Former Ibiza and Catalan investor Rhea Wheeler and two partners have bought the shuttered Twelve Spot bar on Travis St. — just around the corner from Market Square downtown — and will be turning it into a gastropub called Hearsay.
218 Travis is Houston’s second-oldest building, and originally served as a Confederate Army munitions depot. It’s a dramatic space inside: There are three stories, but the upper floors have been removed and a mezzanine placed in the back.
Wheeler told Jennifer Dawson of the Houston Business Journal he’ll open the new restaurant in the first half of next year.
After the jump: More Wheeler restaurant plans! In actual old buildings!
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A big white house dating from 1913 at 3208 Austin near Elgin in Midtown will house Wheeler’s second new-restaurant-in-old-digs, named White House. It’s the former home of Trinity Foster Care. The new restaurant will serve Texas cuisine, but won’t open until later next year, after a kitchen is added to the back of the building.
Details about the third restaurant Wheeler is planning — also in an old building in Midtown — are coming in a separate post.
Special note to restaurant entrepreneurs: call your restaurant a gastro-anything, report it to us, and we’ll be sure to write about your new venture lickety split.
- Restaurateur serves three helpings of history [Houston Business Journal]
Photos of former Twelve Spot bar: Katie Laird (inside) and HAIF user houston1973 (exterior)
