Openings and Closings

Openings and Closings
06/15/09 4:58pm

Signs of Retail Life at the Corner of Kirby and Richmond

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Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
21 Comments

A reader sends in a pic of the action at the renovated but long-suffering strip center at the southwest corner of Kirby and Richmond, which looked to be getting awfully lonely again after the departure of its lone tenant, Hue Vietnamese restaurant, in March.

But Hue is back as Kata Robata Sushi and Grill, and that white banner on the opposite leg indicates that the Dessert Gallery has moved in. Off camera, to the right, signs announce that the endcap is slated for a Texas Community Bank, but our reader reports seeing no sign of any money inside.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Houston Heights
06/08/09 2:08pm

Snoballs at MAM’s: the Heights of Ice

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants
22 Comments

Bloodhound steward and low-cost-wedding expert Sara E. Cotner discovers that the snoballs at the new MAM’s House of Ice in the Fiesta parking lot at 14th and Studewood reside in the upper echelons of the highly stratified frozen-water market:

The New Orleans-sytle snowball shop has been up and running since Friday, May 29, although it has been “a year in the making.” The co-owner that I chatted with is from England but has lived in The Heights for the past 2.5 years. He quit his job as an architect and decided to “jump on a whim” and “have a go at it” by opening a “cottagey, cutesy, cutesy” snoball shop on a piece of parking lot leased from Fiesta. One of the other owners is in the process of quitting her job as a receptionist, and the third owner works in banking as an accountant.

During their year of research, they uncovered a hierarchy of ice. Apparently, snow cones are on the bottom, shaved ice is the next highest level, and snoballs are at the very top, since they are like “eating snow.”

Photos: Sara E. Cotner (top) and MAM’s House of Ice

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Briargrove
05/27/09 11:57am

The Great Houston Strip Club Crackdown

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Development Restrictions, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Quicklink
10 Comments

THE GREAT HOUSTON STRIP CLUB CRACKDOWN The arrests last week of 6 dancers, the DJ, the manager, and the “house mother” at the All-Star Men’s Club on the corner of Winrock and Westheimer — along with legal action against the club for operating a sexually oriented business without a license — are the latest rounds: “‘This is part of a bigger effort by the White administration to use the powers that are available to the city to protect and improve the quality of life in the city’s neighborhoods,’ said private attorney Patrick Zummo, who was hired by the city to help enforce its sexually oriented business ordinance. ‘We are working on another lawsuit that would include many of those businesses that are operating illegally, and which will probably be filed in the next couple of weeks.’ . . . Frank Michel, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White, confirmed Friday’s legal action is the beginning of an offensive against sex clubs that operate in areas where they would not qualify for a city license.” [Houston Chronicle, via Boyd’s Blog]; previously in Swamplot]

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Freeways and Toll Roads
04/13/09 1:03pm

Managing the New Katy Freeway Managed Lanes

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Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Transportation
14 Comments

MANAGING THE NEW KATY FREEWAY MANAGED LANES Those new center sorta-HOV lanes on the new Katy Freeway will go toll starting this weekend. Here’s a little primer to help you make intelligent purchase decisions at 65 mph or more: “The lanes will now be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Outside of rush hours, they’re a toll road: every car, regardless of how many people are in it, pays $1.10 to go the full length of the lanes. During rush hour, in the rush hour direction, single occupant cars pay between $2.00 and $4.00 and 2+ carpools are free. Those rates will need to be adjusted if the lanes are too popular, because HCTRA (who operates the lanes) has promised METRO (who gave up the HOV lane to make room for them) that buses will keep moving at full speed. Single occupant vehicles and carpools will be sorted out by a three-lane toll plaza: left lane for carpools, right two lanes for SOVs.” [Intermodality; details]

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Bankruptcies
04/06/09 11:03am

Camera Stores Shuttered

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Disaster Aftermath, Openings and Closings, Retail
1 Comment

Ritz Camera, which filed for bankruptcy protection in February, will be closing more than 300 of its Ritz, Wolf Camera, and Kits Camera stores nationwide, the company announced late last week. Not surprisingly, the Wolf Camera in Sage Plaza at 5161 San Felipe — less than a quarter-mile from the Wolf Camera on S. Post Oak in the Galleria — is one of the victims. Also closing: Ritz Camera stores in the Katy Mills Mall, at 5706 Highway 6 in Missouri City, and in the Royal Oaks Shopping Center at 11691 Westheimer.

