“It looks like someone has bought the whole block between Feagan, Westcott, and Knox in Rice Military next to the Commonwealth Title office building,” a reader writes in accompaniment of a series of photos. “There are several old cottages with for sale signs showing the houses as ‘to be moved’ although they don’t look salvageable to me.” What, the reader wants to know, is going to happen here?
HOW TO SPOT A FAKE ‘NO PARKING’ SIGN 
A sign like the one shown here is indicative of “a growing problem” inside the Loop, reports abc13’s Miya Shay, who claims that some homeowners and businesses are resorting to a creative way of keeping would-be parkers off the street: “If you notice,” resident Joanne Witt tells Shay, “[the sign] doesn’t have [a] police phone number and it doesn’t say where it’s going to be towed. I’m assuming it’s just put up to scare people.” And how will you know where you can park? Shay tries to clarify: “Legal parking signs by the city are uniform with a red slash across a letter ‘P.’ Signs on fences and utility poles or even physical deterrents like boulders along the street are all illegal because, like it or not, city streets are open to everyone.” [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: abc13, via Facebook
As though mandated by some surgeon general recommendation for commercial development, the new neighbors in the Tlaquepaque Market at Telephone and Lockwood are an ice cream shop and a fitness studio. Scoops, the sign for which recently appeared above those window bars, is replacing a nail salon at 724 Telephone; it will share a wall with a Zumba studio, a former dollar store that doesn’t have a sign yet — but it does appear to have been renovated to provide rump-shakers inside the comfort and convenience of opaque window screens. These new interests are just a few blocks from the new Oak Leaf Smokehouse that opened for lunch in late February at 1000 Telephone Rd., and just a few suites from the new-ish Blue Line Bike Lab.
Photos: Allyn West
Could it be . . . time? A reader claims to have spotted the first inside-the-Loop Dunkin’ Donuts — or at least the future home of it. Last spring, franchise group 521 Interests announced plans to open 16 new Dunkin’ Donuts in Houston; this photo taken this morning in Montrose at the corner of South Shepherd and Fairview shows what might be the first of those, now that the former Arby’s is festooned with the donut makers’ orange and pink signage. Claiming, among other achievements in food and beverage, to be the nation’s top bagel retailer, Dunkin’ Donuts will be just a block and a half away from the Hot Bagel Shop.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Looks like there’s something coming soon to the former Palazzo’s Tratoria at 2300 Westheimer. (And, presumably, someone’s coming to deal with that raggedy palm tree.) A Swamplot reader sends in this photo of the sign for “60 Degree Mastercrafted” with Master Chef Fritz Gitschner. The new dining concept wasn’t immediately available for comment. Palazzo’s has 2 other locations in Westchase and Briar Grove.
Photos: Loves swamplot
THE SPORTS BAR THAT’S REPLACING THE SAXOPHONE ON RICHMOND 
Will we soon see a 70-foot red pitchfork here? Now that the Orange Show has moved that big blue horn out of the way, the former Billy Blues club at 6025 Richmond near Fountain View is getting a new sign and a renovation, a Swamplot reader notes, for the sports bar Diablo Loco Wings y Mas. Last week, Bob Wade’s 70-foot “Smokesax,” made out of Beetle parts, was trucked across town to the Orange Show’s Munger St. warehouse. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
This corner at Mandell and West Main near Richmond and the Menil Collection has lost another tenant; Sophia bowed out of the freestanding brick building at the end of February. It was back in 2008 when Sophia’s predecessor Café Artiste kept this “closed today” sign posted in the window for an entire month, receiving your questions and comments without betraying a word; Sophia’s sand-bagged sign, spotted by a Swamplot reader at the end of last week, doesn’t appear to have inspired the same level of community feedback just yet.
