Phase 2 of Scott Tycer’s Heights food empire launches tonight, as his new upscale restaurant, Textile, opens — next to his newish bakery in the former mattress factory turned textile mill at 22nd St. and Lawrence:

“The rent is a lot lower here – a third of what I paid at Aries,” he said. “I didn’t take out huge loans to do this restaurant. So really, the only pressure is to be 100 percent as good as we can be.”

Textile is housed in the 114-year-old Oriental Textile Mill, 611 W. 22nd. The restaurant occupies a small corner of the historical structure with a clock tower and smokestack. Most of the 10,000-square-foot space is devoted to Tycer’s Krafts’men, a wholesale bakery that supplies restaurants, including Cafe Annie, Da Marco, Benjy’s and Mark’s. He plans to open a Krafts’men retail outlet in the textile mill, he said.

The Chronicle‘s Dai Huynh also reports a new Kraftsmen retail store — at Kirby and Westheimer.

Just a few blocks south on 19th St., Vietnam Restaurant is expanding into the retail space next door. Bunny Bungalower Annie Sitton reports the new space is scheduled to open in November.

A few of Sitton’s early photos of the Vietnam build-out:

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• Tycer entices with Textile; Kahn’s set to reopen [Houston Chronicle]
• Vietnam in the Houston Heights [The Bunny Bungalow]
• Vietnam Restaurant: getting back to its roots [Food in Houston]
  
• No White Tablecloths: Kraftsmen and Textile in the Heights [Swamplot]

Photos: Anonymouseater (sign), Annie Sitton (construction)