Ritz is also shutting down its entire 130-store Boater’s World chain, including the 6,000-foot location in Webster. Its Galveston store never reopened after Hurricane Ike.

Photo of Wolf Camera in Baybrook Square, Webster (where the lights are staying on): David Stall

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Lower Westheimer
03/24/09 6:02pm

Openings and Closings: Bars and Barbecue

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Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Rice Village, Riverside Terrace, Sugar Land
4 Comments

An update on recent comings and goings:

  • Now Open: “A small group of cocktail freaks,” including former Beavers bartender Bobby Heugel, have at last opened the doors of Anvil Bar & Refuge on the Westheimer Curve. The location was originally a Bridgestone-Firestone tire shop, but was known more recently as the home of the Daiquiri Factory and Sliders.
  • Closed: In advance of that new 25,000-sq.-ft. Spec’s opening up in the former Linens ’N Things in Weslayan Plaza, owner Christopher Massie decided to shut down Cepage Noir, his considerably smaller wine shop on Times Blvd. in the Rice Village.

More twists and turns:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Montrose
03/20/09 1:50pm

Late Night Pie Scheduled To Reopen Monday

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants
7 Comments

Thank you for your concern, but the “The Pie is alive and strong,” reports Late Night Pie owner Mike Bell. Earlier this week, Katharine Shilcutt reported in the Houston Press‘s Eating Our Words blog that the pizza joint at 302 Tuam, in the eastern stretches of Montrose, had closed.

And indeed it had. But the Pie shall rise again — next week — Bell tells Swamplot:

Its been a rough couple weeks being closed but we are reopening on monday. The only major change is that we are adding a full liquor license and new selections of draft and bottle beer. Our wine list will also be new and improved. . . . Wait till everybody sees our new [custom] front door made by the nationally known artist Mik Miano. It’s awesome and will be installed this weekend for everybody to enjoy.

Photos: Mike Bell

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Montrose
03/18/09 3:45pm

The Late Late Night Pie

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Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants
13 Comments

THE LATE LATE NIGHT PIE [Update, 3/20: Late Night Pie’s owner says the restaurant is reopening Monday.] Midtown fugitive Late Night Pie is no more, Katharine Shilcutt discovers: “The popular pizza joint moved to Tuam a year ago, after their original ice house/converted garage location a few blocks away on Elgin was purchased by a nightclub owner. The plans to open a nightclub fell through, and the building has now been converted into a pub/restaurant, Saint Dane’s. No information about the closure has been posted to Late Nite Pie’s website and calls to the restaurant have gone completely unanswered . . . The word on the street is that the owners ceased paying their rent, which certainly doesn’t come as a surprise in the current economic climate. Combine the restaurant’s expansion into a much larger space in a pricey area with the dwindling numbers of diners, and you have a recipe for failure.” [Eating Our Words]

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Openings and Closings
03/17/09 12:16pm

Hue Gone Away

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Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
16 Comments

A couple of readers have written in to let us know that Hue Vietnamese Restaurant — otherwise known as the first but hopeful occupant of the revamped but still extremely lonely strip center at the southwest corner of Richmond and Kirby — has closed. One writes:

I have a feeling it was a casualty of a low occupancy building with additional damage inflicted by continual Kirby Ave roadwork. It’s a shame, the food and drink were mighty tasty and the building itself has some nifty lighting. Better looking than most new builds.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Attractions
03/16/09 5:23pm

Openings and Closings: Chili’s Chills, Movie Munchies, Green Performers

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Dickinson, East Downtown, Meyerland, Museum District, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, West University
No Comments

Hey, what happened to Monday? Swamplot spent most of it fighting off a few tech demons. But hey, here’s some news!

