IS ANOTHER HOUSTON FOOD HALL ON ITS WAY TO RICE VILLAGE? Whispers of a forthcoming food hall at University Blvd. and Morningside Dr. have been audible ever since Trademark Property put out renderings in 2016 showing the eastern Rice Village Arcade building there rebranded as “Rice Village Market.” Since then, the building’s remained mostly untouched, but now, with the help of one particularly sharp fact-finder over on HAIF, Eater’s Alaena Hoestetter offers this detail: “the forthcoming project,” she writes, “is from the same entity responsible for St. Roch Market in New Orleans.” It would be the second third time St. Roch’s operators attempted to branch out beyond their native NOLA. Last February, the food hall’s parent company opened an “identically named spinoff in Miami,” writes Hoestetter, prompting the City of New Orleans to file a lawsuit alleging unauthorized use of the moniker. The company’s principle later “confirmed to Eater that the new project wouldn’t bear the St. Roch moniker,” reports Hoestetter, though the suit is ongoing. (No final word yet on what another St. Roch spinoff planned for Chicago will be called.) In Rice Village, company representatives appear to be playing it safe so far: The LLC they established in Texas last September is known simply as Rice Village F&B. [Eater Houston via HAIF; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Trademark Property