Photos: Jack McBride (Sophia); Flickr user DrPantzo [license]
And the celebratory stunt that the Art Guys pulled this month was walking the entire length of Little York Rd. Moving on, apparently, from their uprooting in early January at the Menil Collection, the shadowy figures Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing completed “The Longest Street in Houston” last Tuesday, walking the 29.6 miles of Little York from Mesa Road to where the concrete ends at Jasmine Crest Lane in Settlers Village.
This is some of what they saw:
MINI COOPER PARKED ON KIRBY STORE WALL NOW PERMITTED 
Call it the artifice on the edifice: It took a few months, but the City of Houston seems to have embraced — or, at least, bureaucratically allowed — the fake Mini Cooper parked on the wall that was slapped with a red tag in early January at Internum, the interiors and design store at 3303 Kirby: “After some back and forth about permitting,” explains The Highwayman’s Dug Begley, “the city granted a permit in late January. Turns out you need to let the city know when you hang something over the sidewalk, even if it is a temporary ad and not a permanent sign. Otherwise, you get a lot of attention . . . .” [The Highwayman; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Lisa Garvin
Four, apparently: That’s how many construction workers it takes to hang the new Torchy’s Tacos sign out front of the former Gugliani’s Italian Grill building in Rice Village. A Swamplot reader reports that the suite at 2400 Times Blvd. has been getting a gutting since Tuesday; much of it has been junked in the Dumpster pictured above. The Austin chain has two other locations inside the Loop — one on South Shepherd Dr. near Fairview and one under construction in the former Harold’s in the Heights store at the corner of Ashland and 19th St. There has been no announcement yet when the Rice Village location will open.
Photo: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE FATE OF THE NEON SIGN AT HUSTON’S DRUGS “The Soda fountain stays. I want to fully restore it to working condition, along with reupholstering the stools, and getting the chrome redone to make it all shine again. The sign out front is a different story. I would very much like to keep the old ‘Huston’s Drugs’ sign but the original owners’ family still owns it and unfortunately might be keeping it.” [Chris, commenting on Artist Renovating, Moving Into Washington Ave.’s Old Huston’s Drugs]
Quite a few of you have sent in similar photos of this befaced sign at Hyde Park and Waugh for Urban Living’s proposed Hyde Park Maison — that’s French for a 4-story, 3-bedroom townhouse. According to the development company’s website there will be five such maisons, ranging from $589,000 to $689,000, squeezed onto the corner lot bound by Waugh, Hyde Park, Fairview, and Upas, just north of Westheimer. Want to see them without the commentary?
Facing Kelvin St., this franchise of Alabama-based Zoës Kitchen is shaping up to open soon in Hanover at Rice Village, the mixed-use apartments bound by Kelvin, Dunstan, and Morningside (shown at left). The fast-casual restaurant is now hiring, says the vinyl sign hanging from the street-level patio railing. Besides this one at 5215 Kelvin, Zoës Kitchen has 7 other locations in Houston. (Swamplot reported in January that Chris Leung’s dessert shop, Cloud 10, is expected to go in on Kelvin St. as well sometime this spring.)
Photos: Allyn West;Â Chris Litherland (Hanover)
One-stop shopping: you can see the signage and new (and presumably sterile) cabinetry through the second-floor windows of The Centre at River Oaks (in Upper Kirby, in fact), where a 25,000-sq.-ft. branch of Texas Children’s Hospital and Pediatric Associates is expected to open in March; the makeover of the shopping center at West Alabama and Kirby began last summer; Ainbinder announced that Ulta Beauty would be operating out of the first floor of the bankrupt Borders; Texas Children’s will sit atop both Ulta Beauty and Brio Tuscan Grille.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
A Swamplot reader sends in this photo of the shuttered Rice Epicurean on Memorial, 1 of 4 stores (of 5) that the longtime Houston grocer said it would close and lease to North Carolina-based The Fresh Market this year. (The location on Fountain View at Inwood will remain open.) Those splashy signs say that the store’s liquidating its fixtures and “supermarket equipment.” So, you know, act fast! While supplies last!
Photo: Swamplot inbox
