Bars and Clubs

10/27/17 3:45pm

Comment of the Day: What Parking Requirements for Bars Really Encourage

Comments, Development Regulations, Parking, Quicklink

26 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT PARKING REQUIREMENTS FOR BARS REALLY ENCOURAGE “Uggh . . . Every thread on here, or nextdoor, etc., about a new bar or restaurant attracts an inevitable ‘where will all these people park?‘ comment. Why do people feel the need to drive to this bar, and the others in the vicinity? Because our obsession with parking requires every bar or restaurant to dedicate 3/4 of their land area to machinery storage, making everything so far apart you canâ€™t walk anywhere. Wouldnâ€™t it make more sense to PROHIBIT bars from having parking lots, instead? Why does our city REQUIRE bar operators to subsidize one of the most dangerous and reckless activities people regularly engage in — drinking and driving — by forcing bars to provide parking for their patrons? Wouldnâ€™t you rather the bars in your neighborhood made it as difficult as possible for people to drive there, and take an Uber instead? Letâ€™s keep the drunks off our streets: Zero out the parking minimum on any establishment with an on-premise liquor license.” [Angostura, commenting on The Up-Scaled Bungalow Bar Now Puffing Up in Shady Acres Across from Cedar Creek] Illustration: Lulu

Bars and Clubs, Comments, Development Regulations, Hazards, Parking

10/24/17 3:30pm

The Up-Scaled Bungalow Bar Now Puffing Up in Shady Acres Across from Cedar Creek

New Construction, Restaurants, Shady Acres

12 Comments

This exterior rendering of Bungalow Heights, the new bar-restaurant going up at 1919 Beall St., the former site of Air Cool and the Junk Goes Green recycling center one block west of the Cedar Creek Bar & Grill on 20th St., shows a building with a lot of bungalow parts assembled in somewhat bungalow-ish fashion, being patronized by what appear to be normal-sized humans. But take a close look at the scale of the thing in proportion to the surrounding figures — and the actual framing now up on the site pictured above — and you’ll soon realize this is a building where every part is probably going to be a whole lot bigger than what it’s modeled after.

For starters, the structure itself measures 5,000 sq. ft. — about the size of the typical lot you might find a bungalow sitting on. This site itself is two-thirds of an acre.Â Contractor Avan Construction installed the building’s trusses last week with a crane. (The longest truss spans almost 70 ft. and weighs over 400 lbs.) Inside, you’ll find a floor plan significantly different from the typical living-dining-kitchen on one side, bedroom-bath-bedroom on the other arrangement of an unexpanded bungalow:

Bungalow Heights

77008, Bars and Clubs, Bungalows, Home Design, New Construction, Restaurants, Shady-Acres

Adaptive Reuse

08/09/17 1:00pm

Where Houston’s First Virtual Reality Bar Will Exist in Meatspace

Bars and Clubs, East End, Proposed Developments

5 Comments

The new bar planned for the 20,878-sq.-ft. warehouse at 3229 Navigation Blvd. in Houston’s East End that earlier this decade was home to Fred’s Trailer Truck Supply will be called Straylight Run and serve — according to its promoters — as Houston’s first-ever “Virtual Reality Bar.” That’s the conclusion of some internet sleuthing by HAIF (and Swamplot) commenter CrockpotandGravel, who after seeing Swamplot’s report on the alcohol license procured for the spot at the corner of Navigation and Engelke tracked down the establishment’s website, a (possibly spurned)Â logo proposal, and Instagram feed.

Straylight Run on Navigation

77003, Adaptive Reuse, Bars and Clubs, East End, Navigation, Proposed Developments

08/08/17 11:00am

The Warehouse Bar Coming Up Just Past the Curve in Navigation

East End

5 Comments

What’s happening at the corner of Navigation Blvd. and Engelke in the East End? A mix of alcohol and demolition: Mixed beverage, late-night, and beverage cartage permits were issued by the TABC last month to a yet-to-be-opened establishment named Straylight in the 20,878-sq.-ft. metal warehouse building with the brick front at 3229 Navigation Blvd. This spot is 4 blocks down the street from Ninfa’s, just past where Navigation starts to curveÂ east toward Buffalo Bayou. Adjacent to that property, excavators are finishing up their work demolishing the former General Supply & Equipment Co. building at 3203 Engelke St.

