Swamplot Archives by Category: Restaurants

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Monday, July 27, 2009

Losing a Mint, Plus Helpful Subway Guides You To Your Next Strip-Center Sandwich Fix

July 27, 2009 – 5:15 pm

Houston radio host and blogger Lance Zierlein snaps photos of the lockout letters on two separate storefronts in the Shops on Sage strip center at 2800 Sage, on the corner of West Alabama. The notices, demanding that delinquent rent be paid before the stores can be reopened, were apparently posted by center managers Hunington Properties last Wednesday.

Who’s locked out? Lebanese restaurant Mint Cafe . . . and a Quiznos, which Zierlein reports on Twitter is already vacant.

But . . . what’s this? Someone from the nearby Subway in the Yorktown Plaza shopping center on W. Alabama has been kind enough to post a menu on the Quiznos door, with this pertinent Subway tagline featured prominently: “At Subway restaurants, we have your fresh interests at heart.” Plus, a handwritten invitation to visit!

Zierlein’s line: “Subway vultures picking over the carcass.”

Photo: Lance Zierlein

5:15 pm | 11 Comments | Read more about Leasing, Neighborhoods: Galleria, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Strip Centers
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Monday, July 20, 2009

When the Spindletop Stops

July 20, 2009 – 1:47 pm

A longtime fan of the rotating Spindletop Restaurant perched on top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Downtown writes in to note the passing . . . of the restaurant’s website:

I last called them in January to see about a reservation but they were still closed from Hurricane Ike. The gentleman who answered insisted they would re-open someday soon and I was intrigued. I continued checking their website for an announcement every few weeks but it never arrived and then the site itself disappeared Sadly, when websites revert to parking pages, it’s all but assured the business behind them has folded.

If the Spindletop is indeed gone, a slowly revolving icon of Houston’s oil boom days, what would the Hyatt do with such a, umm, unique structure perched atop it’s hotel? Landry’s Heliport and Cloud Bar? Rennovate it to become *the* foremost penthouse in the city? “Hey baby, not just the bed rotates, but the whole penthouse!” Perhaps just another semi-adequate restaurant with a unique and stunning view?

What was the city perch like in its glory pre-Ike days?

Continue Reading This Story >

1:47 pm | 8 Comments | Read more about Disaster Aftermath, Neighborhoods: Downtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
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Thursday, July 9, 2009

Comment of the Day: Don’t Tear Down That Restaurant!

July 9, 2009 – 1:25 pm
   

“A restaurant is a pretty good highest and best use for land in the loop. Look at the projects involving buying a restaurant and knocking it down to build. Little Woodrow’s = Empty lot no activity. The State Grille = Empty lot no activity. Nit Noi in Rice Village = Empty lot no activity. Am i missing any?? . . . Did the Stables on S. Main become anything?” [JPSivco, commenting on Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye: Otto’s, Back from the Edge of the Market]

1:25 pm | 1 Comment | Read more about Cancellations and Delays, Comments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Restaurants
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye: Otto’s, Back from the Edge of the Market

July 8, 2009 – 5:55 pm

That plan by the owners of Otto’s Bar B Q and Hamburgers on Memorial Dr. to shut down the restaurant, sell the land, and retire on the proceeds didn’t end up going so well after all, the Houston Business Journal’s Allison Wollam notices. The 58-year-old restaurant

was slated to be demolished to make way for the sale of the high-profile Memorial Drive land, but the restaurant has now fully reopened after the owners were unable to find a buyer for the property. The hamburger side of the two-sided restaurant has remained in business, but the portion selling barbecue closed for a time. A sign on the door says the barbecue side of the restaurant celebrated a grand reopening on April 15.

But word of the reopening seems to be spreading slowly. The once-bustling parking lot of the restaurant, for example, was only sparsely populated during lunchtime on a day earlier [last] week.

The owners, June and Marcus Sofka, were told they might be able to get as much as $150 a square foot for their property when they listed it with Cushman & Wakefield at the end of 2007. But a real estate broker tells Wollam the 1.3-acre Otto’s property at 5502 Memorial Dr. and the 17,000-sq.-ft. shopping center the couple owns next door might be worth a little less than half of that today.

