04/08/14 2:30pm

DIRK’S COFFEE ON MONTROSE IS SHUTTING DOWN TODAY Dirk's Coffee, 4005 Montrose Blvd. at Branard, Montrose, HoustonThe Dirk’s Coffee drive-up spot on the corner of Montrose and Branard is closing its business today, reports Eater’s Darla Guillen — along with a number of disappointed caffeine-starved fans on Twitter and Facebook. Opened as an outpost of the Diedrich Coffee chain in the mid-aughts mid-nineties, the 4005 Montrose Blvd. location changed its name to Dirk’s Coffee a few years ago after its former parent company exited the retail hot-brew-serving business. “No word yet on why they’re closing, if they’re moving to a new location or if they plan to rebrand yet again,” writes Guillen. Swamplot reader (and social media director at the mayor’s office) Melissa Ragsdale Darragh notes a Dirk’s employee confirms that they will close at the end of the day today: “He stated they would love to reopen at a new location in the future however nothing is planned at this time.”  [Eater] Photo: Jazi H.

04/04/14 11:00am

O'Neil St. Community Garden, Sutton Square, Fourth Ward, Houston

The vacant lots shown here at the corner of Bailey and O’Neil streets will soon become a community garden for the Fourth Ward’s Sutton Square neighborhood. The properties, which measure 12,000 sq. ft. in total, sit behind the office building on West Gray purchased last year by an energy-startup accelerator program (at center and left in the photo above) and relabeled the Surge Shack.

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Growing in Sutton Square
04/03/14 10:00am

SAWYER HEIGHTS ARBY’S UPGRADING TO LA MADELEINE, ADDING SAUCE Future La Madeleine, 2423 Katy Fwy., Sawyer Heights Shopping Center, HoustonThe shuttered Arby’s waving to I-10 eastbound feeder road drivers exiting at Taylor has been gutted, there’s a hole in the outside wall, and the drive-thru window is being filled in. All in service of transforming the Sawyer Heights shopping center slot at 2423 Katy Fwy., next to Vitamin Shoppe, into a La Madeleine, notes reader Christopher Andrews. Included in his tweeted photo report from the Target-anchored center: a TABC notice posted in the storefront, for the wine portion of the “country French café” menu. [Twitter] Photo: Christopher Andrews

03/31/14 1:30pm

Boil House Restaurant Under Construction, 606 E. 11th St., Houston Heights

Here’s a pic of the latest sign of the growing Heights-area crawfish swarm: The just-painted front of the former audio repair shop at 606 E. 11th St., just east of Oxford, showing the new home of Boil House. “A hot pinch of authentic Louisiana flavor” is offered in the wall sign just behind the spray-painted trashcan above, and the mudbugs are implied in the name of the company behind the venture: Boil House Crawfish, LLC. But don’t confuse this under-the-radar venture with the other crawfish restaurant setting up camp in nearby Shady Acres. Cajun spot The Boot just opened (on weekends only for now, it appears) in the former Shady Tavern spot at 1206 W. 20th St., between Bevis and Beall.

Photo: T.S. Noble

Cajun Heights
03/31/14 10:30am

White Oak Bayou Hike and Bike Trail Along T.C. Jester at 610 Loop, Oak Forest, Houston

Here’s the news that’s “all the rage in Oak Forest,” according to a reader: TxDOT has reopened the segment of the hike-and-bike trail along White Oak Bayou that wends its way between between Ella Blvd. and 34th St. That stretch of asphalt had been closed in December 2011 for construction on the North Loop overpass at T.C. Jester. TxDOT is planning an official celebration of the reopening this coming Saturday, but it’s unclear whether the path, which lines the east side of the bayou, will have to be closed again at some point. “Please note that TxDOT has not completed the reconstruction of the bridges that support the feeder roads across the bayou,” reads a note on the Houston Bikeways Program Facebook page posted this morning. “We hope to get more details shortly.”

