Bars and Clubs

06/09/14 3:00pm

Downtown’s Live Sports Bar Will Be Coming Back from the Dead, Sort Of

Downtown, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Retail

5 Comments

Be careful not to confuse these life-and-death downtown bar stories: As we learned this morning, the Live! at Bayou Place bars are now dead. But the Live Sports Bar (no exclamation point!), which died back in 2009 at 405 Main St. is about to be resurrected. But in name and address only: A Live Sports Bar — same name, but with different owners — will be opening up in a slightly smaller version of the original space (4,000 sq. ft., marked down from 6,140) across from the Preston St. light-rail stop sometime in the next few months, once the buildout is complete. A Swamplot reader captured the above photo showing the new head-turning banner now posted out front.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Same Name, Same Spot, Different Owners

77002, Bars and Clubs, Openings and Closings, Retail

06/05/14 1:00pm

The Rice Hotel’s Storied State Bar, a Favorite Among Lawyers, Will Soon Turn into a Lawless Kitchen

Downtown, Proposed Developments

6 Comments

State Bar at Rice Lofts, 909 Texas Ave., Downtown Houston

State Bar at Rice Lofts, 909 Texas Ave., Downtown Houston The State Bar and Lounge, which shut down this past weekend after more than 15 years in a storied space that was formerly home to the Capitol Club in the Rice Hotel, is about to undergo a “massive remodel,” a source tells Swamplot.

The members-only Capitol Club was once the haunt of a number of powerful and well-known attorneys, politicians and other powerful men in the city; according to KHOU’s Doug Miller, it was also the site of President Kennedy’s last drink (unless, of course, he polished off a few more daiquiris in his hotel room after his late-November 1963 visit). In its quasi-reconstruction and rebirth as a public establishment after the renovation of the Rice Hotel into the Rice Lofts in 1998, the spot maintained popularity among lawyers — especially the newly minted ones: Many would head to the State Bar to celebrate passing the state bar.

To judge it by its name, however, the new second-story venue now being planned there may have a slightly different set of guiding principles. A bar named Lawless Kitchen and Spirits will open in the space after renovations are complete, the source tells Swamplot.

Is This Still Legal?

77002, Bars and Clubs, Downtown, Houston History, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Renovations

06/02/14 2:30pm

For East Downtown Video Game Bar, Kickstarter Fundraising Attempt Is Game Over

East Downtown, Financing, Nightlife, Proposed Developments

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With an entertaining, droll video (see above), a close-to-Downtown location already picked out, and a “first ever in Houston” concept, the fundraising effort for the Press Start Bar seemed to have a lot going for it. Alas, the Kickstarter game plan for the planned console-videogame-themed nightspot has failed to reach its high-score goal. After 30 days on the crowdfunding platform, the crew garnered $18,483 in pledges from 81 different backers. That’s impressive for a first try at the controls, but a bit shy of the stated $50,000 its founders said they needed toÂ secure the proposed location — “off Rusk and St. Emanuel”Â (between the 59 overpass and BBVA Compass Stadium) — obtain building permits, and get started with TABC licensing, to be able to serve craft beers and Pokemon-themed cocktails, among other menu items.

Press Restart

77003, Bars and Clubs, Crowdfunding, East Downtown, Nightlife, Proposed Developments

05/30/14 12:45pm

The Folks Operating the New Marfreless Are a Bunch of Posers, Say the Folks Who Used To Run the Bar

Lawsuits, Leasing, Vermont Commons

3 Comments

Marfreless, 2006 Peden St., River Oaks Shopping Center, Houston The former operators of Marfreless — the oh-so-dark bar that hid behind the unmarked blue door under the stairs in back of the River Oaks Shopping Center for more than a decade until shutting down in the middle of last year — filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the group that later renovated the space and opened a bar of the same name inside it in January of this year. In essence, the suit claims that the bar’s current operators are imposters, and are using the Marfreless name in its former leased location — and claiming to have reopened it — without permission. â€œMarfreless was temporarily closed in March of 2013, when it transitioned to new ownership, the third in its distinguished lifetime,â€ reads the new Marfreless website, created by the bar’s current operators. But the lawsuit claims that isn’t true. “Despite these representations by Defendant,” reads a filing by Marfreless Ventures, LP, “no such ownership transition has ever taken place.”

The Lawsuit Behind the Bar

77019, Bars and Clubs, Lawsuits, Leasing, River-Oaks-Shopping-Center, Vermont Commons

03/07/14 10:30am

The Bar on South Shepherd Dr. Where the Pants Went on Backward

Houston History, Vermont Commons

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Shepherd Place Office Tower, 2323 S. Shepherd, Houston Why would patrons at Rita Wanstrom’s Roaring 60s bar at 2305 S. Shepherd Dr. — just north of Fairview — regularly retreat to the bathroom to put their pants on backwards? In the late 1980s, the site of the nightspot, along with a few neighboring buildings, was replaced with the Shepherd Place office tower pictured above (an enterprise that reportedly bankrupted former governor John Connolly and a few other investors in the project). But back in the uh, roaring sixties, the bar was a famed lesbian hangout — subject to regular police raids focused on female zipper placement.

