COMMENT OF THE DAY: HIGH CONCEPT “Bastards. That’s the spot where I was going to put my retro video game and Peruvian/ Japanese fusion restaurant, “Eatariâ€. Guess I’ll have to keep on looking.” [wilf, commenting on Where the Buffalo Grille Will Roam]
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The original Buffalo Grille has at last identified a fallow shopping-center slot to migrate to, about a mile southwest of its current location. The new brunch spot will be at 4080 Bissonnet, on the far western end of West U’s Montclair Shopping Center (the one with the Randalls) at Weslayan. Last seen in this location: The Candle House, next to one of those old retail storefronts for Countrywide Home Loans.
Buffalo Grille’s current building on Bissonnet at Buffalo Speedway — where it’s been for 26 years — is the only section remaining of the shopping center torn down on that site to build H-E-B’s Buffalo Market. The Buffalo Pharmacy next door to it was demolished in 2008. The following year, an H-E-B representative told West U’s city council that Buffalo Grille would stay where it was, but by this April, the grocery company politely announced that its neighbor would be looking for a new home — to open up more spaces for parking.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: GRADUATING VALHALLA “The Rice Thresher reported in 2009 that the administration was considering raising Valhalla’s rent by almost 250%. [Update: The actual proposed increase turned out to be 30 percent, taking into account existing fees; see comment below —Ed.] Since the staff is all-volunteer, the rent increase would be passed along in the price of beer, which is one of the main reasons to go to Valhalla of course. (The other being that Rice is the largest outdoor drinking area in Houston.) So even if the administration isn’t planning on taking Valhalla down all at once, it could be done in by a slow strangulation of rising costs.” [Katk, commenting on Rice Taking KTRU Off the Airwaves, Handing Over Humble Transmitter to KUHF]
RICE VILLAGE BARBECUE AND POT LUCK BRINGS ON THE CHEMICALS AND HAZMAT CREW As abc13 reports it this evening, both sides in everyone’s favorite ongoing Rice Village feud contributed what they could to today’s neighborly resolution of that little rotting-meat problem. To neutralize the odor emanating from the tens of pounds of stinky flesh that had been dumped on an adjacent private alley a week ago, workers from Hans’ Bier Haus reportedly poured calcium hydroxide (or lime) onto it. And the friendly folks next door at the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condos hired a hazardous-materials crew to remove the resulting stew: “It’s a corrosive and it could be toxic also,” Bernard Nelson of Legacy Environmental told a station reporter. “If it gets on the skin it could burn. It carries [a] pH of 14 to 16 so that’s definitely caustic.” [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
WHO GOT THE POLICE TICKET FOR THE HANS’ BIER HAUS MEAT BOMB? In an update to its previous story about the 20 or 40 pounds of rotting meat that was unceremoniously dumped in the private alley between Hans’ Bier Haus on Quenby and the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condominiums over the weekend, abc13 is now reporting that police following up on the incident have issued a citation to “one person” for “causing a nuisance” with the festering stink bomb. Another fun fact from the latest teevee report: “According to the city health department, the property where the meat sits belongs to neither the bar nor the condo, but a third party with [groan] no stake in the case.” Update, 7/9: abc13 has updated its story again, this time removing the name of the person previously identified as having received the citation. We’ve followed suit. [abc13; previously on Swamplot]
Did someone really dump 20 pounds of rotting meat in the private alley between the side wall of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby Condos and the bar patio of Hans’ Bier Haus? Or was it actually 40 pounds? A commenter first alerted Swamplot readers to the smelly situation on Monday, just a few days after a TABC judge — over the live and videotaped objections of several condo residents who live next door — renewed the bar’s alcohol license. But an abc13 report from yesterday gives the latest episode in the ongoing feud a marvelous twist: The alley where the maggot-infested meat is resting is in the Rice Village bar war’s DMZ:
Bar employees can’t enter the area because of a restraining order, and no one from the condo has removed the meat. The bar says the stench is hurting business.
- Rotting meat left outside bar in middle of battle with condo [abc13]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Party Will Go on at Hans’ Bier Haus, 2520 Robinhood Alerts Its Residents: Watch Out for the Owners of That Bar We’ve Been Attacking, Spilling It to the Judge: 2520 Robinhood and Hans’ Bier Haus Get Their Day in Court, 2520 Robinhood Vs. the Merry Men of Hans’ Bier Haus: It’s Come to This, 2520 Robinhood Torments the Beer Drinkers Next Door
Photos: Sandra Gunn (top) and abc13
THE PARTY WILL GO ON AT HANS’ BIER HAUS The little bar in the long shadow of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby Condominiums can keep its alcohol license, a TABC hearing judge ruled today. Residents of the Rice Village condo building contested the license renewal of Hans’ Bier Haus after earlier efforts to silence nosy patrons — with beer cans, lasers, water hoses, and video surveillance — failed. “In his decision, Donovan noted that although police had been called to the bar more than 20 times for noise, they never were cited. . . . The feud continues to be litigated in civil court.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Thought Judge Hancock’s January restraining order had quieted the ongoing feud between residents of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo tower and the little Rice Village bar next door, Hans’ Bier Haus? Well, maybe a little. But both sides pulled out their best complaints for yesterday’s hearing at commissioners’ court, where Robinhood residents are protesting the renewal of the partly open-air bar’s beer and wine license. While January’s court order appears to have quelled the beer-can throwing, the band-dousing, and the collar-grabbing, lawyers for the bar claim that condo residents have been intimidating bar patrons by putting them under surveillance: “They installed high tech videotape and audiotape recording and surveillance microphones and cameras and filmed virtually everything that occurred on the premises of Hans Bier Haus,” bar piano player and attorney Ken Ward complained to the court. Sure, but how else are they gonna have highlights to show in court? The hearing will continue on Thursday.