Photo of trail at E. T.C. Jester and Loop 610 North: Jim Mackey/White Oak Bayou Association

610 Underpass
03/28/14 12:15pm

Montrose Mercantile, 3321 Stanford St., Audubon Place, Montrose, Houston

Montrose Mercantile, 3321 Stanford St., Audubon Place, Montrose, HoustonThe sign has been changed and the green hues have been removed from the mansard-roofed exterior of the former First Stop Food Store at the corner of Stanford and Hawthorne in Audubon Place. That’s where the Montrose Mercantile is set to hold its grand opening this weekend — though the combo espresso bar and mini-mart at 3321 Stanford St. created by the owner of Washington Ave’s Catalina Coffee has already been open for a couple of weeks. The original Mercantile opened in the Rice Village last fall.

Photos: Montrose Mercantile

Drive Up, Sit Down
03/28/14 11:15am

WHERE SKINNY RITA’S WILL BE SQUEEZING IN ON NORTH MAIN 4002 North Main St., Brooke Smith, HoustonContractor-turned-Realtor-turned-fraud investigator-turned-restaurateur Randy Bower and the team behind Ruggles Green plan to open the first of 2 Skinny Rita’s Grilles in the space at 4002 N. Main St. on the triangular block bounded by Walton and Melwood in Brooke Smith that’s been home to Rico’s Cantina, Rico’s Luchadores, and more recently the Frida Kahlo-themed La Casa de Frida and Frida’s Cucina later this year. Skinny Rita’s Grille is meant to be a “farm-to-table” Latin restaurant. “Skinny Rita’s food is rustic, healthy, and ‘sexy to the bone®’ as are our drinks and décor,” reads the text on the restaurant’s dummy website. A rooftop patio will feature long views of Downtown. A second Skinny Rita’s is apparently being planned for Kemah. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Skinny Rita’s Grille

03/13/14 2:45pm

Solea, 1500 Shepherd Dr., Cottage Grove, Houston

A 2-location British restaurant chain specializing in Italian pizza and pastas has plans to open in the former spot of Solea (pictured above) at 1500 Shepherd Dr. at the corner of Maxie, just north of Washington Ave in Cottage Grove. Solea shut down a 14-month stint in that location last September, its owners hinting at the time of plans to reopen an entirely new restaurant in the space after a break, with perhaps a more focused menu than the one offering Mexican, Cajun, and Middle Eastern delights previously. Swamplot readers had noted the building’s construction back in 2010, when it was slated for a location of Bullritos.

No opening date is listed on the website of the Italian replacement, called Il Mascalzone. But the company site does list a second planned location in Houston, to supplement its Edgware and Putney spots in the UK: in a strip center at 12126 Westheimer, between Kirkwood and Dairy Ashford.

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International Attention
03/13/14 12:00pm

Houston Cosentino Center, 1315 W. Sam Houston Parkway North, Houston

What more suitable spot could there be in Houston for a showroom, warehouse, and designer-education center focused around Silestone and the other kitchen-and-bath-slabs lines of a Spanish manufacturer to land than in a brand-new complex of tilt-up buildings aligned along the southbound Beltway 8 feeder of the Sam Houston Tollway across from Spring Branch? Not long after the concrete slabs went up at 1315 W. Sam Houston Pkwy. North (north of Westview Dr.), the slabs of ground quartz, marble, recycled materials, and precious stones went in. The multi-warehouse complex opened late last year; The Houston Cosentino Center at Suite 150 opened last week.

So what if the vast concrete expanse of the feeder-road-side parking lot in the middle of the U-shaped tilt-wall complex looks kinda bleak? The inside is set up to be sleek:

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The Kitchen Slabs of Cosentino
03/07/14 12:30pm

The Fresh Market, 3745 Westheimer Rd., Highland Village, HoustonThe Fresh Market grocery store that opened across Weslayan from Central Market at 3745 Westheimer Rd. last August will be shut down within a week or 2. The national chain galloped into the Houston area last year by moving into 4 former locations of Rice Epicurean. The company cited “meaningful profitability hurdles” in announcing the single-store closure, along with the closure of 3 additional locations in California. Still alive, apparently: plans to open a store at 1519 West Bay Area Blvd. in Webster this year.