Lesbians in the Roaring 60s

77019, Bars and Clubs, Houston History, Nightlife, Vermont Commons

02/24/14 11:00am

Latest Expletive-Laden, Landlord-Blaming, Bar-Closing Tirade Comes from The Usual

Cottage Grove, Leasing, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Quicklink

9 Comments

LATEST EXPLETIVE-LADEN, LANDLORD-BLAMING, BAR-CLOSING TIRADE COMES FROM THE USUAL The Usual, 5519 Allen St., Cottage Grove, Houston Cottage Grove lesbian bar The Usual shut down its patio-by-the-railroad-tracks location last week, and marked the occasion with a Facebook announcement declaring enough was enough: “We planned on remodeling but our landlord refused to pay for all the roofing and electrical needs (as most of you know was much needed) . . . we decided to say fuck it and we will do it and make The Usual look better than ever . . . but then we got news that our renewal would double our rent and our landlord is such a dick he knows we can’t afford that and he is so greedy and wanting to sell the property and could not because we were still there, he knew he had to get us out . . . well . . . we fought and fought but unfortunately had to make the decision to move . . . we will be absent for a short while but will return soon and can’t wait to see all of you!” A mysterious post on Yelp from a first-time reviewer points to an alternative — or perhaps additive — explanation for the sudden closing of the bar at 5519 Allen St., facing onto T.C. Jester: a TABC license that had expired at the end of last November. A more recent Facebook posting declares The Usual is “On the hunt for our NEW location!!! Only going bigger and better!!” [The Usual on Facebook, via Culturemap] Photo: LoopNet

Bars and Clubs, Cottage Grove, Leasing, Nightlife, Openings and Closings

01/06/14 10:00am

What’s Been Happening at Marfreless, and When It’ll Reopen

77019, Bars and Clubs, Openings and Closings, Renovations, River-Oaks-Shopping-Center

Montrose, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Renovations

2 Comments

Marfreless, 2006 Peden St., River Oaks Shopping Center, Houston The new owners of Marfreless have updated the website of theÂ shuttered River Oaks Shopping CenterÂ bar to indicate that it plans on reopening in January. Which makes sense, since the previously promised summer 2013 re-launch date for the 2006 Peden St. location has come and gone. A comment appended back in December to a Facebook photo album showing renovationsÂ of the signless institution’s famed dimly lit interior provides an actual opening date: “probably” January 17th. What delights await inside? A unisex restroom with 2 stalls, chandeliers, plus newÂ VIP areas carved out of what were previously storage rooms: “There will be curtains upstairs that you can pull closed for privacy or open for groups. Or . . . pull closed for groups, if that’s what you’re into.” The stairs, however, will still offer the “same place to hit your head.”

Marfreless To Reopen January 2014 [Marfreless]
“Make-Out Bar” Marfreless is Expected to Reopen Soon [Eater Houston]
Previously on Swamplot:Â The Return of Marfreless,Â Weingarten Responds: Hey, It’s Not Us, It’s Marfreless,Â The End Coming for Marfreless in River Oaks

Photo: Marfreless

Behind the Blue Door

12/23/13 11:15am

And Yet Another Bar Is Coming to Main St.’s Happening 300 Block

Downtown, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Retail

6 Comments

AND YET ANOTHER BAR IS COMING TO MAIN ST.’S HAPPENING 300 BLOCK 312 Main St., Downtown Houston The stretch of Main St. downtown between Prairie and Congress that’s been nominated for the Ground-Floor Retail Award in this year’s Swampies will soon have another bar to add to its growing collection. A food-and-mixed-drinks establishment named Bar Materia — at least that’s the proposed name — is planned for the spot shown at left at 312 Main. Last week, the folks behind Anvil, Hay Merchant, and Underbelly announced plans to open The Nightingale Room a couple doors down at 308 Main St., downstairs from Captain Foxheart’s Bad News Bar & Spirit Lodge. [Swamplot inbox; Eater Houston] Photo: Downtown District

77002, Bars and Clubs, Downtown, Nightlife, Proposed Developments, Retail

Adaptive Reuse

11/21/13 10:30am

Village Restaurateur’s New Wine Bar Coming to Old Cat House Next to Doomed Recycling Center

Bars and Clubs, Renovations, West University

No Comments

5010 Dincans St., West University, Houston

Sign, 5010 Dincans St., West University, Houston A city permit was approved last week to convert a portion of the building that once housed the A&M Pet Clinic at 5010 Dincans St. into a wine bar. The 2-story building is across the street from the new apartment block Hanover is completing between Bissonnet and North Blvd. just west of Kirby Dr. The Swamplot reader who visited the closing-after-New-Year’s West U recycling center just to the north of the property finds the posted TABC notice, which identifies the applicant as Catering Plus. Ray Memari, co-owner of the Antica Osteria Italian Restaurant on Bissonnet just west of Greenbriar, purchased the building last year.