SAY HOWDY TO THE LARGEST GAY COUNTRY BAR IN TEXAS 
Lamenting the closing of Brazos River Bottom in Midtown, the new owners of the 1955 Esquire Ballroom — where a young Willie Nelson, among other country crooners, cut his teeth — say they are restoring the vacant dancehall and saloon and will be opening on August 24 what they claim is the largest LGBT country bar in Texas. At 11410 Hempstead Hwy. in Spring Branch, the 10,000-sq.ft. building is now named Neon Boots and, according to a press release, is being renovated to include a “huge dance floor and performance stage, six bar stations, table service, [and an] expansive outdoor area with deck and patio. The owners also anticipate installing a mechanical bull.” [Neon Boots; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Esquire Ballroom: West Houston Archives
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Nightlife
Swamplot commenter drlan34 reports (and that Dumpster in the photo above would appear to confirm) that a good gutting is going on to renovate the old dive bar Brazos River Bottom into a new restaurant, identified on that yellow permit window dressing as Docks on Brazos. The building here at 2400 Brazos and McIlhenny in Midtown shares a parking lot with the also-being-renovated Bremond Street Grill and backs up against the opened-just-a-few-months-ago Dogwood Houston, a bar paid for by a team from Austin that includes one-time reality teevee hunk Brad Womack and his identical twin brother.
- Previously on Swamplot: A Pair of New Bars Prepping Old Midtown Spots, Dogwood Houston Opening Soon in Midtown, Austin Rejection Artist and Bar Partners Opening Midtown Nightclub
Photo: Allyn West
A reader sends this photo from the Washington Corridor: Is Sawyer Park coming back from the dead this September? The 4-year run of the 2-story sports bar with a checkered past at 2412 Washington came to an end in February. But the marquee — plagiarized from that ubiquitous Dos Equis ad campaign though it might be — suggests that something might be happening sometime soon. HCAD data show that the property hasn’t changed hands. Still, there aren’t any clues or further omens on the bar’s Facebook page or Twitter feed, and calls to Rockwood, what appears to be a design-build firm whose sign hangs from the bar’s terrace, haven’t been returned.
- Good Food, Good Sports [Sawyer Park]
- Sports Bar Sawyer Park Has Closed [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: When Pigs Fly: Sawyer Sportsbar Gets Its Wings, The Pig’s New Gig: Sawyer Sportsbar
Photo: Swamplot inbox
RICHMOND STRIP NOT DOWN FOR THE COUNT? 
Real estate reporter Shaina Zucker cruises Richmond Ave., tallying up the evidence that she suggests might just point to a resurgence of that once-lively strip between Hillcroft and Chimney Rock: “30 — The number of For Lease signs visible; 4 — The number of For Sale signs visible; 6 — The number of empty lots visible; 5 — Number of active adult entertainment locations (strip clubs, novelty stores, etc.); 8 — Number of other active clubs/bars facing Richmond; 6 — Number of open fast-food locations; 20 — Number of auto sales/retailer locations; 3 — Number of active construction projects; 35,127 — Richmond at Fountain View average daily traffic volume by number of vehicles; 33,720 — Richmond at Chimney Rock average daily traffic volume by number of vehicles.” [Houston Business Journal] Photo of La Bare at 6234 Richmond: City Data
THE RETURN OF MARFRELESS 
It was only temporary, it turns out, the closing of Houston’s infamous den of PDA: Though reports in March suggested that River Oaks Shopping Center landlords Weingarten had hiked the rent, described cheekily in a press release by Marfreless as “the rising cost of doing business,” it appears that the bar that looks the other way has found new owners and will reopen with the same management in the same spot this summer — and they’ll be fixing up the place, too, they’ve announced in a press release that’s fairly dripping with innuendo: “All this comes with a complete renovation — from wires and carpet to the furniture you . . . sit on. You can expect an updated feel with the same Marfreless experience you’ve come to love. And don’t worry, our upstairs seating and iconic blue door will remain.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user jmcgeough
HOW ABOUT WASHINGTON AVE JITNEY RAPID TRANSIT? 