Photo: John W.

Central Market Wins Again
03/07/14 11:15am

THE MIDTOWN GARDEN PLOT THAT WENT FOR JUST SHORT OF A MILLION Midtown Community Garden, Baldwin and Drew St., Midtown, HoustonCraig Hlavaty’s writeup on the abrupt closing of the Midtown Community Garden has a few additional details about the fate of the 3-and-a-half-year-old garden space at the corner of Baldwin and Drew, in amongst his chronicling of the efforts of member gardeners to yank out their tubers before the property was shuttered: The 13,000-sq.-ft. vacant-but-for-vegetables lot that Swamplot reported on earlier in the week was sold to developer Urban Living for $975,000. (On MLS, the asking price was $799,000.) The company plans to build townhomes on the site. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Update, 11:30 am: According to this later version ($) of the story, 2 garden-friendly potential buyers of the property who submitted offers were outbid. Photo: Swamplot inbox

03/05/14 4:45pm

Chicago's Famous Maxwell Street Grill, 4902 Almeda Rd., Museum Park, Houston

A reader who’s already delved a bit into the menu at the “definitely not fine dining, but really tasty stuff” offered at the Maxwell Street Grill walkup (or more likely, driveup) that opened up last Saturday in the former Discount Liquor store spot at 4902 Almeda Rd. between Wichita and Rosedale has a few tips for follow-on sausage samplers: “A big pro is that it’s open late every night: until midnight Monday through Wednesday, and until 3am Thursday through Sunday. Definitely decent fare along the Almeda/Museum District corridor, for which there’s a demand. Happy to have it close to my house, especially since I’m from Chicago originally.”

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From Maxwell St. to Almeda Rd.
03/05/14 11:00am

Midtown Community Garden, 2720 Baldwin at Drew St., Midtown, Houston

The barbecue scheduled for this coming Sunday at the Midtown Community Garden at Drew and Baldwin has been canceled, along with all attendant fruit and vegetable growth. On account of: The property’s been sold. Harvest time will have to be quick: A for-sale sign  quietly appeared early last month outside the 13,000-sq.-ft. green space, which had been operating as an allotment garden for 3 years. “Just as quickly,” a source tells Swamplot, a SOLD placard was slapped on it. The listing, with an asking price set at $799K, described the property tersely as an “amazing opportunity.” A buyer has now claimed it.

How much notice would the new owner give the gardeners? Late yesterday afternoon, members of the gardening collective received an abrupt email from the organization’s president announcing that — by request of the new owner — everyone will need to get out, by the scheduled closing date. That’s tomorrow, March 6th.

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Garden Turnover
03/04/14 10:00am

A JOLT TO STRIP CENTERS EVERYWHERE Radio Shack, Klein, TexasRadio Shack announced this morning that it plans to close up to one-fifth of its U.S. stores. News had leaked earlier this month that the Dallas Fort Worth-based electronics chain had plans to close about 500 “underperforming” locations. This morning’s announcement brings that number up to 1,100, but no specific stores have been identified for shuttering. There are more than 80 Radio Shack locations in the greater Houston area. [Wall St. Journal] Photo: News92FM

03/03/14 3:30pm

Grand Parkway Segment D, Fort Bend County, Houston

The portion of the newly tolled Grand Parkway between U.S. 59 and US 90A (and a little further north, to FM 1464) quietly opened to traffic last Thursday. Segment D of the third or fourth ring road around Houston (depending whether you count the Hwy. 6 and FM 1960 combo), which extends about 18 miles from the Southwest Fwy. to I-10, has been open since 1994 — but mostly as a sleepy divided double-lane highway with a super-wide grassy median. The new tollway redo is being opened in spurts. The Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority, which controls this portion of Segment D, expects to have the complete stretch of tollway open between the Southwest Fwy. and the Westpark Tollway open by the end of April. When it opens, 7 automated toll booths will line that stretch.

Photo: Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority

59 to 90A and Growing