08/31/16 10:45am

Krispy Kreme shell, 4601 Spencer Hwy., Pasadena, TX 77504

A field of rippling grass between the Denny’s and the Comerica Bank branch on Spencer Hwy. currently holds the half-finished form of one of the Krispy Kreme donut shops planned as part of the chain’s post-lawsuit re-emergence into the Houston market. The chain still has the location on its list of upcoming grand opening donut-campouts (labeled as down-the-street 4601 Spencer Hwy., though both Eater Houston and a look at neighboring addresses put the property number at or around 4061), but arch-ive-ist and daily demo reporter Lauren Meyers notes the overgrown site is pretty light on signs of active work.

Some of Fisher Elementary’s T-buildings can be seen loitering to the rightt, with the stadium lights of the McGuire baseball field and track facility rising distantly in the background on the right; on the west side of the building is a would-be drive-thru window:

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Cold Now on Spencer Hwy.
08/11/16 1:45pm

The Cheese Course, 1001 McKinney St., Downtown Tunnel System, Houston, 77002 The Cheese Course, 1001 McKinney St., Downtown Tunnel System, Houston, 77002Swamplot’s anonymous tunnel correspondent sends another dispatch from beneath the former City National Bank building at 1001 McKinney: chain cheesemonger The Cheese Course Bistro & Cheese Market is now open in the nook formerly employed as one of Subway’s more literal Houston locations. Following a spot in Boulder, CO, and another in The Woodlands, the Houston shop makes for chain’s 3rd foray beyond its native Florida.

The basement space doesn’t look to be offering wine pairings like many of the chain’s stores do, perhaps in connection to the shop’s pre-5-o’clock hours of operations; the store will open for breakfast at 7 am and close at 4. Here’s a look around the shop’s interior seating arrangements, allowing cheese-nibblers to see and be seen by the tunnel lobby set:
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Underground Cheese Storage
08/10/16 10:15am

Former Chirps Chicken and Rice, 300 W. 20th St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008

Former Chirps Chicken and Rice, 300 W. 20th St., Houston Heights, Houston, 77008A reader caught sight of some recent stirrings at the southwest corner of W. 20th St. and Rutland, where food truck The Rice Box looks to be setting up a second non-mobile operation in the former home of Chirps Chicken and Rice. Braun Enterprises snapped up the 1,584-sq.-ft. building in mid-2015, when Chirps flew the coop; a TABC permit for the dry zone address was issued to Black Dragon Private Club — an entity listing The Rice Box as a trade name — in early May. Braun also owns the retail strip across Rutland, which replaced those Baptist Temple buildings that were demolished in 2013; the photo above was taken from the Zoe’s Kitchen at the corner.

Photos: Jason B. Cockerell (top), Chirps Chicken and Rice (bottom)

Rutland Remake
08/01/16 1:00pm

Exxon Gas Station with McDonald's, 11035 Katy Fwy., Wilchester, Houston

Exxon Gas Station with McDonald's, 11035 Katy Fwy., Wilchester, Houston

Do not mourn the Exxon station with the McDonald’s inside on the eastbound feeder road of the Katy Fwy. Yes, there’s a new fence around the property, and it’s about to be demolished. But the replacement is well worth waiting for: It’ll be a brand new Exxon station — with a brand new McDonald’s! Ah, but the more things stay the same, the more they change: A reader who contacted the burger chain’s regional office reports the new McDonald’s will sport McDonald’s “next generation” design, and will feature free wifi when it opens — around mid-October Election Day.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Exxon and McDonald’s, Together Again
07/22/16 5:15pm

Yucatan Taco Stand, 3407 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX 77006

The strip-center position formerly held by Berryhill Baja Grill at the corner of Montrose Blvd. and Hawthorne St. is getting new signage this afternoon, a reader notes. The spot appears to be shifting from West Coast to Gulf Coast culinary traditions under the impending occupation of Yucatan Taco Stand. The chain, whose name (almost) maintains all the rhythm and rhyme of the last taco-wielding tenant, was started in Fort Worth by the late founder of Fuzzy’s Tacos, and already has a spot open in the Woodlands.

