Checking in from a window seat at the Luby’s on South Post Oak, Swamplot correspondent Aaron Carpenter keeps close to the slasher action now playing on all 16 demolished screens of the AMC Meyer Park Theater. As Swamplot noted last week, a new Kohl’s will be built at the shopping center after the theater drops its final curtain. Also coming to the Meyer Park center, according to reports from the scene: a brand new standalone Luby’s. The one that’s there now will be torn down.
WHITE OAK RESTAURANT REVIVAL More evidence of an Onion Creek Coffee House magnet effect? A reader notes that Houston Press food critic Katharine Shillcut is now reporting that D’Amico’s Italian Market Cafe will be opening a second location early next year, at 2802 White Oak Dr. in the Heights. (The restaurant’s current spot is in the Rice Village.) D’Amico’s will be joining additional outposts of Tacos A Go-Go and Christian’s Tailgate on the same stretch of White Oak, just west of Studewood. [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]
A reader is wondering what mysterious forces have brought to a halt plans for the sushi restaurant at 7801 Westheimer on the corner of Stoneybrook, a block west of Hillcroft — the former site of the ABC Flower & Garden Center. Construction on The Fish and Knife Sushi Bar and Club (at least that’s what the sign calls it) began about 3 months ago, says our reader: “They were blowing and going 7 days a week. Then, about 6 weeks ago, all construction halted.” Nothing’s been going up since, save a healthy serving of weeds.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DONUT RUSH HOUR IN OAK FOREST 
“That Shipley’s must draw folks from miles around. Theres almost always a long line of cars, often extending out onto Ella. I am always amazed too at the long lines late at night…who eats donuts at 11pm? I guess they’re night shift workers.
Yep, they need to re-do that whole shopping plaza and center it around that Shipleys, providing tons of drive-thru space :)” [JRo, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: The Ella Square Deal] Photo of Shipley’s Donuts, 3410 Ella Blvd.: Chad & Susan Harris
CAN’T BEAT THAT TOUR OF ITALY “It’s getting more competitive out here, and the better restaurants are continuing to perform well and the lesser ones are being replaced,†— Planned Community Developers’ Steve Eubanks, comparing the success of the recently opened Olive Garden in the area to the recent fate of Amici Ristorante in PCD’s own Sugar Land Town Center. Amici, which is closing its doors after two years of operation, was developed by Bruce McMillian and Jeff Vallone, son of famed Houston restaurateur Tony Vallone. Eubanks describes the Olive Garden off the 59 Freeway at Sweetwater Blvd. in Sugar Land as already “one of the top-performing restaurants in the chain.” [Houston Business Journal]
The dangling 2x4s on the ceiling and the photomurals of giant oaks inside just aren’t enough. And umbrellas on the patio just blow over. So Claire Smith and Russell Murrell of Canopy, the restaurant at the southern end of the strip center at 3939 Montrose, now want to build an actual wooden canopy outside on the side patio. One small problem: any extension from the building to Branard St. will cross into the neighborhood’s 10-ft. building line, which means they need a variance. Can’t they just say, “hey, it’s in our name?” Naah — variances aren’t granted as the result of “a hardship created or imposed by the applicant,” says the planning department. So part of the restaurant’s application reads, “The limitations on the use of outdoor space are the result of the Houston climate.” A neighbor who’s “fine with it” whispers to Swamplot about the submission: “My boyfriend and I think it’s funny how The Sun is taking all the heat here.” The issue goes before the planning commission on December 2nd.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
A “high-end” restaurant, led by a yet-to-be-identified “superstar chef,” will be taking over the space known for the last 16 years as Chances Bar, an owner of the property tells Houston Press reporter Craig Hlavaty. “It’s going to blow Montrose out,” Nick Vastakis tells him. “It’s going to be great.” Chances will shut down for good after a goodbye party on Saturday. Vastakis says his family, which has owned the property since the 1970s, will be getting out of the lesbian-bar management business and into property development.
