Note: Story updated with new photos.
An update comes in from reader Nicole Sherman, who saw this bare facade-to-be and fruity Sprouts Farmers Market sign at the end of last week and snapped these photos: Filling in for the former Sports Authority in the Kirkwood Shopping Center at 11940 Westheimer, this will be the 4th Sprouts in Houston and the farthest in, only 2 miles beyond the Beltway. In October, the green grocer revealed the first 3 locations it would open in Houston this year:
Why did Tejas Boots leave 208 Westheimer? Owner Mike Kuykendahl says that the family that owns the li’l strip center (above) that Tejas Boots shared with Hollywood Food & Cigars asked them to: The family gave the tenants 2 months to move, explaining that they’re considering upgrading the 4,100-sq.-ft. building, says Kuykendahl, or tearing it down and redeveloping that corner of Helen and Westheimer. Tejas Boots had been here since 1984; they’ve relocated just a few blocks west into the browner, newer retail strip stack shown at right at 415 Westheimer. It’s not much as signs go, but that faint horizontal smudge beneath the Green Park Pilates logo marks the spot where the bootmakers can now be found.
Photos: Allyn West
NEW SHEPHERD DR. LITTLE WOODROW’S TO SERVE PUB FARE, TOO 
Beer after wine: Closed back in November, Block 7 at 720 South Shepherd Dr. is being replaced by Little Woodrow’s, reports Eater Houston’s Eric Sandler. Just south of the Washington Corridor in Rice Military Magnolia Grove and a block east from the about-to-open Katch 22 from Roger Clemens’s kid Kory, the new Shepherd spot, rep Nick Menage tells Sandler, will house no ordinary Woodrow’s: “In a twist, this location will have a full kitchen that will serve an updated mix of bar foods including burgers, nachos and pizzas from the old Block 7 oven. Menage assures fans of the bar’s popular steak nights that there are plans to maintain that tradition, too.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Block 7: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
This photo of the strip center just west of the Lower Westheimer restaurant row shows the recently closed Tejas Custom Boots and Hollywood Food & Cigars. A Swamplot reader says that a sign posted in the window here at Helen and 208 Westheimer says that the alligator- and ostrich-unfriendly bootmakers will be moving the stretching and stitching operations farther west to the 400 block of Westheimer. As of Friday morning, calls to Tejas Custom Boots for comment about the relocation and reopening haven’t been returned. City records show that the 4,100-sq.-ft. 1960 building and 11,322-sq.-ft. property are owned by a single family.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
WHY THE CAPITOL AT ST. GERMAIN MIGHT BE CLOSED A LITTLE LONGER THAN IT SAYS 
Culturemap’s Whitney Radley reports that a rep from the jazzy Main St. spot says it had to close temporarily because of water damage to the kitchen, but the Houston Press’s Katharine Shilcutt claims she has reason to believe otherwise, since the bar and restaurant — paying, she reports, “a monthly rent close to $17,000” — seems to have sprung another kind of leak: “When a restaurant is faltering and owes its landlord rent, one of two things usually happens: 1) The restaurant closes shop and washes its hands of the entire affair, leaving behind everything from kitchen equipment to barstools, which then become property of the landlord or 2) the restaurant wants to close but also needs to recoup some of its losses and stalls by telling the landlord that it’s ‘renovating’ for a few days. Those days are spent clearing the place out and selling everything that’s not nailed down.” And what makes Shilcutt so sure? “I spotted some activity going on outside . . . that suggested furniture was being moved out of the space.” And: “Calls to the restaurant weren’t returned, and on my last attempt, the phone line seemed to have been disconnected.” Update, 1:47 p.m.: Shilcutt reports that the Capitol at St. Germain has told her it’s not closing and does plan to reopen once the water damage — which, says the bar’s rep, knocked out the phone lines — is repaired. [Culturemap; Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Cvent
And it looks like the Alamo is standing on its own again: Previously demolished, Alamo Tamales re-appeared last summer as nothing but leaning walls and steel rods, but it re-opened with a stalwart uprightness on Berry Rd. on Friday. Architect Tim Cisneros of Cisneros Design Studio sends the photo of the restaurant’s finished facade sandwiched between a dessert bar and cantina in the 21,000-sq.-ft. Northside strip center west of Irvington Blvd.
Photos: Cisneros Design Studio
If you can’t wait until June or July for Dunkin’ Donuts to open inside the Loop at the former Arby’s at South Shepherd and Fairview, you might plan to come here, the former SmashBurger at 10705 Westheimer, where a company rep says that the donut makers will open in May the first of 16 planned Houston stores. Sharing the Westchase strip center with a Cricket store and Brookstreet Bar-B-Que, the coffee-colored endcap has undergone at least one other renovation: A drive-thru lane now cuts through what had been SmashBurger’s treeside patio.
