The driving force of a project that Uptown Houston District has proposed to the city to transform Post Oak Blvd.? Big beautiful buses. With both residential and commercial developments like Skanska’s 20-story office building popping up along the major transit corridor and METRO’s Uptown/Gold Line nowhere in sight, the District has developed a $177-million project featuring light rail-like BRT to update Post Oak — a street “that has long outlived its original use,” says John Breeding, the District’s president.
UH restaurant management student Catherine Martin is already eyeing the decor of the Maggie Rita’s at 1650 Post Oak Blvd. — doomed, she imagines, for lack of parking at least — for when the Carlos Mencia property follows the Kirby location on its path from former Ninfa’s to shutter-dom: “I even liked the soup, I thought it tasted good. There was this really pretty painting of the Mona Lisa, it was just her face and it was all done in blues and greens. . . . Maybe when this location goes out of business I’ll buy that painting for real cheap on the side of the road. Do restaurants have garage sales? Like in their front yard, in their garage? . . . It’s not too far from my apartment I wonder if I’ll see the signs posted at the corner of my block. I just really liked that painting, you know? The thing is I don’t know where I’d put it in my apartment, I have several blank walls in my apartment, but it’s kind of a long painting, you know, real tall, the only thing is on those blank spots, like I have a book shelf underneath, or my desk or my dresser or something. It’s just not enough space all at once. 
“When we first opened and the bar was so crazy, there were girls giving men their cards trying to take them to the restroom. It was so out of control that I had to close the restaurant early. I had to ask them to leave. I didn’t know there were all friends. This older woman, about my age, came up to me and said ‘you don’t know who you’re dealing with. You can’t ask us to leave.’ I said, who are you? She said, ‘I take care of these girls.’ I said, you have to leave. I thought, oh my gosh. This is a big business. I didn’t know all these random girls all knew each other. . . . They all work together. I still have customers on Thursday nights that are mad at me for getting rid of The Show. That’s what they call it. They said ‘Mimi, we had a fun time on Thursdays. We were fishing.’ I said, ‘what do you mean fishing?’ He said, ‘It’s called catch and release.’ I said, I don’t know with some of these girls if you could release them, because they looked very serious. It was wild. 
Included in the lawsuit filed yesterday by Houston and Harris County attorneys against the owners of Treasures, which labels the Westheimer strip club a public nuisance and attempts to shut it down: allegations that the venue is a site of “human trafficking” — of dancers from Vegas. From Cindy George’s report: “