- Liquor license hearing turns into brouhaha [abc13]
- Feud between bar, condos in Rice Village area goes to court [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot: 2520 Robinhood Alerts Its Residents: Watch Out for the Owners of That Bar We’ve Been Attacking, Spilling It to the Judge: 2520 Robinhood and Hans’ Bier Haus Get Their Day in Court, 2520 Robinhood Vs. the Merry Men of Hans’ Bier Haus: It’s Come to This, 2520 Robinhood Torments the Beer Drinkers Next Door
How many private tables can you fit in the top-floor VIP room? If it weren’t for those pesky Southampton Place Extension deed restrictions, this new mod stucco home on Dunstan near Morningside would be a prime candidate to become a Rice Village nightclub. Just 4 doors down from the Bolsover lot! Rope line can go through the garage if it rains.
But could you charge enough for bottle service to make a dent in the almost-$2.5-million asking price?
Have a tour before the light show begins:
Those of you who feared the appearance in Swamplot comments of a second warning sign might be the signal of an escalating fruit-tree security threat in West U need not be alarmed: It’s apparently nothing new. The reader who first sent in a photo of the best-protected fruit tree in town — on Tangley Rd. west of Buffalo Speedway — claims not to have even noticed that the second sign a few steps away was any different from the first. And yet it is! The uh, somewhat enhanced wording on the second sign is en Español.
And here we have perhaps the best-monitored fig tree on Tangley, west of Buffalo Speedway in West University. Practicing for the thorough investigation that is sure to follow, the reader who sent us the tip claims to have been “in the middle of a public street when I took the photo.” Fig poachers, you have been warned! Says our reader:
who knew these figs were so valuable they’re worth the sign, netting, security camera, and wiring installed to protect them?
Oh, but have you ever tasted a West U fig?
Late Update: The fig tree has been outed by several commenters. C’mon — fess up! You’re really a peach, aren’t you?
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Everybody out by the end of October, the owners of the Village Plaza Shopping Center have told all remaining tenants. Fuzzy’s Pizza and City Dance Studio, of course, are long gone from the center at 5925 Kirby, a block north of Rice Blvd. The Bike Barn has already picked out more than 10,000 sq. ft. in the former Hollywood Video in Weslayan Plaza, at Bissonnet and Weslayan. Kids Kuts will cut south to Bellaire and Stella Link; the UPS Store is looking at a new place “on Bissonnet.” Ticket Stop and Susan Nail & Facial are hunting for space nearby. Mattress Giant just doesn’t want to talk about it.
The property’s owner is its eastern neighbor, the Children’s Assessment Center. A planned expansion to the John M. O’Quinn campus, which now faces Bolsover, would eat the deeper chunk of the shopping center, leaving 0.8 acres on Kirby for somebody else to develop. Here’s the part that’s toast:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PUMPING THE HEIGHTS “I grew up in West University in the 1980s and watched it change from a shabby lower middle class neighborhood to what it is today. I now live in the Heights, and the area is remarkably similar to the way West University was during my childhood. The similarities include everything from housing stock, neighborhood amenities, and eclectic mixture of residents. The location is also similar to West University, in that it is convenient to all of Houston’s major destinations. Mr Kelley’s prediction that the Heights will follow the same upward trend as West University is probably correct, and I think investing in the Heights is a wise move. As the Heights continues to improve, the demand to live in the area will continue to increase and real estate prices will reflect that. If I had more cash right now, I’d buy another house in the area and hold on to it.” [Obsolete, commenting on Comment of the Day: Priced Out of the Conversation]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PRICED OUT OF THE CONVERSATION “The fact that ‘many’ people think the Heights is overpriced is meaningless – if other people besides yourself think that home prices in the Heights are spot on and actually buy the homes, it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks. For the record, the way you feel about the Heights is how I feel about West U. I think the neighborhood is completely overpriced and I would never pay the going rate for West U. But – clearly, many people disagree with me, as those houses continue to fetch what I consider to be ridiculous prices. I can argue as long as I want that West U is overpriced and I can take my money elsewhere, but all that means is that I’m clearly out of step with hundreds of people who feel differently.” [LT, commenting on Swamplot Price Adjuster: The Heights of 2-2ness]
University of Houston architecture professor Susan Rogers explores the Bellaire-Holcombe corridor from Highway 6 to the Med Center and finds a donut in her path.
For each census tract that intersects Holcombe or Bellaire Blvd., Rogers tallied the total number of residents born outside the United States and those residents’ country of origin, using 2000 Census data. The results surprised her:
Most of the action is in the zone between the Loop and the Beltway. “The diversity drops steeply inside 610,” she notes:
I had graphed the street from just 610 to Hwy. 6 for a talk on the links between Asia and Houston and then decided to add the rest as a potential “contrast†– what I found when I completed it absolutely astounded me – the absolute drop is so stark – and of course the income graph is nearly the exact opposite . . .
That graph showing median household income in the same census tracts:
