LATEST EXPLETIVE-LADEN, LANDLORD-BLAMING, BAR-CLOSING TIRADE COMES FROM THE USUAL 
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
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Leasing
BROWN BOOK SHOP PLANS TO STAY DOWNTOWN FOR A WHILE 
Sales declines at downtown mainstay Brown Book Shop had the owner within weeks of shutting down the oil-and-gas industry technical bookstore, the shop’s new owners tell the Chronicle‘s Erin Mulvaney. But a turnaround sparked by increased online sales have changed the outlook. Stephen Plumb and Noah Davis, hired last July as consultants by the previous owner, now plan to renew the lease at 1517 San Jacinto for another 5 years for their new acquisition, double the staff to 10 employees, and change the store’s focus to its website. They’re remodeling the building’s interior as well. [Houston Chronicle ($)] Photo: Brown Book Shop
The 1,500-sq.-ft. space deep in the crotch of the Ella Plaza Shopping Center just south of the railroad tracks at 3480 Ella Blvd. is the new home of modern dance troupe Suchu Dance. It’s also the former longtime Houston haunt of Patsy Swayze‘s Houston JazzBallet Company and the Swayze School of Dance. Long before the dance teacher made it big with her choreography for Urban Cowboy in 1980 and decamped to Hollywood, Swayze taught hundreds of gyrating Houstonians — including her 5 children, in the strip center corner. Her son Buddy, who as Patrick Swayze went on to star in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, started barging in on classes there at the age of 3, long before playing football at Waltrip High School across the street; he met his wife, Lisa Niemi, in the strip-center studio as well. He died from pancreatic cancer in 2009; his mother passed away in California’s Simi Valley last September.
Somebody Put Baby in a Strip Center Corner
Having successfully reached its scaled-back crowdfundraising goals with a $10,000 Indiegogo run back in September, the team behind the Houston Makerspace says it has secured a lease for 21,000 sq. ft. in this warehouse building at 100 Hutcheson St., 4 blocks north of the coming rail line on Harrisburg. Inside, eventually, will be shops for jewelry fabrication, screen printing, rapid prototyping (with a laser cutter and 3D printers), carpentry, metalwork, and sewing and textile work, and plain ol’ work work. There are also plans to put in a commercial kitchen and classrooms, install 3,000 sq. ft. of climate-controlled office, studio, and lounge space. Outside, they hope to set up a garden.
Shop Talk
A couple of renderings are out of the 2 office buildings in Hughes Landing ExxonMobil has signed up to lease as part of the oil company’s surprise second new Houston-area campus. And the one above shows a broad-ranging view of the Hughes Landing development — as the office buildings’ architects at Kirksey see it. Judging from the renderings and the Hughes Landing site plan posted on the Woodlands website (below), the 2 buildings will not sit directly on the Lake Woodlands waterfront but along Hughes Landing Blvd., 2 parking garages south of the previously announced Two Hughes Landing. The view out of the corner conference room shows off the overall development’s mixed-use cred: To the left is the 175-room hotel shown on the plan, fronting Hughes Landing Blvd. and a fountained inlet of Lake Woodlands; beyond and to the right of that is the 8-story, 390-unit apartment building that sits behind a row of inlet-side restaurants with dummy names. At the far right of the image is an 8-level parking garage with a waterside grill on the ground floor (somehow obscuring the expected view of the Two Hughes Landing office building). That’s quite a view, but it’s a well-chosen one.
Off the Waterfront
Responding to the unidentified pamphleteer who went door to door over the weekend distributing warnings of an impending demolition for The Place Apartments at 1341 Castle Ct., the 90-unit complex’s new management responded early this week with its own tenant missive. The politely worded note from property manager Lori Lindley of newly hired Greystar responds point-by-point to the issues raised in the original flyer, namely that 1) tenants will get a “document stating the amount due,” not an eviction notice, if they’re a few days late with rent payments; 2) the management office is now closed on weekends; 3) online and drop-box payment options offered by the previous management company are no longer available; 4) a recent utility bill was distributed late to tenants only because of the recent change in ownership; and 5) the biggie: “The property was purchased with the intent to do a lease down. However, it is not our goal to evict any resident . . . We are currently renewing leases through 4/30/2014; should this change we will notify all residents accordingly.”
A Word from Management
THE END IN SIGHT FOR RANDALLS 
The Randalls grocery store on the southeast corner of Westheimer and Wilcrest is a goner, reports Catie Dixon. And she tags the chain itself as the likely next casualty in the region’s ongoing grocery wars. Landlord Weingarten Realty, which also manages the Whole Foods Market across the street, sent out notice earlier this month that the space occupied by the former top-performing Randalls in the Westchase Shopping Center is now available for lease. But other new grocery stores are coming to the area: another 60 in the next 18 months, keeping up the recent pace, says broker Jason Baker — who also notes Trader Joe’s is experiencing “challenges” with its new store on S. Voss near Woodway. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Randalls at 11041 Westheimer Rd.: Weingarten Realty
COMMENT OF THE DAY: READING BETWEEN THE LINES OF A LEASES-NOT-UP-YET STORY 
“Translation: current tenants have murderously cheap rents and would not leave for a million bucks. Buyer is trying to play hard ball by threatening to let the property sit until the leases are up unless tenants take a crappy buyout offer.