What prompted the change? One of those spear-more-times-with-my-family moments, he tells Hlavaty:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A DEMOLITION THAT REALLY HITS YOU IN THE GUT 
“Boy, seeing smashed Bibas truly hurts. It has been my ‘Hungry Heifer’ for the past 2 decades. The food was always kinda ‘meh’, often left me feeling horrible and greasy afterwards, but I had a wonderful love/ hate with that place. Oh, how I wish for one last mediocre gyro or [Aphrodite] pizza. My colon will never forget you.” [wilf, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Bibas Lost Pizza] Photo of Bibas Greek Pizza: Sonya Cuellar
The Rodriguez Brothers have produced more than 200 food trucks out of their warehouse on the corner of Garrow and Roberts just east of Settegast Park, reports food critic and soon-to-be-restaurateur Robb Walsh. Inside on a recent visit, Walsh finds 14 vehicles in various stages of customization — including catering trucks, taco trucks with “California-style” cantilevered skylights, and vehicles outfitted with elote cookers, shaved-ice machines, or other specialty equipment. “The kitchen is designed for the kind of food being served,” co-owner Daniel Rodriguez tells him.
“Sometimes I look back and wonder WHAT WAS I THINKING,” writes Jason Perry in a press release he sent to local media outlets announcing the closure of his late-night and after-hours establishment near Montrose and Fairview — and its coming reincarnation as a perhaps quainter little bistro. “Did I really open a penis shaped muffin restaurant, did I really spend more than half of a million dollars on a restaurant that promised to toss peoples salad[?]â€
Housed in a 1940 foursquare at 2310 Converse St., the MuffinMan, which opened only a few months ago, actually promised customers a bit more than that. Perry’s possibly NSFW farewell-to-muffins press release explains it best:
A reader sends word that a TABC alcohol-license notice posted on the side of the former Tower Theatre at 1201 Westheimer — where Hollywood Video was sent packing late last year — reveals the name of the old-style Tex-Mex restaurant former Houston Press food critic Robb Walsh and Iron Chef contestant Bryan Caswell will be inserting into the long-gutted moviehouse. As announced in the Press‘s food blog earlier this month, it’ll be El Real Tex Mex Cafe. Alas, no notice has yet been posted warning customers of the restaurant’s special featured ingredient:
How they gonna fit the burgers into those little canisters for the drive-thru? Beck’s Prime has bought the little 4,000-sq.-ft. standalone retail building at 115 W. 19th St. between Heights and Yale, Nancy Sarnoff reports. The 2-story building with the 4-lane detached drive-thru was last used as a Washington Mutual Bank.
Is there an Onion Creek magnet effect? Reader Mary Ellen Arbuckle notes a second location of stylized Midtown Mexican-food joint Tacos A Go-Go will be shimmying into this strip-center spot at 2912 White Oak, just a few doors down from the Onion Creek Coffee House. The location is the former home of the International Ballet of Houston; there’s a TABC application notice up in one of the windows. Also scheduled to move in nearby, closer to the Onion Creek vortex: Christian’s Tailgate.
Meanwhile, half a mile west of the Heights’ western border, owner Ricky Craig has leased the former home of Mi Cocina Victor’s Cafe at 1133 W. 19th St., where he plans to open a second non-mobile location of tiny Downtown burger joint Hubcap Grill:
A roving reader-photographer sends in pix of the action on the corner of Waugh and West Dallas, planned site of the new Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen. Mandola told CultureMap last year his new restaurant will be larger than its current space in the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray and will be “very French Quarter, with lots of brick, wrought iron, and courtyards.” His GC for the project is a noted builder of fast-food restaurants. Whatever the building ends up looking like will likely mix up this little stretch of Waugh, which includes a brick CVS and Pei Wei in a strip center across the street, the modern Houston Area Women’s Center building directly to the north, and — across West Dallas, the eternal faceoff between Jack-in-the-Box and the brand new Whole Foods Market. The earth-shaking — or . . . well, at least earth-moving — news from the scene: “Ground is being re-graded slightly, sticks with colored ribbons have been planted and there’s quite a bit of construction equipment on the lot.”
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FUNNY, THAT’S NOT HOW DOCTOR GALE’S MEATLOAF AT BARNABY’S USUALLY SMELLS “I was around there last weekend and ate outside. I smelled the odd waft from time to time but couldn’t place it. This is so much more disturbing now that I know what it was.” [eiioi, commenting on Oh, That’s Just Mom]