Here’s a wider view of the scene, showing the restaurant in place next to Nails by TM and back-to-back with the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China:

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Going Yucateca
07/05/16 4:45pm

Site of Nosh in Tunnel beneath 919 Milam, Downtown, Houston, 77002

The subterranean snapshot above comes from a reader roaming the Downtown tunnels, where a curved privacy-please construction barrier for a coffee-snacks-and-breakfast operation labeled Nosh now arcs around the spot formerly occupied by the ATM beneath 919 Milam. The change comes in the wake of other food-related shuffling beneath the 24-story tower this year; Genesis Energy also spread out onto another of the tower’s floors back in February.

Photo: ThaChadwick

Downtown Down Low
07/05/16 11:15am

Liberty Kitchen in MetroNational Treehouse, 936 Bunker Hill Rd., Houston, 77024

treehouse-memorial-cityA reader not at liberty to reveal his or her identity sends along this shot from inside of Liberty Kitchen’s under-development location inside the green-hued (and -intentioned) MetroNational Treehouse at 936 Bunker Hill Rd. The restaurant is moving into a 5,600-sq.-ft. spot on the ground floor of the building. Below is a floor plan of the space from architect Kevin Stewart:

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Liberty at Bunker Hill
06/28/16 11:45am

Rendering of Heights Mercantile Building 3, 3A

Experimental ice cream shop Cloud 10 Creamery looks to be collecting building permits for a space at 711 Heights Blvd., one of the 1920s bungalows prepping for a second career in retail (as shown above) as part of the Heights Mercantile development. The project, which straddles 7th St. and its bike trail companion between Yale St. and Heights Blvd., hit a potential snag last year when the city didn’t approve a variance request that would have lowered the number of required new parking spaces. But the updated site plan below shows the workaround — the Golden Eagle Binder & Tab Co.’s former spots at 717 and 724 Heights, which were purchased by the developers last May, are depicted as additional parking lots:

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7th at Yale
06/27/16 1:15pm

Good Dog, 1318 W. Alabama St., Montrose, Houston, 77006

Good Dog, 1318 W. Alabama St., Montrose, Houston, 77006The second non-mobile location of Good Dog  is now hiring, per the signage spotted by a reader at 1312 W. Alabama St. The food truck that started the chain camped out in the building’s driveway on Father’s Day, but no official opening date for the new space itself has been announced yet.

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Montrose Rollover
06/24/16 11:15am

Avenue Grill, 1017 Houston Ave., First Ward, Houston, 77007

Avenue Grill, 1017 Houston Ave., First Ward, Houston, 77007 The holdup on Houston Ave. this morning, reports a reader stuck in the resulting traffic, is the aftermath of a minor fire at the Avenue Grill on the corner with Center St. The 1940s structure (which the restaurant’s operations purportedly moved into in 1962 after 12 years of business across the street) appears unharmed by the flames, which HPD tells Dale Lezon started in the building’s electric sign. The restaurant’s property went stealthily onto the market back in August of 2014 before it was found out the following March; county records don’t appear to show a change of hands since then.

Photos of fire response at Avenue Grill at 1017 Houston Ave.: Swamplot inbox

What’s Cooking in First Ward
06/23/16 4:45pm

Tout Suite, Memorial City Mall, 303 Memorial City Way, Houston, TX 77024

Tout Suite’s second outpost is now open in the pedestrian crossroads at the west end of Memorial City Mall. The kiosk version of the East Downtown cafe is currently serving drinks and pastries along with at least a few larger entrees. The opening follows the removal of the construction barricades formerly surrounding the space, finishing work previously started by mall vandals or impatient caffeine addicts:

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Mall Mini
06/22/16 12:45pm

Tookie's Seafood, 1106 Bayport Blvd., Seabrook, TX, 77586

Seabrook’s Tookie’s Burgers’ new marine-minded companion is up and running this week at 1106 Bayport Blvd. The original rural-drugstore-themed Tookie’s opened in 1975 but was destroyed by Hurricane Ike; Barry and Melissa Terrell bought and reopened the 3,800-sq.-ft.-ish burger stand in 2011 before getting started on an elevated 12,000-sq.-ft. Tookie’s-branded seafood spot (shown above in late spring prior to final construction touches) in the lot next door. 

