by August the artsy and crafty retailer at 2608 Dunlavy will be relocating from this spot behind Cafe Brasil into the 4,800-sq.-ft. building under construction at the corner about 200 ft. away. Space Montrose will take up 1,200 sq. ft. of that and share a wall with what a pending liquor license names Leaven & Earth, a pastry cafe from well-schooled, globe-trotting chef Roy Shvartzapel. Recently, 2608 Dunlavy has been an art gallery and yoga studio; Peraza says she heard a book store is next.
- Supporting Handmade in the USA [Space Montrose]
- Previously on Swamplot: More To Come at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, Dirt and Flour Moved To Create New Place To Drink at Westheimer and Dunlavy, Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Photos: Allyn West
A rep from Edge Realty Partners says that that new retail center that’s now under construction at Westheimer and Dunlavy will have 2 tenants. The primary one, occupying 3,600 sq. ft. of the new building’s proposed 4,800, will be a well-bread pastry cafe from Roy Shvartzapel, the globe-trotting chef profiled recently in Eater Houston. A TABC permit application, filed April 17, suggests that the cafe will be called Leaven & Earth.
And the other tenant? The Edge rep says that names can’t yet be named, but that a lease is all but complete for a “boutique” retail shop that’s already in Montrose to relocate inside the remaining 1,200-sq.-ft. suite that’s depicted in the rendering here as right next to Agora.
- Pastry Chef Roy Shvartzapel Reveals Plan to Bring World-Class Cafe to Montrose [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Dirt and Flour Moved To Create New Place To Drink at Westheimer and Dunlavy, Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Images: Edge Realty Partners (rendering); Allyn West (building)
Note: More here.
It looks like that retail center that’s replacing the art gallery that burned down is beginning to shape up. And it looks like at least one of the future tenants intends to serve adult beverages. The sign behind the chain-link at the site names the applicant as Leaven & Earth, and a rep from the TABC confirms that the application, filed on April 17, is pending. The original plans for the site here at 1706 Westheimer describe a 4,829-sq.-ft. building — with 36 parking spaces behind it, accessible from Dunlavy — designed to replace the Galerie Mado Chalvet, which was lost in a fire and immortalized on a backpack in 2012.
- Previously on Swamplot: Burned Building Next to Agora on Westheimer Returns — As a Backpack, No, Dunkin’ Donuts Is Not Coming to the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy, The Commotion at the Corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy
Photos: Allyn West
ADIOS, BOCADOS 
Culturemap’s reporting that Bocados on West Alabama is closing after a party on Cinco de Mayo. Bocados owners and friends from their days at across-the-street University of St. Thomas Terry Flores and Lily Hernandez tell Culturemap that though they’ll be leaving the restaurant at 1312 West Alabama where they’ve been for 15 years, they’re considering buying a Heights property where they might bring Bocados back. Moreover, reports Whitney Radley, the pair says they plan to open this summer “in a yet-undisclosed location” downtown a restaurant they’re calling The Red Ox Grill. And what’s up next for the Bocados building? Radley writes that it’ll be The Brick and Spoon, a restaurant coming to Montrose by way of Lafayette, Louisiana, on June 1. [Culturemap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
Regretting what he calls “too much shitty visual culture” in Montrose, artist Cody Ledvina has spent the past few months approaching businesses with ideas for murals as a way of changing that culture, wall by wall. (You might remember Ledvina’s redone Mary’s mural before the leather bar was closed to make way for Blacksmith.) The most recent mural is this elongated weiner dog stretching out on the side of EJ’s Bar at 2517 Ralph St. The photo’s taken from Kueter St. beside Buffalo Exchange and that fenced-in vacant lot on Westheimer near Dunlavy. Also shown here is part of a mural — that’s a skyline silhouette, there — on the side of Urban Leasing & Realty’s building at 1901 Vermont St.
What’s going on here? From behind a window across W. Dallas, a reader sends this photo and wants to know. According to a construction manager on site, the work to this point has involved utility excavation for what will be, he says, “Class A apartments.”