The new home of a new San Jacinto Stone is being set up here, behind the begonias and bamboo shoots at Wholesale Gardens in Bellaire. The stoneyard, dating to 1947, closed at 195 Yale St. at the end of last month when longtime owners Sarah and Don Hunt sold the 8-acre property near the Washington Heights Walmart to a commercial developer. Greg Thompson, owner of the landscape architecture firm Thompson + Hanson that runs Wholesale Gardens, says that the Hunts agreed to sell the San Jacinto Stone name — and the remaining inventory, too, after that February fire sale.
As though mandated by some surgeon general recommendation for commercial development, the new neighbors in the Tlaquepaque Market at Telephone and Lockwood are an ice cream shop and a fitness studio. Scoops, the sign for which recently appeared above those window bars, is replacing a nail salon at 724 Telephone; it will share a wall with a Zumba studio, a former dollar store that doesn’t have a sign yet — but it does appear to have been renovated to provide rump-shakers inside the comfort and convenience of opaque window screens. These new interests are just a few blocks from the new Oak Leaf Smokehouse that opened for lunch in late February at 1000 Telephone Rd., and just a few suites from the new-ish Blue Line Bike Lab.
Photos: Allyn West
WEINGARTEN RESPONDS: HEY, IT’S NOT US, IT’S MARFRELESS 
The make-out den behind the blue door says it’s closing because of the “rising cost of doing business” in the River Oaks Shopping Center, but landlords Weingarten Realty don’t see it that way — or at least that’s what an email sent yesterday to the Houston Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff says: “It was Marfreless’ decision to cease their operations at River Oaks Shopping Center. Weingarten Realty has made several attempts to contact the tenant to continue discussions but we have not been able to get a response. We remain open to discussing a lease extension and agreement.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user jmcgeough
Could it be . . . time? A reader claims to have spotted the first inside-the-Loop Dunkin’ Donuts — or at least the future home of it. Last spring, franchise group 521 Interests announced plans to open 16 new Dunkin’ Donuts in Houston; this photo taken this morning in Montrose at the corner of South Shepherd and Fairview shows what might be the first of those, now that the former Arby’s is festooned with the donut makers’ orange and pink signage. Claiming, among other achievements in food and beverage, to be the nation’s top bagel retailer, Dunkin’ Donuts will be just a block and a half away from the Hot Bagel Shop.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
THE END COMING FOR MARFRELESS IN RIVER OAKS And the low-light, low-key make-out den behind that signless blue door in the River Oaks Shopping Center says it’s closing at the end of March in a press release quoted here in the Houston Chronicle: “Marfreless’s owners have been trying to do whatever they could to keep the bar operational but other entities involved weren’t budging in regards to the rising cost of doing business, making it impossible to keep the business at this location.” Serving martinis and discreetly turning the other way as couples have gone at it for 40 years, Marfreless says it’s looking for another location. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Flickr user jmcgeough
The son of Sugar Land Skeeters ace and former Astros hurler Roger Clemens is renovating a tapas bar into a house of “sports and spirits” that’ll be called Katch 22. That’s Katch with a K — for strikeout, if you’re scoring at home. Renovations are already underway at the former Convivio space here at 700 Durham in Rice Military. Kody Kory Clemens, reports Eater Houston’s Eric Sandler, will be Katch 22’s executive chef; he studied at Le Cordon Bleu and met co-proprietor Luke Mandola while working at Ragin’ Cajun. Sandler adds that though there will be 11 screens here showing ball games, the owners stress that Katch 22 is not a sports bar. Either way, it’s expected to open in May.
Photo: Allyn West
Just outside the Loop on Telephone Rd., Frank’s Grill — or Rank’s Rill, as Hurricane Ike rendered the standalone greasy spoon’s sign — will be closing and moving south about a tenth of a mile into the larger suite shown here in the recently completed strip center on Telephone and Fairway. The strip center replaced a car dealership and a body shop. There’s no date set for Frank’s move, but an employee tells Swamplot that it should be happening in about two months.
Photos: Allyn West
A FEW LAST LOOKS AT MACY’S 
And that’s it. After 66 years, there’s no more shopping to be done. Macy’s is closed. Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia finds a perch Downtown from which to take this farewell photo of Kenneth Franzheim’s former Foley’s — and Hair Balls’ Abraham Garza goes inside for a few last looks of the liquidation as the business hours dwindled on Saturday to zero. Garza says: “The only items I saw for sale, other than fixtures and empty jewelry cases were mink coats.” [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
