OLD DAILY REVIEW CAFE SPOT, NORTH MONTROSE MIGHT SOON BE UP A CREEK 
Back in March, the Daily Review Café on W. Lamar St. off Dunlavy closed temporarily with a notice about “water issues”; shortly afterward the owners announced the restaurant and its extensive patio wouldn’t reopen. A “for lease” sign has been up at the space for several months, but it now appears the property has attracted a buyer. Eater Houston’s new sleuth-in-residence Jakeisha Wilmore has gathered clues that point to the participation of Gary Mosley’s Creek Group, the company behind the Onion Creek Coffee House, Dry Creek Cafe, and the Cedar Creek and Canyon Creek Bars and Grills. Only this time, the serial restaurateur appears to be flying under a different name: “A limited liability company formed under Piggy’s Tavern was filed by Mosley’s restaurant group in August,” Wilmore writes. “The group also filed for a mixed beverage permit and mixed beverage late night permit from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). The address listed to conduct business is 3412 West Lamar,” the Daily Review spot. [Eater Houston] Photo: Daily Review Café
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REPORTS: BOCONCEPT ON WESTHEIMER WILL BE CLOSING DOWN SOON 
Multiple sources tell Swamplot that the 13,525-sq.-ft. lot at the northwest corner of Westheimer Rd. and Mid Ln. that’s currently home to the BoConcept furniture store is in the process of being sold, and that the store will shut down in a few weeks. The 9,513-sq.-ft. building at 4302 Westheimer Rd., just west of the Highland Village Shopping Center, was built in 2003 as Surprises. Photo: BoConcept
ANOTHER IMPORTANT HISTORICAL SITE IN HOUSTON THAT DESERVES RECOGNITION 
The account may be a tad more florid, but Harbeer Sandhu’s satirical tale of an inmate-turned-entrepreneur’s plan to create a Houston museum dedicated to the private prison industry is only slightly more bizarre than the true story behind the birth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the world’s largest for-profit prison operator, in the still-operating Olympic Motel at 5714 Werner St. (less than a half-mile down I-45 from Gallery Furniture). Fences, barbed wire, and iron bars went up on the former hot-sheet motel in early 1984 to create the world’s first for-profit private prison, a detention center for 87 undocumented immigrants. Much has changed in the private prison industry since those humble feeder-road beginnings, where several detainees were able to escape by dislodging the air-conditioning units and climbing out through the holes. [Free Press Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Harbeer Sandhu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE BEAUTY OF THE FAMILY SEDAN 
“The perceived blandness of modern office buildings has nothing to do with the lack of vision or enthusiasm of developers, it has to do with where the money comes from today. Decades ago there were eccentric millionaires and corporations with money to burn on monuments of their own egos, but these days money only comes from carefully calculated, vetted, reexamined, audited, and risk assessed finance packages. Throw in a healthy dose of anti-wealth and anti-corporate profit sentiment in the US and you have the real estate equivalent of a Toyota Camry — simple, functional, non-offensive, and very forgettable.” [commonsense, commenting on New Spec Office Building on Montrose Blvd. Will Sit Atop Southwest Fwy. Wall Vines] Illustration: Lulu
LONGTIME HEIGHTS CAFE JAVA JAVA NOW TRYING TO SELL ITS GROUNDS 
A reader notes that the owner of Java Java Cafe on 11th St. and Herkimer has placed the building at 911 W. 11th St. and its adjacent parking lots up for sale. Java Java is still open for business, however. Pay $1.25 million and you’d get close to 17,000 sq. ft. of land with street frontage on 3 sides, along with the 2,450-sq.-ft. building, which dates from 1940. But you’d need to fetch your own coffee. [HAR]
MIDTOWN’S VAN LOC WILL LOCK UP FOR GOOD THIS FRIDAY 
Those of you lamenting the closure of 28-year-old Midtown institution Van Loc may want to note this latest update on the Vietnamese restaurant: There’s now an actual deadline for you to get your orders in for duck & bamboo soup, garlic tofu, or No. 46. The restaurant will serve its last meals this Friday, October 17th. What will become of the place then? Separate rumors floated to a Reddit thread include new apartments and a 16-story office building with — wait for it — ground-floor retail. The restaurant at 3010 Milam St. sits on the southern half of a 50,000-sq.-ft. block, one block north of Elgin. Feel free to contribute your speculation, intel, or final orders below. [Reddit; Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West/OffCite
RIVER OAKS AND HIGHLAND PARK: SEPARATED AT BIRTH? 