Prediction: Buyer will eventually pay what it takes to get tenants out once they realize that no one will want to pay market rate to be in that old dog of a strip mall.” [Old School, commenting on Apartments and Retail for Westheimer and Montrose Corner? Not Until Half Price Books and Spec’s Scoot] Illustration: Lulu
The undisclosed location of the planned Fluff Bake Bar retail location and bar is somewhere in Midtown, owner Rebecca Masson tells Swamplot. But there’s a bit of fundraising to do before the former Top Chef Just Desserts contestant can sign the lease she’s been getting ready for the space. The self-described “Sugar Hooker” currently operates her wholesale dessert business out of space she shares with 5 other businesses in the Kraftsmen Cafe kitchen at 611 W. 22nd St. in the Heights, selling fluffernutters, cake-in-cup cupcakes, and macaroons to retailers such as Revival Market, Double Trouble, Southside Espresso, and Inversion Coffee House. But if her just-launched Kickstarter campaign bears fruit . . . er, compote, she’ll move all operations to the new space. In addition to desserts, Masson is hoping to serve beer and wine at her “proper dessert bar.” She’s hoping to bring in $50,000 in crowdfunded donations within a month.
- Fluff Bake Bar: A Toast to Just Desserts [Kickstarter]
- Sweet! You Found Us! [Fluff Bake Bar]
- Rebecca Masson [Top Chef Just Desserts]
Photo of Kraftsmen Cafe: Soo Kim
A Dessert Bar Bar
A note in a newsletter from a restaurant website hints that some long-rumored changes to that quaint shopping district on the west side of Mid Lane north of Westheimer, just west of the Highland Village Shopping Center, are about to begin: “Yes, the block that Crapitto’s Cucina Italiana is in has been sold. No, Crapitto’s is not closing and will remain there. The block will be developed and most of the businesses have moved out so construction can begin in a few weeks.”
A rendering showing a standalone-look Dior boutique in the new River Oaks District has made an appearance in a brochure now available on the website of the project’s developer, San Diego’s OliverMcMillan. And while rumors that the not-so-far-from-the-actual-River Oaks development might feature a boutique from the French fashion house have been bandied about since Christian Dior shut down its Galleria store last year, neither the project’s developer nor the retailer have officially announced the company’s return to Houston. A slightly different version of the above rendering appears directly on the River Oaks District page of the developer’s website, but in place of the Dior logo is the word “Tread”:
Going into the 2,034-sq.-ft. former Washateria space at the back of the little shopping strip across Greeley St. from the Blue Bird Circle Shop on West Alabama: a soon-to-be beer-and-wine-licensed coffee shop called Siphon Coffee, set to open late this year or early next. The space is shown on the far left of the photo above. Owners Michael Caplan and Edward Treistman write on the coffee house’s Facebook page that there’ll be food enough for breakfast and lunch too, once the place opens, after they get help from former Brasserie 19 chef Amanda McGraw with the menu and training.
That little 84-year-old barber shop spot at 219 E. 11th St. in the Heights featured in Wes Anderson’s movie Rushmore has survived an eviction scare. Proprietor Doug Dreher tells the Houston Press‘s Dianna Wray that a Saturday-night email from the building’s landlord, J. Conti Interests, assured him that Doug’s Barber Shop wouldn’t be kicked out: “Dreher remembered dropping off the October rent check before going out of town for a few weeks. When he got back to town, just before the end of the month, he was notified that his business, located at 219 East 11th Street, was being evicted in two weeks.”
This building at the corner of Washington Ave and Wagner between Studemont and Heights Blvd. will soon be the home to a restaurant-bar-market combo called Lucky’s Urban Eats. At least that’s what Swamplot reader Debnil Chowdhury has deduced, from careful study of the TABC notice now hanging in the window — and the new venture’s website. Heights-area homebuilder Robert Sanders Homes put a new brick facade on the older 2-story structure (which it owns) back in 2005; more recently, the company tacked on the stucco-clad addition to the east side of the building, which is adjacent to Houston Fire Station No. 6. Here’s a site plan:
THE MULLET MANAGES TO PAY RENT 
The graffiti training ground known as The Mullet spent much of this week pleading on Facebook for donations to help cover $2,000 in rent and avoid a lock out of the repainted warehouse at 10902 Kingspoint Rd. between Fuqua and Almeda Genoa Rd., reports the Houston Chronicle‘s Francisca Ortega, but it appears that the spraypainting will be able to go on a little while longer: “After making the plea they received about $800 from about 10 different donors. A benefactor then agreed to cover the rest. . . . With the next 30 days of rent covered, [co-curator Justin] Hinojosa said they are looking forward to next month and raising money to help cover the final facility structural improvements.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Candace Garcia