It’s not as well-designed or well-funded as the Post Oak Bus Rapid Transit that Uptown’s got in the works, but Houston Wave owner Lauren Barrash thinks her jitney service could work for the Washington Corridor in a similar way: Having located about 900 available parking spots in city lots nearby, Barrash is proposing a kind of park-and-ride deal for Washington Ave visitors and employees to get to and from their destinations — and all for a small, even discounted fee. For one thing, Barrash tells Culturemap, it might be safer than walking late at night. But it also might stir things up again after what appears to be a lull in the action ever since those revenue-generating Parking Benefit District meters went into effect in early March. Says Barrash, “There were no cars on Washington at all that first week.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Houston Wave via Facebook
A source close to Blanco’s ownership tells Swamplot that by November the West Alabama bar and grill will close. Meanwhile, Blanco’s will be scouting for a new location, the source says, “somewhere in the area.” Swamplot reported in January that St. John’s School was buying 13 acres of property in River Oaks that include 3406 West Alabama St., where the incongruous honky-tonk and its dusty parking lot — owned for decades by Barry E. DeBakey, the heart surgeon’s son who died in 2007 of liver failure — have been for 30 years.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHO WANTS TO STAY DOWNTOWN? “. . . I ride my bike around downtown for pleasure on some evenings (unthinkable 15 years ago) and am always impressed by the level of activity after dark. Restaurants, bars, music venues and Discovery Green are always hopping. Another hotel can substantially increase this level of activity and hopefully sustain it by attracting business travelers, not just convention goers. I am a business traveler, and work for a multi-national based here in Houston. When we have out-of-town guests, they never stay downtown — EVER. Actually, they prefer to stay where they can easily walk to entertainment, dinner, and bars, and quickly catch a cab to anywhere else they need to go. Usually, they go to CityCentre, the Woodlands, and Town Center in Sugar Land. When I ask around the office about this, most of my coworkers (suburbanites who have not been downtown in years, except for an errant Astros game) immediately wrinkle their noses at the idea of sending someone to stay there after dark. Word has not gotten out about the amenities downtown, and this hotel will help.” [Superdave, commenting on A Texas Island on the Next Convention Center Hotel]
The city of Houston granted a demolition permit yesterday to a company called Magnolia Services, allowing it to demolish the Pleasures Men’s Club, aka Pleasures Cabaret, off Highway 290 at 34th St. As aficionados of Houston history (as well as lurkers on the website of the shuttered strip club) will no doubt recall, Pleasures was the latest incarnation of Gigi’s Cabaret, where in 1991 the former Vickie Lynn Hogan, fresh off stints working at Walmart and Red Lobster, gave a fateful lap dance to her future husband, octogenarian oil (and breast) man J. Howard Marshall II. The rest, as they say, is history. As was Marshall, only 14 months after the wedding.
A sudsy education center for the “beer curious,” Premium Draught tore the butcher paper from its windows and started pouring this week at 733 Studewood, the former Kaboom Books spot. The store shares a Heights strip center with the high-usage Antidote — and also shares the intersection of Studewood and East 7th 1/2 8th with the recently opened Sonoma Wine Bar. Premium Draught owner Johnny Orr realized he might have to rethink his plans to build the usual sit-and-stay-awhile bar. “After taking a look at the demographics of the surrounding neighborhood,” he tells Swamplot, “we opted to pursue this beer for carry-out business model instead. Parking in this town and in the immediate neighborhood around the store is minimal. As the White Oak corridor continues to develop we wanted to try and avoid the type of mess that has occurred on Washington. . . . The Heights did not need late night bar traffic clogging the streets.”
