WHY SCOTT GERTNER’S SKYBAR IS LEAVING THE MONTROSE SKY Gertner says he’s now interested in opening up a new club somewhere near the Galleria. A company out of Waco called FH Properties bought the 10-story office building at 3400 Montrose that serves as a podium for the Skybar in February. After that, the bar owner and Grammy nominee tells the Chronicle‘s Joey Guerra, everything went downhill: “About five months ago, the building was purchased in auction. We tried over the past months to work out a new lease, but they kept putting me off saying they didn’t know what they were going to do. I started to see that the building was being neglected — even to the point that my staff would walk the entire four-story parking garage and lobby to clean it ourselves after the nightclub was closed — wipe the windows, clean the elevators, everything that my prior lease included that was the responsibility of the landlord. Big, orange, neon City of Houston stickers started to appear on all doors listing the permits were outdated. We had several visits from the fire marshal about the building and even thought they were going to shut it down two weeks ago. Nothing like closing us down on the second biggest holiday of the year. Skybar was always one of the best venues to view fireworks on the fourth of July.” [Peep; previously on Swamplot]
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Openings and Closings
Note: Story updated below.
News comes from a reader that Scott Gertner’s Skybar, on the top floor of 3400 Montrose, will be closing for good this Saturday — “due to the building closing its doors.” We don’t have further information about why the entire 10-story office building across Hawthorne from the Montrose Kroger might be shutting down, but a Twitter-fed rumor is that it’s for “safety concerns.”
Scott Gertner’s Sports Bar, safely ensconced on the ground- (and only) floor of a parking-lot site on Fountainview just north of Richmond, is apparently in no danger of collapse, and will remain open. The complete message passed onto us from Gertner after the jump:
Textile has closed its doors, reports Katharine Shilcutt, the Houston Press‘s food-critic-in-waiting. But chef and owner Scott Tycer only plans to hang the concept out to dry over the summer: “We were seeing a little bit of a downturn, and business was not as good as it could be. So my thought was that we need to get on with our ideas of moving,” Tycer explains. He tells Shilcutt he’d like to find a new location that will accommodate a separate gastropub, with a distinct but fabric-friendly name. But the Heights won’t be on his shopping list:
Tycer and his partners are currently looking at three different parts of town for the new restaurant: downtown, River Oaks and — most surprisingly — the Post Oak/Galleria area. Tycer lamented the lack of truly inventive restaurants in that area: “It’s either Robert Del Grande and RDG + Bar Annie, or it’s a bunch of chains,” he sighed.
Not moving from the former Oriental Textile Mill on 22nd St. at Lawrence: Tycer’s Kraftsmen Bakery in the same location.
- Textile Takes a Summer Vacation [Eating Our Words]
- Previously on Swamplot: No White Tablecloths: Kraftsmen and Textile in the Heights
Photo of 611 W. 22nd St.: Heights Blog
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE UCHI HOUSTON PARKING PLAN “They have the whole 40,000 sf under contract, which includes the Prive building and the 12,000 sf lot across the street. The Prive building probably wont be leased to a bar or restaurant, thus freeing up more parking for the peak hours.” [Adam Brackman, commenting on Montrose Uchi To Be an Uchi; No Plans To Crush Felix]
The line at the new Sprinkles in Highland Village is out the door, actual drive-by reporter Miya Shay informs us. This is how they intend to draw $25,000 in opening-day sales. Well, that and Rockets forward Shane Battier doing a little lunchtime counter duty. How fast is he serving, really? To the left: Paper Source, scheduled to open next month.
- Official Opening of Sprinkles [Twitter]
- Previously on Swamplot: Highland Village Sprinkles
Photo: Miya Shay
A longtime fan of Upper Kirby restaurant Mai Thai sadly informs us that the 21-year-old pink-trimmed restaurant at the northern end of the 59-Kirby restaurant ghetto will close on June 26th. The landlord has reportedly told owner Mary Le that the lease will not be renewed. Did that little “For Sale” sign on the corner of the building — advertising a 10,000-sq.-ft. lot at the corner of Kirby and Algerian Way — work its magic? Our source tells us Mai Thai will not be reopening, and that everything inside the restaurant is for sale. The inevitable development rumor: a new “high rise complex” is planned for the property, with construction beginning in August.
Is this all true . . . or just a clever plot to drum up a rush of Pad Thai orders? Writes our source: “The food is delicious. I’d urge you, if you’re a fan or if you’re never been before… make a point to go sometime in the next week.”
Photo of Mai Thai Restaurant, 3819 Kirby Dr.: Swamplot inbox
That tractor totem parked in the corner of its parking lot at Washington and Yale means that Phil’s Texas Barbecue is hep to all the latest Washington Corridor restaurant trends; the BBQ pit stop was fashioned out of the former Southwest Muffler and Brake building. After more than 6 months of construction, the 7,000-sq.-ft. restaurant opens today.
- Previously on Swamplot: What’s Been Cooking for So Long at Phil’s Texas Barbecue
Photo: Phil’s Texas Barbecue
Austin sushi dude Tyson Cole is planning to name the new restaurant he’s eyeing for the longtime location of Felix Mexican Restaurant at Westheimer and Grant “Uchi” — just like his Austin original. The new owners “do not intend” to tear down the building (if they did, current development regulations might make it difficult to rebuild so close to the street). Cole’s publicist confirms to Swamplot that Austin restaurant designer Michael Hsu “will be involved” in the project, but notes that the sale of the building hasn’t been finalized. The restaurant wouldn’t open until late 2011.