The newly vacant lot now spreads just to the north of the building where Straylight is planned, as shown in these photos taken by Swamplot reader Johnny Mann Jr.:

Straylight

77003, Bars and Clubs, Navigation, Warehouses

07/31/17 1:30pm

The Bit of Cross-Strip-Center Commerce Coming Soon to This Spring Branch Mini Mall

Spring Branch, Strip Centers

3 Comments

“We will not have a kitchen ourselves,” writes the proprietor of Cobble & Spoke, the new craft beer bar planned for space H, almost to the corner of the 1900 Blalock strip center at the northeast corner of Blalock St. and Campbell Rd., in response to a reader query earlier today on Facebook. “However there is a restaurant on site that you will be able to order with right at the bar & have the food delivered right to your table!” That restaurant is Simply Greek, just 6 storefronts down the L, past Precisions Research, a couple of vacant spaces, Ideal Furniture, Creatures of Yoga, and Senpai’s Cards.

At the opposite end of the center is the Stop n’ In convenience store paired with the pair of gas pumps that front the parking lot. Cobble & Spoke promises a selection of wines and craft ciders as well. Neighborhood riders who want to lock up their bicycles will be accommodated too, the bar’s owner notes: “We will have a bike rack out front & even some dedicated space inside.â€

Cobble & Spoke [Official site]
Progress! Super exciting – just another step closer to being Spring Branch’s newest craft beer bar! [Facebook]

Photo: Silvestri Investments

Craft Beer and Imported Food

77080, Bars and Clubs, Restaurants, Spring-Branch, Strip Centers

07/25/17 10:30am

Washington Ave’s Social Junkie Reaches the End Zone

Openings and Closings, Washington Corridor

15 Comments

One clue that the Social Junkie Sports Bar has come to the end of its almost-4-year run at the northwest corner of Washington Ave and Sawyer St.: The end-zone-styled valet parking lot pictured in the above recent photo is empty — all the way to the 25-yard line. Another clue: the “It’s been real . . . we out” goodbye notice posted to the establishment’s Instagram feed over the weekend. A reader tells us the place is shuttered and everything inside has been “thrown away.”

77007, Bars and Clubs, Openings and Closings, Washington Corridor

Gone Braun

Adaptive Reuse

07/06/17 3:00pm

Reopened East End Hardware on Leeland Now Welcoming Dogs, Offering Screwdrivers

Bars and Clubs, East Downtown, Openings and Closings

6 Comments

Actual neighborhood hardware store East End Hardware (see inset second photo) went belly-up only a few years after its 2012 opening at 3005 Leeland St. (at the corner of Ennis St. in East Downtown). Now opened in its place, as of the first of this month, is a replacement (pictured at top): East End Hardware.

Among the changes: a revamped exterior, with the name of the establishment now rendered in vintage Houston blue tile; a dog-friendly patio; and a new beverage menu that includes 20 beers on tap, mixed drinks, andÂ “boozy” New Orleans-style sno-balls in flavors such as piÃ±a colada, tiger’s blood, and screwdriver. Also: food.

EaDo Hard Drinks and Wares

77003, Adaptive Reuse, Bars, East Downtown, Openings and Closings, Retail

05/31/17 11:15am

Tuscanized Former Dry Cleaning Spot on Brays Bayou Almost Ready for Its Restaurant Biz Re-Debut

Braeswood Place, Restaurants

7 Comments

The Bacco folks appear to beÂ moving right along with theÂ makeover of that little freestanding Shriner’s HospitalÂ clothing donation centerÂ building along Brays Bayou northwest of Stella Link Rd., a few readers note. The donation center signage (shown in the second photo) has now been fully swapped out for the wine bar’s logo and entryway stylings, and the bar says it’ll be working on an outdoor deck soon, now that internal rearrangements have mostly wrapped up. The new look has so far maintained the stone skin that the building picked up aroundÂ 2013,Â before the then-empty retail shell picked up senior care consultantÂ Care Locators as a tenant; before that, the Pilgrim Cleaners had opted for a more flat color scheme (shown below in an old listing photo without much in the way of windows, either):

Bar on the Bayou

77025, Adaptive Reuse, Braeswood Place, Brays-Bayou, Restaurants, Retail

05/23/17 1:00pm

America Gardens, Small Bouquet of Other Upstate Restaurants To Be Planted in Midtown

Midtown, Restaurants

4 Comments

The Dallas-based real estate and restaurant developers at Syn Hospitality Group are hoping to haveÂ a Houston branch of flag-slathered bar and restaurant America GardensÂ open later this year (as rendered above), part of theirÂ in-the-works Midtown Common development over on Caroline St. just north of McGowen. The group went after some early city approvals earlier this year to bundle together a handful of property parcels on the block into the edgyÂ unreserved shape shown above. That footprint, mostly sticking along Caroline but stretching across to claim a bit of frontage on Austin St. as well, leavesÂ out the buildings occupied by Core Church Midtown, which is squeezed between the auto and auto accessoryÂ pairingÂ ofÂ Fast Traffic Auto Work and Austin Radio and Speedometer.Â

The group has released a few renderings of the first planned restaurant’s red-white-and-blue-bedecked interior, as well as its large outdoor patio:

Dallas Comes to Austin St.