- Previously on Swamplot: Craft Beer To Go in the Heights, To Stay in Garden Oaks
Photo: Allyn West
Workers at the Highland Village Shopping Center appear to be doing some demo work to the vacant building at 4045 Westheimer, a reader notes: They’re removing bricks from the parapet wall of the front facade. The dramatic Mod overhang that once wrapped the front and framed the entrance of Tootsies is gone. The building has been without a tenant since the upscale boutique left for Upper Kirby 2 years ago. A year before that, as Tootsies announced its move to West Ave, Highland Village owner Haidar Barbouti said he planned to tear down the building and build a 100,000-sq.-ft. multi-level retail space — with underground parking — in its place.
The verdicts handed down this week in the court case connected to a dispute between the owners of 3 bars carved out of the former Settegast Kopf funeral home on Kirby Dr. at Colquitt, their landlord, and residents of the subdivision that surrounds it are a tad complicated. As a result of the jury decisions, neighborhood homeowners are now asking the judge to force 2 of the bars — Roak and Hendricks Pub — to stop selling alcohol. One of the jurors in the case offers Swamplot readers a detailed explanation of the decision:
FUNERAL BARS GET THEIR DAY IN COURT 
The long-simmering legal battle between 3 bars carved out of the remains of the former Settegast-Kopf funeral home on Kirby and 51 nearby residents is scheduled to go to trial next week. The residents and association of the David Crockett subdivision, which includes Roak, Hendricks Pub and Eatery, and OTC Patio Bar within its boundaries — as well as tony Ferndale, Virginia, and Lake streets west of Kirby — are seeking to enforce the neighborhood’s deed restrictions, which prohibit alcohol sales and activities considered a “nuisance.” In a countersuit, the bar owners are alleging racial discrimination, complaining that the neighborhood has not enforced the same restrictions on the Owl Bar and Cafe Express, both of which also serve alcohol. Bar attorney Paul Pilibosian tells reporter David Kaplan that the bars’ lease will expire in a year and a half. The bars do not currently have an option to renew, but Pilibosian says they are seeking ways to stay longer in their current locations. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Roak pool: Sarah Tressler
A MIX OF RESTAURANTS AND RETAIL ON POST OAK 
“When we first opened and the bar was so crazy, there were girls giving men their cards trying to take them to the restroom. It was so out of control that I had to close the restaurant early. I had to ask them to leave. I didn’t know there were all friends. This older woman, about my age, came up to me and said ‘you don’t know who you’re dealing with. You can’t ask us to leave.’ I said, who are you? She said, ‘I take care of these girls.’ I said, you have to leave. I thought, oh my gosh. This is a big business. I didn’t know all these random girls all knew each other. . . . They all work together. I still have customers on Thursday nights that are mad at me for getting rid of The Show. That’s what they call it. They said ‘Mimi, we had a fun time on Thursdays. We were fishing.’ I said, ‘what do you mean fishing?’ He said, ‘It’s called catch and release.’ I said, I don’t know with some of these girls if you could release them, because they looked very serious. It was wild. They would say something like ‘Let’s go down the street to shop,’ because they wanted to go to Hermès. I’m so naïve. I thought, oh you’re going to Hermès, that’s amazing. My husband doesn’t ever take me there. I didn’t get it. It’s merchandise instead of cash gifts.” — Mimi Del Grande, hostess and co-owner of RDG + Bar Annie in BLVD Place. [Eater Houston] Photo: BLVD Place
The Alamo reinforcements have arrived! Okay, they’re just temporary steel props, but they’re now holding the tilt-up concrete facade out of the mud around the tamale-themed strip center Warwick Construction is putting up on Houston’s Northside. The 23,000-sq.-ft. Alamo Tamale Company development at 809 Berry Rd. just west of Irvington will include a bakery, a reception hall, a restaurant and cantina, a dessert bar, and — yes — an on-site tamale-construction facility. Plus: a drive-thru meant to accommodate about 20 tamale-pickup vehicles.