Photo: Flickr users Bob & Lorraine Kelly

5:55 pm | 10 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Land Prices, Land for Sale, Neighborhoods: Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
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Fast Food Fire Foam Fake-Outs

July 8, 2009 – 1:40 pm
   

Acting on the orders of a prank caller, managers of 2 local Arby’s locations recently ended up spraying foam all over their kitchen and food-prep areas. The caller, claiming to be from the local fire department, said that the system had been turned off, but instructed the manager in each instance to pull the lever that activates the fire suppression equipment — to allow the department to perform a test. At the Arby’s on Garth Rd. in Baytown, the foam caused at least $600 in physical damage and significantly more in loss of business during the cleanup. At an Arby’s in Clear Lake, employees “followed the instructions from the caller even further and broke out the windows of the restaurant, according to [Baytown Detective Lt. Eric] Freed. The Jack-In-The-Box on Decker Drive in Baytown also got a similar call, but did not do anything that the caller said to do, he said.” [Baytown Sun]

1:40 pm | 6 Comments | Read more about Crime, Neighborhoods: Baytown, Quicklink, Restaurants
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

And July Is Meat Candy Month

July 7, 2009 – 12:22 pm
   

Its first Houston store (at Main and Kirby) apparently a patty-smashing success, 3 new Smashburgers are now ready to open in a few other strip centers: “First up is a restaurant in the Westchase area at 10705 Westheimer, Suite C, opening on July 15. A second will open July 22 in the Energy Corridor at 1635 Eldridge (Eldridge and Briar Forest). And a third, located at 5520 Buffalo Speedway (Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet) in the West University area, will open July 29.” [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]

12:22 pm | 16 Comments | Read more about Neighborhoods: Energy Corridor, Neighborhoods: West University, Neighborhoods: Westchase, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants, Strip Centers
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Comment of the Day: Away from the Ropelines

June 30, 2009 – 3:04 pm
   

“I’m new to the area, and am trying to learn about different neighborhoods. I thought [Rice Military] was a good place, but these posts are making me rethink. I want an area close to restaurants and neighborhood bars, maybe a few shops, but not late night strobe light clubs with velvet ropes and VIP sections. Are there any areas in Houston inner-loop that are cool like this, or are they all either club areas or suburban areas where everyone lives in a house with a yard? Why aren’t there any cool areas for the 30-something crowd that doesn’t want clubs and drunk drivers, but does want shops, bars and restaurants?” [Joe, commenting on Coming Soon: Late Night Rice Military Action]

3:04 pm | 21 Comments | Read more about Comments, Nightlife, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail
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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Where Long Point Is the High Point: Houston Westside Taco Tourism

June 25, 2009 – 1:19 pm

Maybe this is the industry that’ll bring in . . . all those bargain-seeking tourists from Austin?

Video: Nelson Flores

1:19 pm | 4 Comments | Read more about Attractions, Neighborhoods: Long Point, Restaurants, Tourism
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Coming Soon to the River Oaks Shopping Center

June 24, 2009 – 1:52 pm

Writing in the River Oaks Examiner, Cynthia Lescalleet has a few updates on the River Oaks Shopping Center. Here’s what Swamplot has pieced together:

  • That well-trafficked space across the atrium from The Gap on the south side of West Gray will soon have a new tenant. Yes, this is the spot previously occupied by clothing retailer Harold Powell (whose parent company, Harold’s Stores, declared bankruptcy in November). Before that, it was occupied by M. King Interiors (which skipped out in the night a few years earlier, according to reports), before that Mesa Restaurant (ditto), and apparently way before that a restaurant called XIT. A new 6,200-sq.-ft. Mutual of Omaha Bank will be moving into the space soon.
  • Meanwhile, across the street, Barnes & Noble will be opening in its brand hulking new building around October 1st.

What else?

