Restaurants

Commercial Real Estate
06/18/10 8:54am

Bye Bye, Mai Thai? Feeding Another Kirby High-Rise Rumor

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Upper Kirby
17 Comments

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

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Memorial Heights
06/17/10 10:20am

The Smoke Is Back at Washington and Heights, but It Smells a Little Different This Time

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Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants, Washington Corridor
9 Comments

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.

Photo: Phil’s Texas Barbecue

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Buying and Selling
06/17/10 8:53am

Montrose Uchi To Be an Uchi; No Plans To Crush Felix

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Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants
20 Comments

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.

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Demolitions
06/15/10 2:56pm

Lost Felix, Discovered Sushi: Austin’s Uchi Coming to Montrose

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Lower Westheimer, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants
23 Comments

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.

Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer

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Montrose
06/15/10 8:54am

Critic’s Choice: Tower Theatre Will Go Tex-Mex

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Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants
21 Comments

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.

Photo: Matthew Rutledge [license]

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Comments
05/18/10 1:22pm

Comment of the Day: The Name of the Game

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Harwin, Quicklink, Restaurants, Westchase
3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NAME OF THE GAME “I drove past this place just this morning, saw the sign and at first thought it was a sex-toy boutique. It is across Kirkwood from a Chinese restaurant disturbingly named Spicy Panda. Not too terribly far away near Harwin is yet another oddly named eating place, Them Hung. Which brings us back full circle to the Loving Hut.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on Loving Hut on Kirkwood: Expanding the Cult of Fast Food]

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Restaurants
05/17/10 8:11pm

Loving Hut on Kirkwood: Expanding the Cult of Fast Food

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Retail, Strip Centers, Westchase
10 Comments

What does it take to open up the Houston location of an international vegan chain restaurant in say, the endcap of a Kirkwood strip center whose previous tenant was the Texas Bar-B.Q. Co.? The Houston Press‘s Katharine Shilcutt tries to explain:

The money that Supreme Master Ching Hai gathers from her followers is used to fund things such as her elaborate and expensive outfits; her adventures in creating and selling jewelry (back to her followers at a huge markup, of course); the filming of long infomercials like the ones that play on a constant loop in the restaurant, which are broadcast to followers via the Internet (which is why the movement has been called a “cybersect”); and the founding of restaurant chains like Loving Hut which adhere to one of the most important principles in Quan Yin: vegetarianism.

The restaurant at 2825 S. Kirkwood, in the Richwood Shopping Center just north of Richmond, is Loving Hut’s 25th U.S. location. But how neatly it fits here: Thank you, Supreme Master! Perhaps other ventures of yours — in painting, poetry, spirituality, fashion design, or beauty makeovers — might find a home in other lonely strip-center locations around town? Surely this formula could be expanded:

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Houston Heights
05/14/10 1:19pm

The Great Houston Heights Fast Food Slowdown

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Woodland Heights
7 Comments

“I have to say, I have always had luck with Asian food in some sort of repurposed fast food building,” declares The Heights Life blogger Viula. Surely everyone hopes her good fortune continues: A Heights Asian Cafe (or, as the banner puts it, Height Asian Cafe) will soon lay claim to the booty that is the vacant Long John Silvers building on Yale at 22nd St.

Likewise, Jenni’s Noodle House expects to open its 3rd location in the former Mrs. Baird’s Bread outlet at 602 E. 20th (at the corner of Oxford St.) in less than 8 weeks.

Ah, but there’s more than Asian food moving in. Viula has the rundown:

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Buying and Selling
05/07/10 11:23am

Rescued from the Bistro Vino Redevelopment Flop: Ocean’s Ceviche

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First Montrose Commons, Homebuilders, Leasing, Montrose, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
15 Comments

Remember the swingin’ days of a couple of years ago, when InnerLoopCondos bought Bistro Vino and got ready to tear down the 24-year-old Montrose restaurant at the corner of West Alabama and Roseland? And then the company put out that goofy little internet survey asking us to vote on which type of condo-building cliche you’d like to see shoved onto the site? If you’re one of the lucky participants who somehow managed to write in “Give it up,” congratulations! Your choice has been selected!

