Attractions
02/10/11 7:25pm

Report: Sundance Cinemas Replacing Angelika Film Center at Bayou Place; Bar Smorgasbord Moving in Upstairs

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The city of Houston and the Cordish Company are “deep into negotiations” with Sundance Cinemas to take over the former Angelika Theater spot at Bayou Place, Steven Thomson reports. Robert Redford’s Sundance Group has operated 2 Sundance Cinemas since 2007 — an 8-screen complex in San Francisco and a 6-screen multiplex in Madison, Wisconsin. If Sundance does end up taking over the vacant Angelika space at 510 Texas St. and maintains all existing screens, it would tie with the Sundance Kabuki Cinema near Pacific Heights as the largest complex in the small chain. The company appears to have scaled back the aggressive expansion plans it announced 4 years ago, which included new theaters in Chicago and Denver. The Angelika Film Center closed suddenly last summer.

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Houston Heights
02/10/11 2:25pm

Here Comes That 19th St. “Hippie Vibe”: Radical Eats Opening in Heights Ashbury Coffeehouse

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That little shopping district on 19th St. in the Heights will get its second vegetarian restaurant as soon as Radical Eats opens its kitchen just down the street from Shade. (They serve meat at Shade; it’s Cricket’s Creamery and Cafe across the street that’s vegetarian.) Staci Davis, who’s been selling tamales, tacos, and other Radical Eats fare at Antidote Coffee, Smart Meals, and various area farmers markets, will be moving her food-preparation operation from a drug and alcohol abuse counseling center in a former Holiday Inn by the Eastex Freeway near Little York to a significantly smaller space inside Katy Whelan’s planned Heights Ashbury Coffeehouse in the space at 242 W. 19th St. Whelan originally had plans to name her space the Love Street Coffee Shop; it’s going where Balinskas Architectural Imports used to be. Also sharing space with Davis and Whelan: Architect Deborah Morris’s new juice bar, Juicy in the Sky with Vitamins.

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Comments
02/09/11 6:40pm

Comment of the Day: None of Your Business

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS “. . . What makes you think that a developer is going to want to give you warning or a chance to protest?!? They bought the land, they’re developing it. What stake in this do you or anyone who feels blind sided have? They didn’t give you a chance to speak, complain, picket, whatever because they have a product that REGARDLESS of what they tell you,… you will not like it.” [lunch pail, commenting on Studewood Place: Some New Building Behind the 11th St. Someburger]

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Lanier Place
02/09/11 2:48pm

What It Takes To Get Into the Vintage Lounge

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WHAT IT TAKES TO GET INTO THE VINTAGE LOUNGE This week’s Houston Press exposé on velvet-rope racism includes several first-hand accounts of actual sightings of minorities inside the Rice Village’s Hudson Lounge — and this sweet little nugget of nightclub strategery from Amir Ansari, owner of the Vintage Lounge at 2108 Kipling (across the street from Petsmart): “‘A bar is like a prison, and we have to keep our population in check,‘ [Ansari] says. ‘We are outnumbered 100 to one — we have to prescreen. I’m not letting eight random guys come in in a group. They will usually start fights or bother the girls, which makes matters even worse.’ . . . Ansari has structured the dress code at Vintage to encourage long-term business, or so he hopes. Patrons sporting designer labels such as Dolce & Gabbana or Armani will move on to the next trendy bar soon enough, while more casually clad customers in button-up shirts and khakis are more loyal, he says. Beyond that, ‘We don’t allow graphic printed shirts. No Affliction stuff — nothing you would see on Jersey Shore,’ Ansari adds. ‘No baggy hip-hop stuff, but even that style is dying off.'” [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]

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Housing Data
02/09/11 11:14am

Where the Grocery Stores Aren’t

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A graphic produced by UH’s Community Design Resource Center late last year maps Houston’s “food deserts” — sections of town that are more than a mile from the nearest grocery store and where a high proportion of residents live below the federal poverty line. The group found grocery-poor areas in parts of the Third Ward, Alief, Sunnyside, South Park, Acres Homes, Independence Heights, East Jensen, Kashmere, the Fifth Ward, East Little York and West Oaks. In all, the group counts more than 250,000 low-income Houstonians living more than a mile from a grocery store; according to their calculations, more than a quarter of that number have no access to a vehicle. A larger version of the group’s preliminary map, where blue squares represent grocery stores and each red dot stands for 50 people with income below the poverty level, is here.

Map: University of Houston Community Design Resource Center

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Brookesmith
02/09/11 10:18am

Changing with the Times on North Main

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CHANGING WITH THE TIMES ON NORTH MAIN “The Heights could certainly use a great drag revue,” concludes Katharine Shilcutt in her survey of the not-so-new restaurant at 4002 N. Main in Brookesmith, across Walton St. from Shipley’s Donuts: “Linda is the chef here at La Casa de Frida, a family-run place that’s been run by the same folks for 30 years on North Main. It was formerly Rico’s Cantina, then — for a very brief period last year — Rico’s Luchadores. That Mexican wrestling-themed concept didn’t pan out, so the family has now switched gears to a Frida Kahlo-decorated Tex-Mex cantina that offers Italian and Chinese food on the menu in addition to college ‘club’ nights on Fridays and drag shows on Saturdays.” [Eating Our Words] Photo: Swamplot inbox.