They each contain some of their city’s most expensive homes, and gave their name to classic (well, in one instance used-to-be-classic) 1930s shopping centers. But just how comparable are Dallas’s Highland Park and Houston’s River Oaks? Cheryl Caldwell Ferguson’s new book — bearing the complicated title Highland Park and River Oaks — delves into the history of the 2 garden-style suburbs and their associated retail ventures, as well as their connections to larger city-planning efforts that flopped. [UT Press; Amazon]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TERRAZZO FOR FLIPPERS “
Poured terrazzo floors like those in that house are nowadays so astronomically expensive that the only new residential construction they are seen in today are high-end, architect-designed custom homes built for extremely wealthy people.
I wonder if people who replace poured terrazzo floors with hardwood, travertine, or whatever realize that they are discarding something very expensive for something much cheaper.
It even makes business sense. Even flippers could increase their profit margin if instead of replacing terrazzo, they just educated their buyers about how valuable these floors are. (Things that are revealed to be rare, expensive, and hard to replace have a way of magically becoming very attractive).” [august15, commenting on This Not-Screwed-Up-Yet Meyerland Ranch Mod, in Almost Original Condition, Is Available for $460K] Illustration: Lulu
THE NEW H-E-B AT SAN FELIPE AND FOUNTAINVIEW WILL TAKE OVER WHERE LUPE TORTILLA’S SANDBOXES LEFT OFF 
Former Haven chef and now JCI (James Coney Island) and H-E-B consultant Randy Evans drops a few notable details about the new H-E-B now under construction at the corner of San Felipe and Fountain View, where he’s helping create the chain’s first Houston in-grocery-store restaurant: “We’re looking at beer and wine for this store. There’s going to be a great patio and a stage for live music. There’s going to be an [outdoor] area for the kids to play so you can sit and have a glass of wine, have some bites and have your kids have a good time before you go shopping.” The store is scheduled to open in January. [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: H-E-B
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ONE WEIRD TRICK TO AVOID VALET PARKING 
“Oh, and if you want to valet your car for free, ride a motorcycle; most valet services aren’t insured to park motorcycles, and they’ll tell you to park over there (really close, but out of their way). Try to toss them the keys and they won’t accept them.
So yeah, motorcycle means you can go to places like this that practically force valet, and park right up close. This requires a motorcycle and usually all the accouterments that come along with it though, but I’ve never had someone tell me to go park somewhere else. Basically, if I know it’s valet, I ride, if it’s self park, I’ll usually just drive.” [toasty, commenting on New Galleria-Area H-E-B Will Feature an In-House Restaurant; Behind the Movement for a Swimming Hole in Houston] Illustration: Lulu
2 CORNER BANK BUILDINGS BANISHED FROM BANKING FOREVER 
This 3,848-sq.-ft. former WaMu at the intersection of Barker Cypress Rd. and FM 529 Rd. has been vacant and on the market for a good 5 years now. It’s surrounded by parking spaces on a 1.152-acre lot and features a spacious 5-lane drive-thru in back. Along with a twin structure at the intersection of Louetta Rd. and N. Eldridge Pkwy. (also for sale), the Cypress building has been forcibly retired from its banking career. Chase Bank, which bought up all the Washington Mutual corner-bank leftovers, spat out locations like these it considered too close to existing Chase banks — with restrictions to prevent another bank from moving in. A few more restrictions potential buyers of the structure at 7019 Barker Cypress Rd. will want to note: You can’t put a burger joint, a nail salon, a hair salon, or a dentist’s office in there either, because any of those (as well as a few other uses) would duplicate the offerings of establishments in the adjacent Signature Kroger shopping center from which the pad site was spun off. Still-asking price: $1.1 million. [The Weitzman Group]
BIGGER GALLERIA APPLE STORE FOR BIGGER IPHONES OPENS THIS WEEKEND 
Only a few weeks after beginning sales of a pair of embiggened iPhones, Apple is ready to unveil its latest enlargement: the newly expanded Galleria Apple Store. That’s it hiding on the second level in the photo at left, behind the 60-ft.-long black wall. A grand reopening is scheduled for this Saturday. The store moved to a temporary location over the summer to allow for the widening, described in detail here. [Previously on Swamplot]Â Photo: David Ruiz
