01/25/12 12:24pm

The new restaurant opening in the space left behind by the shuttered 11th St. Cafe, also known for a time last year as the Ruggles 11th St. Cafe? Ruggles Green. No, seriously. But apparently it’s not the same Ruggles the restaurant started with.

For about 5 months last summer, the 11th St. Cafe at 748 E. 11th St. took on a new name: Ruggles 11th St. Cafe — after Ruggles Grill owner Bruce Molzan agreed to operate the restaurant. But Molzan later pulled out of the arrangement because “he considered the quality of the food there poor,” he told Chronicle reporter Purva Patel last month. A trademark-infringement lawsuit Molzan then filed against the cafe prompted owner Archie Patterson to remove the Ruggles name from the restaurant in early December; he closed it entirely — after 35 years of operation — at the end of the year, announcing that a new tenant for the space would be named in late January.

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01/25/12 8:58am

Photo of Chase Bldg. (former Gulf Bldg.), 712 Main St.: Adam Baker [license]

01/24/12 5:37pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT TO RENAME THE HOUSTON ASTROS “Astros’ owner is considering changing their name and uniform once they join the AL? The lack of tradition I believe hurts a sports franchise. Alright, Swampies…let the names begin; The Houston Hurricanes?” [Dana-X, commenting on Headlines: IAH Expansion; Brazos River Battle]

01/24/12 2:47pm

THE NEW ONLINE HOME OF HOUSTON’S MAP TOP TEN Zip Code maps, super neighborhood maps, crime maps, city boundary maps — if there’s a city-produced map of Houston you’re looking for, you’ll find it at the planning dept.’s just-unveiled My City Maps and Apps page. The page is peppered with (mostly working) links to the city’s main GIS My City map viewer (newly updated with 2010 aerial photos) and other services such as the still-in-beta, still Internet-Explorer-only electronic Development Review Cycle system for tracking platting, variance, and development applications. [Planning Dept.]

01/24/12 10:23am

WHAT LURKS INSIDE THAT SCARY, SCARY HOUSE ON ELYSIAN ST. Oh, what will they think of next to scare you away from the Fifth Ward? “I thought I read something odd” while driving by the “abandoned mess” at 1919 Elysian St. north of Lorraine St., reports reader Robert Searcy, who sent in these pix. “So I had to circle the block to see if what I thought I read was really what I read . . .” [Swamplot inbox] Photos: Robert Searcy

01/24/12 8:50am

Photo of Post Oak Central: Joseph De Palma [license]

01/23/12 11:19pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DEATH OF COOL “The FrankenTuscan style is a bit like a normalizing virus looking for a healthy, vibrant, diverse host. When countercultures build up and make cool certain neighborhoods, they are seen by developers as suddenly desirable, so the developers move in, hoping to capitalize on this cool authenticity. But rather than succumbing to the local conditions of Montrose, for instance (tattoo parlors and halfway houses and comic book stores and so on) they put a veneer of normalcy over it. Make it safe enough that yuppies with slight aspirations toward hipsterism can understand and participate. These developers market a lifestyle just cool enough that the West U set will move in, but not so cool that it veers into rebellious anti-establishment cool. As a result, what’s great and exciting about these progressive neighborhoods becomes slowly watered down, normalized, made monocultural again. This virus seeks sameness–it seeks to flatten any bumps, to smooth out any rough edges. It is insidious and impossible to resist. Montrose will FrankenTuscanified, whether we like it or not. As every cool neighborhood in the history of the world has been. . . .” [MJ, commenting on Comment of the Day: Moving on from Montrose]

01/23/12 10:40am

GOODBYE TO HEALTH FOUNTAIN A reader is looking for some acknowledgment of the demise of the Health Fountain Restaurant, a fixture inside the Post Oak Y at 1331 Augusta (now officially called the Trotter Family YMCA) for more than 30 years. “Nothing horrible happened, I think the gentleman that owned it was just ready to retire. They quietly closed their doors around Christmastime and the restaurant is now Island Smoothie. I will miss the old place, as will many many others! They always had good healthy food and friendly service . . . Island smoothie will be good too, just would be nice to see some publication say so long and that they will be missed!” Update, 1/24: The restaurant’s new name is Island Grill. [Swamplot inbox] Photo: YMCA Houston

01/23/12 9:42am

HOT ROLLS FOR THE MUSEUM DISTRICT A passerby notes there’s construction going on at 5512 La Branch, around the corner from the Children’s Museum. Going in at that address: an establishment named after the proprietors’ late great grandmother, culinary entrepreneur and hot-roll-mix pioneer Lucille Bishop Smith, who on the restaurant’s Facebook page is shown in photos feeding her creations to grocery-store shoppers and boxing champ Joe Louis and greeting Martin Luther King. Lucille’s, scheduled to open this month, promises to feature Southern cooking “with infusions of European gourmet techniques.” [Facebook via Swamplot inbox] Photo: LoopNet

01/23/12 8:30am

Photo of Main Street: Imelda Bettinger [license]

01/20/12 11:42pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: MOVING ON FROM MONTROSE “You wouldn’t have expected that pioneers on the plains would’ve built teepees, would you? In the same vein, developers aren’t building $700k townhomes for the indigenous bohemians of Montrose (whom cannot afford them and often do not want them or see them as an affront to their being); the townhomes are built for the West U set. You must come to terms with the geographic displacement of your people and the natural resources that once provided for your subsistence. Resistance is futile, and would only be an impetus for conflicted political outcomes, and co-opted movements that veer into misanthropic endeavors. Prepare yourselves, and move to Houston’s eastern hinterlands. To remain on your sacred ground, your only alternative is to go back to school and get your MBA, so that you can adapt to the West U man’s strange ways and speak their tongue. But I think that you should go, and be with your people.” [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Origins of the FrankenTuscan Style]