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Comments
02/08/11 11:42pm

Comment of the Day: Not Entirely Weaned from the Breastfeeding Store

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: NOT ENTIRELY WEANED FROM THE BREASTFEEDING STORE “I also find the news sad. The store was so beautiful inside — I felt special walking in to rent a scale, get a consult, buy some clothes, or just use the couches to take a break and feed my babes (with Sandie’s help, I breastfed twins!). I didn’t really understand the name of the store (silly me, I didn’t even realize that it was a store geared toward breastfeeding!) until I had children myself — birthing and breastfeeding a child is definitely work, the work that only a woman can do! My twins are six now. They love walking past the window displays. We’ll have to go again tomorrow, and sit on the couches one last time. The upside of the move is that it sounds like A Woman’s Work is now going to be in the same building as a large pediatric practice; for those families getting breastfeeding help should be easier than ever.” [Joyce, commenting on A Woman’s Work Is Abandoning the Village]

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Air Quality
02/08/11 2:50pm

What’s Really Hot in Mont Belvieu Right Now

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Raw helicopter footage from abc13 of the fire currently raging at the Enterprise Products natural gas fractionation facility at 135 Sun Oil Rd., just east of Hwy. 146 in Mont Belvieu. By 3:55 in, the view gets better, and you can hear the commentator noting that the fire was visible from above Hobby Airport, just 30 miles away.

Video: abc13

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Buying and Selling
02/08/11 10:47am

Get Ready for a Studemont Kroger

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Kroger has bought 8.5 acres of former industrial land on Studemont, just south of I-10, the Chronicle‘s Purva Patel reports. The land, which was once part of Houston’s Sixth Ward, sits just north of Arne’s Warehouse and Party Store and across the street from Grocers Supply. Kroger closed on the larger portion — a 7.2-acre cleared parcel at 1400 Studewood, listed for sale at $15.7 million — just last week. A spokesperson for the grocery chain wasn’t ready to announce a new store on the site, but did say the company had already taken possession of 1.3 acres just to the south, at 1200 Givens St. If Kroger does build a new supermarket there, the parking lot would have 450 ft. of frontage on Studemont; other industrial properties, many of them accessed from Summer St., would still be sandwiched between it and the Sawyer Heights Target.

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Antoine Forest
02/07/11 11:28pm

Knocking Down the Gables of Inwood

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Today, two and a half years after city officials shut down the Gables of Inwood apartments and ordered all its tenants to move out, demolition crews began tearing down the squatter-friendly 163-unit, 10-building, 4 1/2-acre Inwood Forest complex — a process expected to take 6 weeks. City officials say they hope to recoup the $400,000 cost of the demo from the owner, Collins Ofoegbu of El Sobrante, California. But that may not be so easy. As of August 2009, Ofoegbu ranked as Houston’s top scofflaw, having racked up more than 700 building-code violations for issues with the property at 5600 Holly View Dr. His attorney told the Chronicle at the time that the warrants couldn’t be resolved until Ofoegbu settled a dispute with his insurance company, which he said had refused to pay for damages resulting from a fire at the complex.

Photo: 39 Online

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Braeswood
02/07/11 3:20pm

Comment of the Day: Where You Want All Those Flowers

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE YOU WANT ALL THOSE FLOWERS “Seriously – in the bathroom sink? In the yard? By the pool? It’s like if you crossed Ladies Home Journal with Dr. Seuss (‘Would you, could you on the grass? Would you, could you on desk of glass? What about near the commode? Or three vases, on the road?’)” [LT, commenting on Old Braeswood House of Bouquet]

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Houston History
02/07/11 1:45pm

Miracle at 34th St. and 290: The London Opera Debut of Houston’s Pleasures Cabaret

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The synopsis of the new opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith is under embargo until performances at the Royal Opera House begin on February 17th. But judging from the released video trailer (below), it’s likely the production will also feature the London stage debut of the former Gigi’s Cabaret on the 290 feeder road just across 34th St. from the Northbrook Shopping Center in Houston (or more probably its interior), where in 1991 the former Walmart and Red Lobster employee had the extremely good fortune of meeting the greatest sugar daddy of them all, billionaire J. Howard Marshall II. Both Smith and Gigi’s later underwent renovations and name changes: Smith from her original Vickie Lynn Hogan; Gigi’s more recently to Pleasures. But how realistic will the portrayals be? Will set designer Miriam Buether’s version get the Houston strip club’s stage and runway areas right?

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