In other Montrose Tex-Mex news, MyTable reports that the building on the corner of Westheimer and Grant that for 60 years housed Felix Mexican Restaurant is likely toast. Famous white-guy sushi chef Tyson Cole and the owners of his standout Austin restaurant, Uchi, have bought the building and are planning a new restaurant in that location. The structure will “probably be torn down,” MyTable reports. Both Uchi on South Lamar and Cole’s about-to-open restaurant on North Lamar, called Uchiko, were designed by Austin’s Michael Hsu Design Office. Hsu’s best-known work in Houston: Sushi Raku in Midtown.
Late Update: Not so fast with the Felix building obits, please.
- Heard on the Street [My Table SideDish]
- Tyson Cole [Uchi]
- Brett Anderson on Sushi’s Great White Hope [Oxford American]
- Uchiko on the horizon [Austin360]
- Previously on Swamplot: Goodbye, Felix, A Look at the New Midtown Restaurant in the Mix
Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer
Permitting has already begun for a new Tex-Mex restaurant in Montrose, which will be neatly inserted into the former Tower Theater building on Westheimer at Yoakum. The marquee on the Art Deco building has already been restored to neon-and-fluorescent glory. Next up: rebuilding the theater’s former balcony, removed when the building was gutted and converted to a Hollywood Video store a few years back. The yet-to-be-named restaurant will be a joint project of Bill Floyd and Bryan Caswell of Reef and former Houston Press restaurant critic Robb Walsh, who’s written several Tex-Mex cookbooks. My Table reports the new restaurant is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2011.
- Heard on the Street [My Table SideDish]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Tower Theatre Puts No Name in Lights, Drive-By and Walk-By Reports on the Tower Theatre’s New Headliner, What’s Playing at the Tower Theatre?, Going Attractions: Hollywood Video Gives Up on the Tower Theatre
Photo: Matthew Rutledge [license]
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN YOUR JACK SACK SOON Bankrupted weight-loss guru Shaun Kelley, who abruptly shut down his fitness center on Voss near San Felipe last month and announced plans for a new business venture with “a major food company,” is also gone from Donald Trump’s multi-level-marketing scheme, where he had planned to promote “custom pharmaceutical-grade vitamins”: “Kelley says he’s no longer working with the Trump Network, but instead is moving yet another concept. ‘I have a new investor who didn’t want me to have anything to do with the gym anymore and we’re solely focused on the food industry,’ he says. ‘We’re currently in negotiations with Jack in the Box to offer a low fat healthy food for $3 to $7.’†[Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
Everybody out by the end of October, the owners of the Village Plaza Shopping Center have told all remaining tenants. Fuzzy’s Pizza and City Dance Studio, of course, are long gone from the center at 5925 Kirby, a block north of Rice Blvd. The Bike Barn has already picked out more than 10,000 sq. ft. in the former Hollywood Video in Weslayan Plaza, at Bissonnet and Weslayan. Kids Kuts will cut south to Bellaire and Stella Link; the UPS Store is looking at a new place “on Bissonnet.” Ticket Stop and Susan Nail & Facial are hunting for space nearby. Mattress Giant just doesn’t want to talk about it.
The property’s owner is its eastern neighbor, the Children’s Assessment Center. A planned expansion to the John M. O’Quinn campus, which now faces Bolsover, would eat the deeper chunk of the shopping center, leaving 0.8 acres on Kirby for somebody else to develop. Here’s the part that’s toast:
BEER CHALLENGER WILL LAUNCH FROM STEALTH LOCATION The launch crew reports it has been “keeping things quiet” while building a brew house and obtaining licenses: “Construction is under way on the Galactic Coast Brewing Co.’s brewery, which will be located in Galveston County where League City and Dickinson meet, just outside the city limits. John Ennis, Galactic Coast spokesman, says that location was chosen because it will allow the brewery to get Phase I of its plans up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible. The location was chosen for its proximity to top attractions such as NASA and the Clear Lake-Kemah waterfront. ‘This is going to be a true beer odyssey and there is a reason we chose to launch our brewery just down the street from the home of U.S. manned space flight,’ he says.” [Houston Business Journal]
It looked like the end of the line for the Chevy dealership in the streamline building at the corner of Houston and Washington Ave just west of Downtown: GM notified Knapp Chevrolet last May that it would not be renewing its franchise agreement with the 62-year-old Houston company. But a law passed by congress and signed by President Obama in December set up a neutral arbitration process for jilted dealerships, and late last month Knapp learned that its appeal had been successful. Unable to obtain new cars from GM for about a year, Knapp has survived by buying inventory from other local Chevrolet dealers. Expect to see a few more cars on the lot soon, now that Knapp has been reinstated.
- Houston GM dealer avoids shutdown by winning appeal [11 News]
- Chevy Dealership Will Stay Open [Click2Houston]
- Obama’s signature kicks off arbitration process for rejected GM, Chrysler dealers [Automotive News]
- Previously on Swamplot: GM Wants To Take Away Knapp
Photo: Chris Adams
On his Facebook page, Shaun Kelley claims to be just “moving my business.” But abc13 is reporting that the Shaun Kelley Weight Control storefront at San Felipe and Voss shut its doors for good yesterday — shortly after the local fitness guru declared bankruptcy.
An unspecified nearby gym will take on Kelley’s trainers and clients, according to the report. Shaun Kelley Weight Loss Center memberships cost $15,000 a year, though shorter memberships were available.
Kelley gained national attention 2 years ago after the FBI interviewed a former employee to determine if Roger Clemens might have obtained steroids or human growth hormone through Kelley or his clinic. The employee claimed Clemens had met with Kelley at that location, but Kelley claimed Clemens was an acquaintance who had never visited the clinic.
Okay, then. But what about Donald Trump?