Why did Tejas Boots leave 208 Westheimer? Owner Mike Kuykendahl says that the family that owns the li’l strip center (above) that Tejas Boots shared with Hollywood Food & Cigars asked them to: The family gave the tenants 2 months to move, explaining that they’re considering upgrading the 4,100-sq.-ft. building, says Kuykendahl, or tearing it down and redeveloping that corner of Helen and Westheimer. Tejas Boots had been here since 1984; they’ve relocated just a few blocks west into the browner, newer retail strip stack shown at right at 415 Westheimer. It’s not much as signs go, but that faint horizontal smudge beneath the Green Park Pilates logo marks the spot where the bootmakers can now be found.
- When only the finest Custom Boots, Belts and Buckles will do [Tejas Custom Boots]
- Previously on Swamplot: Westheimer Bootmakers To Reopen Shop a Few Blocks West on Westheimer
Photos: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOKING FOR THE HOTEL MONTROSE “Hotel Hotel Hotel. A hotel is long overdue for Montrose. Kimpton, Aloft, W or some other modern brand would be great. I am no developer, so I have no idea if it is doable but it would be welcome. It has the bones and imagine a hip hotel pool bar on that roof! I bring people into Houston who are considering moving here from the West Coast and Northeast. They want to live in an inner city hip walking area; Montrose generally. I don’t want them staying downtown where the streets are dead at night. The ZaZa is great but it is too far to walk to Westheimer. The Galleria has too much traffic. In the end though, I generally recommend the Derek or the ZaZa. If not here then a new build at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. And what is the story about that lot on Westheimer near Dunlavy where it looks like construction started at one time? Hotel possibility? I am really really convinced that Montrose needs a hotel!” [charlie, commenting on What 3400 Montrose Looks Like Inside]
This photo of the strip center just west of the Lower Westheimer restaurant row shows the recently closed Tejas Custom Boots and Hollywood Food & Cigars. A Swamplot reader says that a sign posted in the window here at Helen and 208 Westheimer says that the alligator- and ostrich-unfriendly bootmakers will be moving the stretching and stitching operations farther west to the 400 block of Westheimer. As of Friday morning, calls to Tejas Custom Boots for comment about the relocation and reopening haven’t been returned. City records show that the 4,100-sq.-ft. 1960 building and 11,322-sq.-ft. property are owned by a single family.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
The only thing that’s really changed about 3400 Montrose, a tipster tells Swamplot, is the name of its owner: Global Paragon, which bought the former podium for Scott Gertner’s Skybar in 2011, went “belly up” this past November, the tipster says, and the vacant 10-story building’s now owned and managed by a 40-person LLC that’s looking for a buyer or a joint venture.
And that’s where these interior photos, from a short-on-info listing posted recently on Cushman & Wakefield’s website, come in:
MULTIPLYING HOUSTON’S RENT-A-BIKE FLEET 
Yesterday, reports abc13, the city added to the original 3 B-Cycle kiosks 18 more, bringing the fleet of pay-to-play bikes to 175. Thus far, most of the rental racks are clustered Downtown — including the one shown here at the Tellepsen Family YMCA on Pease St. — but the expansion, funded wth $750,000 from Blue Cross and Blue Shield, also added racks to Hermann Park and the Westheimer restaurant row near Blacksmith and Underbelly. And even more are planned, says abc13, for the East End, the Med Center, and unnamed universities. (You can mess around with an interactive map of B-Cycle locations here and here.) [abc13; Houston Chronicle; B-Cycle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
THE MUSE COMING TO CASTLE COURT 
Dallas developer Behringer Harvard announced today that construction’s underway on The Muse, an apartment complex planned for the 2.9 acres in Castle Court sold last summer where the former Andover Richmond Apartments had stood — until their demolition in November — for 50 years. The Muse, developed by a partnership between Behringer Harvard and Trammell Crow, will have 4 stories with 270 units atop 2 levels of parking, says the press release. Also planned for the site at 1301 Richmond near Graustark? “Common-area amenities will include a cyber cafe, business center, state-of-the-art fitness center, luxury swimming pool and dog-amenity station.” [PR Newswire; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
