Restaurants

CityCentre
09/04/09 11:24am

Openings and Closings: Restaurant Revamp Edition

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Galleria, Houston Heights, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, The Woodlands, Upper Kirby
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What’s new to eat?

  • Opening Soon: Lola, a diner-ish spot serving “American comfort foods” — in the restored and refashioned former Eckerd Drug across from the Heights Post Office on Yale and 11th. This’ll be the third Heights restaurant venture from Ken Bridge, who also runs Dragon Bowl and Pink’s Pizza.
  • Opened This Week: From famed New York, Las Vegas, and Dallas chef John Tesar, Tesar’s Modern Steak and Seafood, directly across from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands. You’ll certainly want to eat everything on your plate when you visit: “Tesar’s entire menu will be one hundred percent sustainable created with a zero-waste food ethics in mind,” declares the restaurant website. Whole fish will be a specialty. Outside: a burger bar.
  • Closed: The Texadelphia in the fast-food-friendly strip center on Memorial Dr. and Asbury, across from Otto’s — reportedly on account of the parking lot being too darn clogged. No worries: You can still get your cheesesteak fix at 3 other Houston locations, and it’s now a bit easier to find a spot in front of the Kolache Factory.

More food fun:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Brunner
09/01/09 4:31pm

More Clues About the Cue

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Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Washington Corridor
8 Comments

This doesn’t sound so much like a deli now, does it? How long ’til they start calling this part of Shepherd The Gastrow?

A little birdie points Swamplot to more info about plans for the former Cue & Cushion pool hall, hiding on the uh . . . secret Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau website:

510 Shepherd, designed by award-winning hospitality designer Joel Mozersky, will be a unique neighborhood restaurant concept reminiscent of a traditional London gastro pub, yet modernized in design and updated to take into account American tastes.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Adaptive Reuse
09/01/09 10:44am

What About the Cushions?

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Brunner, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants
5 Comments

WHAT ABOUT THE CUSHIONS? “At 510 Shepherd, the old Cue and Cushion Pool Hall has been sold and is seeing some major changes. The billiards tables are gone and a dining room is under construction. The new place will be Cue Restaurant. Though unconfirmed, the on-site rumor is that it will be a New York style deli – something like Katz’s or Kenny and Ziggy’s, I am told.” Also, photos of the future locations of BRC Gastro Pub across the street and Burgerzilla in the Heights. [Fred Eats Houston; previously on Swamplot]

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Adaptive Reuse
08/26/09 12:06pm

More Signs of That Shepherd Restaurant Scene Coming to Life

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Brunner, Houston Heights, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Restaurants
7 Comments

MORE SIGNS OF THAT SHEPHERD RESTAURANT SCENE COMING TO LIFE Rising soon from the former home of a tombstone business on Shepherd, across Blossom St. from the Kicks indoor-soccer facility: BRC Gastro Pub. Watch out also for Burgerzilla, reported to be working its way to the corner of 11th and Studewood, in the Heights. [Cleverley’s Blog]

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Camp Logan
08/12/09 6:18pm

Latest Diversion for Onion Creek: Camp Logan

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Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Restaurants, Wanita Place
47 Comments

And now, a view of the scene at the former Westcott Bar by the entrance to Memorial Park, where Swamplot’s Rice Military correspondent is ready at the camera. The address: 6603 Westcott, at the corner of Durford.

That banner at the front is announcing a new location for the Onion Creek Coffee House.

Two more views:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Interiors
08/05/09 6:01pm

Block 7: The Calm Before the Scene

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Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants, Retail
9 Comments

Alison Cook likes the recently opened Block 7 Wine Company:

The new venture, located in a smartly rehabbed appliance store on Shepherd just south of the Washington strip, combines retail wine sales with a wine bar that also functions as a restaurant. There’s a short, well-edited menu that will soon be expanded but which already looks and tastes promising.