The new Tookie’s, standing on stilts some 3 blocks from the SH 146 bridge over Clear Lake and Galveston Bay, is more hurricane resistant than the still-functioning original (or at least less flood-prone). The raised space is designed to hold around 400 people (counting a 100-person banquet space), though the company says they’re running at about half capacity for now while the staff gets the hang of things. Here’s a peek at the building from earlier this year, with the yellow signage of the original Tookie’s just visible in the distance to the upper left:

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Jumbo Shrimp Shop
06/16/16 11:00am

shops-at-sawyer-yards-rendering
Leasing Materials for Lovett's Sawyer Yards

Lovett Commercial’s latest
markup of the warehouse-turning-strip-mall at the corner of Edwards and Sawyer streets includes the B&B Butchers logo, which has wandered about a third of a mile from the carve-it-themselves steakhouse’s year-old spot 6 blocks away on Washington Ave. All of the other logos included on the Shops at Sawyer Yards flier seem to check out: Hair salon Satori and tooth salon Bayou City Smiles are already up and running in the space, while nail salon Polish Parker & Roe, stop-calling-us-Crossfit gym chain Orange Theory Fitness, and Vietnamese noodle shop Local Pho all appear to have at least a few of their permits in place.

Both the updated rendering of the site (up top, facing southeast) and the labeled plan show a restaurant space at the end of the development with a patio facing Sawyer; the flier also labels the slot as a brasserie (as opposed to a steakhouse). The shaded aerial view below shows the development (labeled as just Sawyer YARDS) in place amid a few of the nearby artsy redevelopment projects (marked in green), new townhomes (marked in purple), and the Lovett office:

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First Ward
06/14/16 11:00am

Jimmy Chew Asian Kitchen, 1609 Westheimer Rd., Lower Westheimer, Houston, 77006

Windows and wood are now covering much of the front of Vinoteca Poscól’s previous strip center location at 1609 Westheimer Rd. The spot is being prepped to open as Jimmy Chew Asian Kitchen, which touts a laundry list of east- and southeast-Asian countries as contributors to its particular fusion mix. About Online reports that the business is connected to Irwin Palchick of F Bar Nightclub, and will cater to the post-last-call crowd as well as to lemonade enthusiasts. 

The wooden addition, which appears to be establishing the restaurant’s patio territory, engulfs the space previously fenced off as such by Poscól, along with some former sidewalk acreage.  Here’s what the space used to look like, before the wine bar’s midsummer departure:

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Montrose Makeover
06/13/16 12:45pm

Proposed rendering of 1815 Washington Ave., Memorial Heights, Houston, 77007

The spot Braun Enterprises has been sprucing up at 1815 Washington Ave appears to have been leased out last week to the folks behind the Texas expansion of Tennessee’s Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. Documents filed with the county show that an entity called Texas All Fry (registered to the address of the Gus’s location in Austin) signed for the space on Wednesday. Pandora and Throne Ultra Lounge are among the latest in the succession of night clubs and bars to have recently occupied the late-1940s structure, which sits across the street from B&B Butchers.

The above rendering (from the same leasing flier that accidentally leaked word of H-E-B’s negotiations for the Archstone Apartments spot at the corner of Washington and Heights Blvd.) shows the front facade with a new patio and a few more windows. A careful look at the building’s past listing photos show that some of the apparent reshaping may actually involve the un-bricking of some former doorways: 

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Coming to Roost