River Oaks Shopping Center Replacement: Vallone at the Top

Rendering of Shepherd Dr. Just North of West Gray, River Oaks Shopping Center, Houston

In the rendering above, it’s labeled Adagio Vino. In the marketing package for the River Oaks Shopping Center’s barely curving northwest replacement building, it’s called Il Tavolo. But the Houston Business Journal says that Tony and Jeff Vallone’s new Italian restaurant and wine bar going into that space in fall 2009 is not yet named.

The new restaurant, which will seat up to 150 people, will feature a first-floor dining room and outdoor dining area and a second-level wine bar with its own patio extending onto a balcony overlooking Shepherd Drive.

Rendering of River Oaks Shopping Center on Shepherd Dr. at W. Gray: Weingarten Realty

4 Comment

  • I’m happy with the update to the shopping center. They added the much needed extra parking without damaging the existing street aesthetic. Hopefully they will work there way down and slowly expand the entire center.

  • nice patio view facing west to Shepherd, 4 lanes of traffic, and the roof of the Starbucks drive-thru.

  • I can think of a lot of restaurants that have patios adjacent to busy roads that quite nice dine at. Hollywood Vietnamese did a good job with creating a barrier of bamboo.

    Cafe Adobe is has good patio adjacent to Westheimer. I’m not much on the food though.

    Niko Niko’s has a openly exposed patio, but it’s not unpleasant to eat outside with cars speeding by.

    The plus on this patio is it is upstairs. Anyone have information on the restaurant/bar to go upstairs above the Barnes and Nobles? It’s supposed to have a patio that faces downtown from the third floor.

  • Only one problem – the entire western face of this building violates the setback laws. The structural columns are about a foot over the line, and the entire port-cochere and balcony are over it. And they didn’t request a variance before building it. Not good design or good corporate citizenship.