77004, Bars and Clubs, Bars and Restaurants, Development Patterns, Midtown, New Construction, Proposed Developments, Redevelopment, Restaurants

05/08/17 11:30am

Braun’s New Confetti-Faced Sixties Warehouse at Center and Sawyer Now Up For Lease

Buildings for Lease, Washingto Corridor

3 Comments

The green-and-yellow speckled warehouse at 1005 Sawyer St. has a new blue leasing sign from Braun Enterprises tacked to its forehead, as regular real estate surveillor Chris AndrewsÂ noted over the weekend. BraunÂ bought the mid-sixties building last month, per county records of the transaction; the 6,360-sq.-ft. structure sits north of Washington Ave. sports-nightclub Social Junkie (which Braun also bought early last year), under the watchful gaze of the 24eleven Washington apartment midrise (to the left below):

77007, Buildings for Lease, Commercial Buildings for Lease, Washington Ave., Washington Corridor

Center St. Industrial Turnover

05/03/17 1:45pm

Sharpstown Drive-Thru Parking Lot Bar Planning Options for Walkers, Eaters, Sitters Too

Renovations, Restaurants, Sharpstown

4 Comments

TheÂ drive-your-drinks-home daquiri shopÂ planned for former MJ Motorcars office island at 8275 Beechnut St.Â (in the parking lot of stripmall nightclub Club Tequila) isn’t just going to be a drive-thru bar, a media rep for Prime Daquiri tells Swamplot. The rep says it’ll have a fullÂ kitchen, too — and that the company will be opting for screwtop bottlesÂ for their drinks instead of a Louisiana-styleÂ tape-on-the-top arrangement, as far as legal distribution goes. The landscaping and portico in the above rendering of the remodel show options forÂ customers on foot, as well — or perhaps even those who want to dine (or drink) in. The bar is planned near the parking lot’s Watermill Express kiosk, though going the nonalcoholic route will require self-service.

Previously on Swamplot:Â Former Used Car Dealership To Pass Out Daiquiris to Drivers in Club Tequila Parking Lot

Images: John Mene (rendering);Â Erick Ganzo (photo)

Prime Location

77036, Adaptive Reuse, Bars, Drive-Thrus, Redevelopment, Remodeling, Sharpstown, To-Go Alcohol

04/13/17 1:30pm

Watch an Adult Red Oak Get Craned into Place in Axelrad’s Tree-Bereaved Patio

Lower Midtown, Midtown, Trees

7 Comments

Swapping in for the tubelight-bedecked elmÂ that’s been standing in the middle of Axelrad Beer Garden at the corner of Almeda Rd. and Alabama St.:Â this way-past-saplingÂ Shumard red oak, carefully trucked, tipped, and droppedÂ into place earlier this week, as captured in the Yakety-Sax-tracked video montage above. The changeover comes at the end of the original tree’s years-long shuffle toward death, per the bar’s telling: the groupÂ was advised to evict the tree when they first started setting upÂ the space — as it was already old, and had been hit pretty hard by that tire-revealing 2011 droughtÂ —Â but opted to keep it around for a few years instead.

Following a recentÂ lightning strike from which it would never quite recover, the tree finally lost enough branches that the bar owners opted to put it out of its misery:

Series of Tubes in Midtown

77004, Bars, Beer Gardens, Cranes, Midtown, Trees, Videos

Bankruptcies

03/31/17 11:45am

Hunky Dory and Bernadine’s Are Not Dead Yet

Bars and Clubs, Houston Heights, Quicklink, Restaurants

11 Comments

HUNKY DORY AND BERNADINE’S ARE NOT DEAD YET Patio, Hunky Dory Tavern, 1801 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston Heights In a statement posted simultaneously yesterday to the Bernadine’s and Hunky Dory TavernÂ Facebook pages, Treadsack’s management team says the twin restaurants at 1801 N. Shepherd (along with the company’s remaining establishments: Down House, D&T Tavern, and Johnny’s Gold Brick) remain open — and that it’s hoping customers will support the decision by continuing to eat there: “Weâ€™ve filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for Hunky Dory and Bernadineâ€™s so we can restructure our debt and continue to operate. This was a very difficult decision, and not one we came to lightly, but the chance to save the businesses that all of our employees have worked so hard to build and so many of you, our guests, have supported, made it a risk worth taking. We love these restaurants and will continue to fight for them.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Hunky Dory

77008, Bankruptcies, Bars, Houston Heights, Restaurants

03/29/17 2:30pm

With Better Luck Tomorrow, Dry Creek Is About To Get Very Wet Later This Month