ORGANIC PIZZA, MADE TO ORDER FOR HOUSTON How perfectly in tune with Houston is this? The first-ever certified organic restaurant in the city will be . . . a franchise pizza chain! And it’s going into a European parking lot style shopping center — in the far northwest part of town, beyond FM 1960: “There’s even a gluten-free pizza crust option. But it’s not just the food that’s special; Pizza Fusion also carries a wide array of organic wines and a gluten-free beer made from sorghum. While the location may seem baffling to some — progressive, eco-friendly businesses and restaurants don’t tend to thrive in Houston, much less in our decidedly un-eco-friendly suburbs — there’s no denying the fact that Pizza Fusion is an exciting new restaurant to have on the scene. Want a Pizza Fusion in your own neighborhood? Good news: they’re looking to open a whopping 75 more franchises in Texas alone over the next five years.” [Houstonist]
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Remember – just because it is said to be or labeled organic doesn’t mean it’s better.
It doesn’t even mean it’s organic. It just means it meets some FDA guideline which if you read carefully leaves open all kinds of ways for non-organic things to be labeled organic.
Anyway, good luck to Pizza Fussion. Hopefully they catch on to the fad and guilt that some customers use to make decisions.
We need more gluten free pizza places, so very happy to see this! Gluten free eating is definitely not a fad, it’s here to stay. Louis Kestenbaum is rumored to be opening up a gluten free bakery, if he hasn’t already, and he has a great blog someplace – Louis Kestenbaum’s Gluten Free Goodies, I think. Also, there’s the Gluten Free Goddess with another great gf blog. Wish I lived closer to Pizza Fusion so I check out their gf pizza!
Agreed on the Gluten Free not being a fad. Having a wife who suffers from Celiac Sprue it will be nice having something on the Northwest side that caters, at least partially, to her needs.
For around 8 years now I’ve been going to the health food store and making my wife a pie when I wanted take out pizza.
If the pie is any good, I predict they will do well.
Louis Kestenbaum & Joel Kestenbaum, Fortis Property Group close sale of Galleria Towers
Jones Lang LaSalle announced the firm’s capital markets experts have completed the sale of Galleria Towers I, II & III on behalf of Brooklyn, New York-based Fortis Property Group (Louis Kestenbaum), LLC to Los-Angeles-based Cannon Commercial. Financial terms were not disclosed but sources close to the transaction estimate the closing price was in excess of $300 million.
“We acquired the Galleria Towers from Blackstone (which acquired them from Trizec Properties) in November 2006, and maximized value by aggressively pushing rental rates while at the same time increasing the occupancy from around 90% to 98%,†said Fortis Chairman Louis Kestenbaum. Louis Kestenbaum is the father of Joel Kestenbaum, also of Fortis Property. “The disposition of this asset furthers our goals of maximizing investor returns and geographically diversifying the holdings within our portfolio” says Louis Kestenbaum. We achieved close to 100% profit on our equity investment in the Galleria Towers over a one and a half year holding period, and attained similar returns on our recent sale of International Plaza Tower III across the Tollaway.â€
LOUIS KESTENBAUM & JOEL KESTENBAUM of Fortis Property Group close sale of Galleria Towers
“We acquired the Galleria Towers from Blackstone (which acquired them from Trizec Properties) in November 2006, and maximized value by aggressively pushing rental rates while at the same time increasing the occupancy from around 90% to 98%,†said Fortis Chairman Louis Kestenbaum. Louis Kestenbaum is the father of Joel Kestenbaum, also of Fortis Property. “The disposition of this asset furthers our goals of maximizing investor returns and geographically diversifying the holdings within our portfolio. We achieved close to 100% profit on our equity investment in the Galleria Towers over a one and a half year holding period, and attained similar returns on our recent sale of International Plaza Tower III across the Tollaway.â€
Fortis Property Group,Louis Kestenbaum & Joel Kestenbau, LLC is a real estate investment, operating and development company. Its real estate projects include the ownership and management of Class A office and industrial properties located throughout the United States. Fortis currently owns two other Class A office buildings and an industrial property in the Dallas, Texas area. Nationwide, Fortis currently owns more than 20 properties, which contain over six million rentable square feet. Fortis Property Group CEO Jonathan Landau further indicated that Fortis anticipates raising a value-add real estate fund that will invest in Class A office properties in prime office markets throughout the United States.
I just have to chime in on the gluten-free pizza thing! Woo-HOO
(This is definitely a cross-blog event.)
While I DO love the idea of this place, I don’t know if I’ll ever get there to eat, because it’s not in my neighborhood…
HOWEVER, do you all REALIZE how many of us/you are actually allergic to gluten/wheat? [Of course not, we’re just the umpteenth generation of wheat-eaters in this world.]
Seriously, like our desire for sugar & alcohol, things we crave may be our undoing. It’s nutritional science: successfully conditioning ourselves to something creates the unintended addiction to it. Humans have cultivated wheat as a staple crop for so long that we may be dependant upon it.
Just TRY not to eat bread! You’ll go crazy! Pizza! Beer! Cereal! You’ll want to kill somebody or climb into bed to hide from the big, bad, un-nurturing world!
And there you have it: Addiction.
So, I’d LOVE to see more convenience food outlets which are not
trying to
y’know… (even if inadvertently)
kill me….
…. . . .