Continue Reading This Story >

1:52 pm | 57 Comments | Read more about Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Neighborhoods: River Oaks, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers
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Monday, June 15, 2009

Signs of Retail Life at the Corner of Kirby and Richmond

June 15, 2009 – 4:58 pm

A reader sends in a pic of the action at the renovated but long-suffering strip center at the southwest corner of Kirby and Richmond, which looked to be getting awfully lonely again after the departure of its lone tenant, Hue Vietnamese restaurant, in March.

But Hue is back as Kata Robata Sushi and Grill, and that white banner on the opposite leg indicates that the Dessert Gallery has moved in. Off camera, to the right, signs announce that the endcap is slated for a Texas Community Bank, but our reader reports seeing no sign of any money inside.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

4:58 pm | 21 Comments | Read more about Neighborhoods: Upper Kirby, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Losing Luisito’s

June 11, 2009 – 11:41 am

A reader who more than a week earlier “couldn’t help but think that the building might be one of the few acceptable sites for the relocation of Las Alamedas,” sends in this photographic evidence that the building that used to contain the Luisito’s Cocina Cantina on the North Loop at T.C. Jester will no longer be useful for that purpose. And the reader provides the score:

Large stucco clad hacienda buildings - 0, Empty Piles of Rubble - 1

Photo of former Luisito’s Cocina Cantina, 2510 North Loop West: Swamplot inbox

11:41 am | 2 Comments | Read more about Demolitions, Neighborhoods: Brookwoods Estates, Restaurants
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Monday, June 8, 2009

Snoballs at MAM’s: the Heights of Ice

June 8, 2009 – 2:08 pm

Bloodhound steward and low-cost-wedding expert Sara E. Cotner discovers that the snoballs at the new MAM’s House of Ice in the Fiesta parking lot at 14th and Studewood reside in the upper echelons of the highly stratified frozen-water market:

The New Orleans-sytle snowball shop has been up and running since Friday, May 29, although it has been “a year in the making.” The co-owner that I chatted with is from England but has lived in The Heights for the past 2.5 years. He quit his job as an architect and decided to “jump on a whim” and “have a go at it” by opening a “cottagey, cutesy, cutesy” snoball shop on a piece of parking lot leased from Fiesta. One of the other owners is in the process of quitting her job as a receptionist, and the third owner works in banking as an accountant.

During their year of research, they uncovered a hierarchy of ice. Apparently, snow cones are on the bottom, shaved ice is the next highest level, and snoballs are at the very top, since they are like “eating snow.”

Photos: Sara E. Cotner (top) and MAM’s House of Ice

2:08 pm | 22 Comments | Read more about Neighborhoods: Houston Heights, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
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Friday, June 5, 2009

Restaurant Row

June 5, 2009 – 4:42 pm
   

Six-month-old, heavy-tweeting, “new world creole” Richmond Ave. restaurant Sauté announces it has closed . . . on Twitter: “I guess this weekend saw three inside-the-loop restaurants close: us, Rickshaw, and Cafe La Jadeite. Sigh.” [Twitter; more on the other restaurants at Eating Our Words]

4:42 pm | 4 Comments | Read more about Neighborhoods: Upper Kirby, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants
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Monday, June 1, 2009

A Look at the New Midtown Restaurant in the Mix

June 1, 2009 – 8:15 am

At last: That year-old, right-up-to-the-street, parking-garage-behind The Mix @ Midtown building at 3201 Louisiana gets a ground-floor tenant! Going into the buildout in the space at the southeast corner of Elgin, below 24 Hour Fitness: a new Japanese restaurant.

Want a peek inside?

Continue Reading This Story >

8:15 am | 12 Comments | Read more about Leasing, Mixed Use, Neighborhoods: Midtown, New Construction, Restaurants
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Monday, April 27, 2009

Comment of the Day: We Park It for You!

April 27, 2009 – 3:14 pm
   

“Are there any restauranteurs out there who can shed light on their reasoning for forced valet when plenty of easy parking is available? Is it because they want to limit their clientele to those who have enough money not to care?” [Carol, commenting on Houston Valet]

3:14 pm | 7 Comments | Read more about Comments, Parking, Quicklink, Restaurants
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