  • Opened: The new and expanded Children’s Museum had its grand opening this weekend. Now twice its original size, the 90,000 sq. ft. museum features exhibits of children in various states of play. Also inside: an expanded branch of the Houston Public Library.
  • Opening: Backe’s Bullpen, a fine drinking establishment in Dickinson, will open with the backing of Astros pitcher Brandon Backe, reports the Galveston Daily News‘s Laura Elder. Last October, Backe was arrested after a run-in with police at a Galveston bar.
  • Closed: Mike McGuff notices that the Meyer Park Chili’s, once “the big teen hangout in southwest Houston,” shut down in February.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Homebuilders
03/09/09 10:48am

Powers Deactivates: Another Builder, Another Sunset

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Openings and Closings
1 Comment

Nancy Sarnoff chronicles the decline of Houston homebuilder David Powers Homes:

David Powers Homes has moved out of its offices on Westheimer and the Beltway and is now operating out of a model home in Lakes of Bella Terra, a subdivision in Richmond.

The company’s staff — 120 people at its peak — has dwindled to just four or five.

The high-end builder is now trying to finish the 36 homes it has in various stages of construction. . . .

Given the company’s higher home prices, about 50 percent of its customers financed their purchases with two loans to keep from paying higher interest rates on jumbo loans.

Those are loans that exceed $417,000.

Many of those second mortgages, Powers said, were subprime.

Image: David Powers Homes

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Commercial Real Estate
03/06/09 10:17am

Where the Freeway Met the Bayou: The Last Days of Las Alamedas

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Leasing, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
16 Comments

Over at Eating Our Words, Katharine Shilcutt has posted photos of the now-vacant longtime home of Las Alamedas Restaurant. As noted in this featured comment from a Swamplot reader, the restaurant packed up and rolled away late last month, after long-extended lease negotiations failed. Restaurant owner Jorge Sneider told the Houston Business Journal the building’s new landlords were demanding a significant rent increase.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Comments
03/05/09 3:55pm

Comment of the Day: Great Challah Drought

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Linkwood, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Retail
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: GREAT CHALLAH DROUGHT “Yay, welcome back 3 Bros! Hopefully this will prevent a repeat of the great challah drought of the ‘08 Rosh Hashannah season, when I almost had to knock down a little old lady at the Rice Epicurean on Post Oak for the last loaf of raisin.” [lildebbi, commenting on Openings and Closings: Super Happy Baking Brothers]

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New Construction
03/05/09 11:43am

Washington Ave. Nightlife Rumor Gauntlet: Who’s Ready To Pay the Bill?

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Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Washington Corridor
64 Comments

Yelp user Minh L. does his part to clear up all those Washington Ave. rumors. How many new bars are planned there? Really?

1. “The Lot” next to Pearl Bar will be open at 2 pm this Thursday.

2; The Daily Grind that closed down, the owners of Cork Screw has taken over the place, and is now currently being remodeled.

3. Owners of Whiskey Creek is opening a bar right next to “Busty La Rue” which is also right next to Pub Fiction new place on Washington. 5102 Washington Houston TX 77007

4. That Gawd awful yellow/stone place your talking about is called “Zen Ultra Lounge”

5. Owner of Pandora is opening another one down the street. Its that purple buidling. DBA is called “Blue Book” don’t think they have a name yet.

6. That really big one is called “Reign Lounge” One of the owners name is Luis. Very nice guy.

7. The old Pig stand is going to be called “Sawyer Sports Bar”

8. “Rare Bar” is opening soon on Durham & Washington

All in all there’s about 16 bars/club so far wanting to open on Washington, but we’ll see how many of them really open. These are all the ones I have time to confrm.

And where exactly does Minh L. get his info?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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