Mexico City natives Jorge and Isaac Alvarez have since secured a lease-purchase of the former restaurant property from its would-be redevelopers. Jorge Alvarez, a custom-home developer himself, had a crew from his Alvgar Construction company renovate the 1930’s Tudor-style home and patio.

The brothers’ “modern Mexican” restaurant, Ocean’s Ceviche, isn’t expected to open officially until May 21st, but intrepid Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia brings you this little preview of the spiffed-up grounds:

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Crime
05/06/10 8:31am

The Great OTC Hooker Steak-Out

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Galleria, Quicklink, Restaurants
11 Comments

THE GREAT OTC HOOKER STEAK-OUT Out on the town and on the tail of some of them high-priced hookers shipped in from Vegas specially for this week’s Offshore Technology Conference, Caroline Gallay strikes gold diggers on Post Oak: “We had by far the best luck at Mo’s A Place for Steaks, where suddenly (around 10:30 p.m.) the almost all-male crowd was inundated with scantily clad young things taking cards and holding court. I saw some of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, and I think I might start hanging with the hussies more often. The once-overs thrice-overs my friends and I got should have probably offended us, but I for one was flattered — even if they were internally reviewing price points. On Monday evening, the first time we trolled for tramps, I’m pretty sure we were even solicited. An older gentleman hovered and leered at our table until we finally spoke to him. Our tab? Close to $70. His face once he learned we were locals, and later that our parents and he shared friends? Priceless.” [CultureMap]

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Leasing
05/03/10 10:45am

Look Out Bello: What Could Possibly Take the Place of La Strada?

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Lower Westheimer, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
7 Comments

The new wrapper on what used to be a For Lease sign in front of the former La Strada restaurant building at the corner of Westheimer and Taft mentions lunch and dinner, but not brunch. The name of the new tenant: Caffe Bello.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Comments
04/13/10 2:02pm

Comment of the Day: The Invention of Feeder Food

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Commercial Real Estate, Freeways and Toll Roads, Houston History, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail
13 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE INVENTION OF FEEDER FOOD “On another note, I would like to find out precisely who was responsible for making the philosophical decision to attach feeder roads to freeways in Texas in the first place, way back in the 50’s. Feeder Roads turned out to be an aesthetic disaster, helped kill off many local business districts, and led to the proliferation of countless mediocre restaurant chains.” [Mies, commenting on Comment of the Day: That’s Why They Call Them Feeder Roads]

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Montrose
04/13/10 12:28pm

Sabetta Café Makes Sure To Feed the Blogs First

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Vermont Commons
16 Comments

How cute! Just a few days after a restaurant publicist emails news about the new Sabetta Café & Wine Bar set to open in the former location of Café Zol at 2411 South Shepherd just south of Fairview, a Swamplot “reader” sends in a photo (which just happens to be named in the same very specific style as the ones sent by the publicist) of the new sign out front and asks us if we know anything about it.

Only what you tell us! Let’s see: that it’ll be the new digs of former Simposio’s executive chef Riccardo Palazzo-Giorgio and his wife, Donna; that they’ll be serving “classic, signature dishes from the twenty-two different culinary regions of Italy,” and that you expect it to open in May.

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Commercial Real Estate
04/05/10 11:17am

H-E-B Announces That the Buffalo Grille Is Moving — Somewhere

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Leasing, Openings and Closings, Parking, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, West University
21 Comments

A spokesperson for Buffalo Grille parking-lot tenant H-E-B confirms that the popular West U brunch-and-lunch spot will be moving from its current location on Bissonnet at Buffalo Speedway after its lease expires next year, “to a new location yet to be determined.” But one possible new location for the Buffalo Grille — a portion of the former JMH Market on Rice Blvd. — was just snapped up by the owners of Thompson + Hansen Nursery and Tiny Boxwood’s. The Buffalo Grille’s John McAleer tells the West University Examiner

“Right now…pickings are very slim. Any vacant space in the West U area, or the closest you can get to it, we’re looking at it. We have a year left, and we’re looking at that perfect location to find.”

How awkward: McAleer’s parents, Mac and Betty McAleer, “are part of the management team that owns the land on which the Buffalo Grille and H-E-B are situated,” the Examiner‘s Charlotte Aguilar and Steve Mark explain. And Molina’s Restaurant — displaced from the shopping center a few years ago when H-E-B redeveloped it — is still looking for its own replacement West U location.

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