The place looks smashing: airy and crisp and cool, all gunmetal greys and silvers, with black notes for ballast, a shimmer of glassware and a few bright pops of color.

I admired the vintage store fittings salvaged from the original appliance business and repurposed as a check-out desk, as well as the reasonable by-the-bottle prices and the distinct personality of the list, which does not try to be all things to all people.

Speaking of which:

From my window table, I could see Soma, the Japanese fusion and sushi spot on Washington at Shepherd, and I trembled to think of the ravening scenesters that might soon invade my little idyll.

Photo of checkout station, Block 7 Wine Co., 720 Shepherd Dr.: Alison Cook

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Downtown
07/28/09 9:33am

Downtown Lunch Breaks

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Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants
2 Comments

DOWNTOWN LUNCH BREAKS Timpano’s Chop House, at the corner of Main and Texas, shut down last week — meeting the same fate as its predecessor, Bossa. Where will expense-account lunchers go now? “In the shadow of Timpano’s sudden closure skulks a disheartening Houston restaurant trend: the precipitous decline of the downtown business lunch. This spring, such expense-account stalwarts as Voice (in the Hotel Icon) and 17 (in the Alden-Houston Hotel) have eliminated lunch service entirely. On April 1, Spencer’s for Steaks and Chops in the Hilton of the Americas–the premium restaurant in Houston’s largest convention hotel–gave up on lunch service and moved its official opening time to 2 p.m.” [Cook’s Tour]

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Galleria
07/27/09 5:15pm

Losing a Mint, Plus Helpful Subway Guides You To Your Next Strip-Center Sandwich Fix

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Leasing, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Strip Centers
11 Comments

Houston radio host and blogger Lance Zierlein snaps photos of the lockout letters on two separate storefronts in the Shops on Sage strip center at 2800 Sage, on the corner of West Alabama. The notices, demanding that delinquent rent be paid before the stores can be reopened, were apparently posted by center managers Hunington Properties last Wednesday.

Who’s locked out? Lebanese restaurant Mint Cafe . . . and a Quiznos, which Zierlein reports on Twitter is already vacant.

But . . . what’s this? Someone from the nearby Subway in the Yorktown Plaza shopping center on W. Alabama has been kind enough to post a menu on the Quiznos door, with this pertinent Subway tagline featured prominently: “At Subway restaurants, we have your fresh interests at heart.” Plus, a handwritten invitation to visit!

Zierlein’s line: “Subway vultures picking over the carcass.”

Photo: Lance Zierlein

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Disaster Aftermath
07/20/09 1:47pm

When the Spindletop Stops

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Downtown, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
8 Comments

A longtime fan of the rotating Spindletop Restaurant perched on top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Downtown writes in to note the passing . . . of the restaurant’s website:

I last called them in January to see about a reservation but they were still closed from Hurricane Ike. The gentleman who answered insisted they would re-open someday soon and I was intrigued. I continued checking their website for an announcement every few weeks but it never arrived and then the site itself disappeared Sadly, when websites revert to parking pages, it’s all but assured the business behind them has folded.

If the Spindletop is indeed gone, a slowly revolving icon of Houston’s oil boom days, what would the Hyatt do with such a, umm, unique structure perched atop it’s hotel? Landry’s Heliport and Cloud Bar? Rennovate it to become *the* foremost penthouse in the city? “Hey baby, not just the bed rotates, but the whole penthouse!” Perhaps just another semi-adequate restaurant with a unique and stunning view?

What was the city perch like in its glory pre-Ike days?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Cancellations and Delays
07/09/09 1:25pm

Comment of the Day: Don’t Tear Down That Restaurant!