THE MENIL COLLECTION GETS ITS RAP TRIBUTE 
In advance of their exhibition and performances next month at the Art League of Houston, where they’ll recreate 5 performances by the Art Guys, “while adding a twist that could only come from Black Guys,” artists and musicians Robert Hodge and Philip Pyle II released what appears to be the first-ever song about Houston’s Menil Collection — or at least the first one available on the iTunes Music Store (where it costs 99 cents, but you can preview a short segment for free). And over on Glasstire, Bill Davenport has helped out the auditorially challenged by transcribing (most of) the entertaining and insider-y rap-style lyrics, including the catchy chorus (“Riding by Menil slow, you don’t need no cash flow, we the only negroes, Hodge and Phil”). Sadly, no accompanying video has been released, but a note on the website of Everything Records indicates an album entitled presenting . . . The Black Guys is forthcoming. A solo show of Hodge’s paintings opened last Friday at the CAMH. [Glasstire; Everything Records] Cover art: The Black Guys
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WHAT IF THEY HAD KEPT HOUSTON HOUSTON BACK THEN, TOO? 
“I hate watching this complacency about Houston’s problems. Yeah, we’re not like Boston or San Jose, and in some ways that’s good, but there is a lot we can do to get better without losing some sort of the mystical ‘Houstonness’ that makes us special.
To those marveling at how great and ‘vibrant’ Houston’s flaws are, would you like to go back to 1980 when billboards were three times more crowded along our freeways? Would you like to rip out all the trees that have been planted along those same freeways? Would you like to remove the historic restrictions in the Heights and Sixth Ward and watch those neighborhoods turn into Rice Military? Do you want to see another giant revolving gas station sign atop a downtown skyscraper? Shall we return Hermann Park to its former scraggly state, or put the sewage back in Buffalo Bayou?
If the answer to these questions is ‘No,’ then you must not be a fan of ‘Keeping Houston Houston,’ because before all that happened, Houston was a lot more ‘Houston’ than it is now. I would argue that the way it is now is a vast improvement, and that we should keep going in that direction.” [Mike, commenting on Comment of the Day: Still Waiting To See How Houston Is Going To Turn Out] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE REAL HOUSTON IS OUTSIDE THOSE TINY URBAN ISLANDS 
“Urban enthusiasts live in a bubble. I don’t care where they are. The reality is that the VAST majority of people like getting in a private air conditioned car, driving to an island of shopping or whatever and finding a parking space closest to where they are going without being bothered by street people. Urban enthusiasts are under the delusion that most people want to walk around in sticky moist air and sit at their desk stinking all day from sweat in order to pretend they live in a city that was built before cars were invented so they can live like the people they envy on t.v.
A dense urban environment in the inner city would be a novelty and I’m all for it. Choices are great. Downtown and Midtown are shaping up nicely. The center of Midtown is going to have a very cool buzz going on with all the new infill. The Match, Superblock, Mid-Main development, etc. East side Downtown is going to be a beast and so will Market Square.
But as cool as it may be to have a tiny, tiny, microscopic sliver of New York in the center of this city, it is totally unnecessary. Our booms have proven that. The VAST majority don’t have a problem with strip malls, blue glass or driving cars to get where they want to go. The VAST majority stay in Houston because they WANT to live in a suburban environment. Jobs? There are jobs in other cities. No one stays in Houston long if they really hate it. You can’t argue with success. Builders keep building things the way they do in Houston because it works.
‘Quality’ is subjective. Some people think Miley Cyrus is quality. But you can’t argue with ‘quantity.’ Houston is fascinating to people (even the haters) because whatever it is, unlike many of those true centers of urbanity on the east and west coast, Houston IS NOT stagnant. Even in slower economic times, things happen in Houston and it is fun watching it grow.” [Blue Dog, commenting on Comment of the Day: Still Waiting To See How Houston Is Going To Turn Out] Illustration: Lulu