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Comments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Restaurants
1 Comment

COMMENT OF THE DAY: DON’T TEAR DOWN THAT RESTAURANT! “A restaurant is a pretty good highest and best use for land in the loop. Look at the projects involving buying a restaurant and knocking it down to build. Little Woodrow’s = Empty lot no activity. The State Grille = Empty lot no activity. Nit Noi in Rice Village = Empty lot no activity. Am i missing any?? . . . Did the Stables on S. Main become anything?” [JPSivco, commenting on Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye: Otto’s, Back from the Edge of the Market]

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Commercial Real Estate
07/08/09 5:55pm

Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye: Otto’s, Back from the Edge of the Market

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Land for Sale, Land Prices, Memorial, Openings and Closings, Restaurants
10 Comments

That plan by the owners of Otto’s Bar B Q and Hamburgers on Memorial Dr. to shut down the restaurant, sell the land, and retire on the proceeds didn’t end up going so well after all, the Houston Business Journal‘s Allison Wollam notices. The 58-year-old restaurant

was slated to be demolished to make way for the sale of the high-profile Memorial Drive land, but the restaurant has now fully reopened after the owners were unable to find a buyer for the property. The hamburger side of the two-sided restaurant has remained in business, but the portion selling barbecue closed for a time. A sign on the door says the barbecue side of the restaurant celebrated a grand reopening on April 15.

But word of the reopening seems to be spreading slowly. The once-bustling parking lot of the restaurant, for example, was only sparsely populated during lunchtime on a day earlier [last] week.

The owners, June and Marcus Sofka, were told they might be able to get as much as $150 a square foot for their property when they listed it with Cushman & Wakefield at the end of 2007. But a real estate broker tells Wollam the 1.3-acre Otto’s property at 5502 Memorial Dr. and the 17,000-sq.-ft. shopping center the couple owns next door might be worth a little less than half of that today.

Photo: Flickr users Bob & Lorraine Kelly

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Baytown
07/08/09 1:40pm

Fast Food Fire Foam Fake-Outs

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Crime, Quicklink, Restaurants
6 Comments

FAST FOOD FIRE FOAM FAKE-OUTS Acting on the orders of a prank caller, managers of 2 local Arby’s locations recently ended up spraying foam all over their kitchen and food-prep areas. The caller, claiming to be from the local fire department, said that the system had been turned off, but instructed the manager in each instance to pull the lever that activates the fire suppression equipment — to allow the department to perform a test. At the Arby’s on Garth Rd. in Baytown, the foam caused at least $600 in physical damage and significantly more in loss of business during the cleanup. At an Arby’s in Clear Lake, employees “followed the instructions from the caller even further and broke out the windows of the restaurant, according to [Baytown Detective Lt. Eric] Freed. The Jack-In-The-Box on Decker Drive in Baytown also got a similar call, but did not do anything that the caller said to do, he said.” [Baytown Sun]

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Energy Corridor
07/07/09 12:22pm

And July Is Meat Candy Month

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Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants, Strip Centers, West University, Westchase
16 Comments

AND JULY IS MEAT CANDY MONTH Its first Houston store (at Main and Kirby) apparently a patty-smashing success, 3 new Smashburgers are now ready to open in a few other strip centers: “First up is a restaurant in the Westchase area at 10705 Westheimer, Suite C, opening on July 15. A second will open July 22 in the Energy Corridor at 1635 Eldridge (Eldridge and Briar Forest). And a third, located at 5520 Buffalo Speedway (Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet) in the West University area, will open July 29.” [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]

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Comments
06/30/09 3:04pm

Comment of the Day: Away from the Ropelines

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Nightlife, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail
21 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: AWAY FROM THE ROPELINES “I’m new to the area, and am trying to learn about different neighborhoods. I thought [Rice Military] was a good place, but these posts are making me rethink. I want an area close to restaurants and neighborhood bars, maybe a few shops, but not late night strobe light clubs with velvet ropes and VIP sections. Are there any areas in Houston inner-loop that are cool like this, or are they all either club areas or suburban areas where everyone lives in a house with a yard? Why aren’t there any cool areas for the 30-something crowd that doesn’t want clubs and drunk drivers, but does want shops, bars and restaurants?” [Joe, commenting on Coming Soon: Late Night Rice Military Action]

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