08/06/13 4:00pm

Swamplot commenter drlan34 reports (and that Dumpster in the photo above would appear to confirm) that a good gutting is going on to renovate the old dive bar Brazos River Bottom into a new restaurant, identified on that yellow permit window dressing as Docks on Brazos. The building here at 2400 Brazos and McIlhenny in Midtown shares a parking lot with the also-being-renovated Bremond Street Grill and backs up against the opened-just-a-few-months-ago Dogwood Houston, a bar paid for by a team from Austin that includes one-time reality teevee hunk Brad Womack and his identical twin brother.

Photo: Allyn West

08/02/13 11:00am

A reader sends these photos and news of bars getting ready to give it a go in Midtown. The photo above shows the former Opium nightclub undergoing renovations in the Midtown Shoppes on Travis and Anita St.; the reader reports that sometime this fall that spot will become the 3030 Pub. It’s catty-corner from where the Midtown Superblock has been proposed.

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08/01/13 11:15am

THE PARC BINZ GETTING SOME RESTAURANT BIZNESS Culturemap’s Eric Sandler is reporting that a coffee shop and wine bar and 2 new restaurants will be opening up this fall in Museum Park, all 3 of them going inside the 5-story, 50,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use Parc Binz building that’s currently under construction at the corner of Binz and Chenevert: “The first . . . will serve light bites and feature the same coffee beans from Greenway Coffee and Tea that are currently featured at Blacksmith . . . . The second will be a Korean fried chicken concept tentatively called Dak & Dop. The third will be a full service restaurant under the direction of executive chef Chris Leung, who’s already partnered with Balcor on ice cream shop Cloud 10 Creamery that’s set to open in Rice Village’s Hanover development this fall.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Energy Architecture

07/31/13 11:00am

A reader sends this photo from the Washington Corridor: Is Sawyer Park coming back from the dead this September? The 4-year run of the 2-story sports bar with a checkered past at 2412 Washington came to an end in February. But the marquee — plagiarized from that ubiquitous Dos Equis ad campaign though it might be — suggests that something might be happening sometime soon. HCAD data show that the property hasn’t changed hands. Still, there aren’t any clues or further omens on the bar’s Facebook page or Twitter feed, and calls to Rockwood, what appears to be a design-build firm whose sign hangs from the bar’s terrace, haven’t been returned.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

07/30/13 12:15pm

FARRAGO FORCED TO LEAVE COSTLY MIDTOWN GROUND FLOOR After 13 years of serving mimosas in Midtown, Farrago World Cuisine is closing. Catty-corner from the under-construction Midtown Park and one of the first ground-floor participants in that two-block urban walkability experiment around the Post Properties buildings at Gray, Webster, and Bagby, Farrago announced the shuttering in a recent Facebook post that suggests how primo the ‘hood is becoming: “We endured the construction, paid parking and towed customers. Alas, the over double rent was more than we could bare.” [Facebook; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Farrago World Cuisine

07/18/13 11:00am

DIPPING INTO DOWNTOWN’S BAR SCENE Tweeting this photo of its brand-new TABC sign in the window at 304 Main St., Little Dipper has emerged in Downtown’s twinkling constellation of new bars and restaurants: Eater Houston reports that this proposed bar is owned by the same folks who have brought you Poison Girl on Westheimer and coffee shops Black Hole on Graustark and Antidote on Studewood. It appears that the Little Dipper will be going into the space right next to ramen shop Goro & Gun at 306 Main, just around the corner from the OKRA Charity Saloon on Congress and that lot catty-corner from Market Square Park where Hines has said it is considering building a residential tower. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: @littledipperbar

07/15/13 11:15am

A Swamplot reader writes in to confirm what the sign in the window suggests: “I talked to the people. Said its going to be a restaurant!” This 6,561-sq.-ft. 1925 former food store in the Old Sixth Ward sits at the corner of White at 2003 Union St., just south of Washington Ave. If you’ve got a really good arm, it’s a stone’s throw from Liberty Station. And it’s immediately south of that awkward triangular patch where planning firm Asakura Robinson and other neighborhood futurists plotted visions of a walkable Washington Corridor, with bike repair stations, local retailers, food trucks, and the like.

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07/12/13 11:45am

A tipster tells Swamplot that the former Broken Spoke Cafe at 1809 Washington will soon be home to a new bar called the Caddy Shack. The cafe, located between Silver and Sabine in the Old Sixth Ward, closed last fall — and, unfortunately, soon after received the brunt of a fire that destroyed a vacant duplex next door.

Photo: Allyn West

06/18/13 3:00pm

It seems that the townhouses overlooking this lot at 1016 W. 22nd St. might soon be seeing something more than a pair of apparently shy pick-ups: That TABC sign, dated June 12, indicates that The Orange Grove wants to sell booze at this spot to the people of Shady Acres. (The fairly dilapidated single-family house that used to stand here showed up in a September Daily Demolition Report.) This is one of several developments coming to the area: The restaurants Hughie’s and Spaghetti Western are renovating old joints west of T.C. Jester Blvd. and TikTok, a bar and concert venue, is planned just southwest of here on W. 20th St.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

06/06/13 3:00pm

FLESHING OUT WILLOWBROOK’S DINING OPTIONS Rivals in that niche sports-and-cleavage market Twin Peaks and Hooters will have a bit more competition starting today, reports Eater Houston, and this from the only restaurant that’s legally allowed to call itself a “breastaurant:” Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill — which in April trademarked the term — opened its first location last month in The Woodlands; this new one will be at the former Burger Girl at 17117 Tomball Pkwy. near the Willowbrook Mall. And what, you might wonder, sets Bikinis apart? It might be the food: “In addition to traditional American bar-and-grill fare and cocktails and microbrews,” reports the Houston Business Journal, “Bikinis offers its Big Bucking Burger. Customers can win a T-shirt if they finish the $24.95 five-pound burger on their own.” [Eater Houston; Houston Chronicle; Houston Business Journal] Photo: Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill

05/29/13 3:45pm

An email sent out by the owners of re:HAB says that the bar will have to close and leave its Houston Ave. location by July. (A landlord issue, apparently.) But the email also says a new spot has been lined up — at 1658 Enid and Link Rd. in Brooke Smith — and that it could open as early as August “if everything goes according to plan (yeah right).”

So we’ll take things one day at a time, then. The bar first opened in the renovated (and repainted) former Houston Ave Bar spot along the Spring St. hike and bike trail. This new location is just a few blocks north of the renovated D&T Drive Inn on Enid and about a mile east of the proposed site of Town in City Brewing Co. on W. Cavalcade. The email goes on to describe this building as “nestled on the banks of ‘Little White Oak Bayou,’” explaining that you’ll be able to get to re:HAB this time “by car, bus, bike or kayak.”

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05/07/13 3:45pm

This new build on the corner of Navigation Blvd. and Terminal Rd. has aroused the curiosity of a Magnolia Park resident: Though its utilitarian appearance and ballast-sharing trackside location suggest a storage facility — or maybe a roll-by gift shop for forgetful conductors — a neighbor on Terminal Rd. says he heard it’s going to be the new location of Players Ice House.

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04/30/13 3:45pm

Last week, this sign showed up in the window at the old Sophia restaurant on W. Main and Mandell, indicating that something or someone called Faustian Bargain intends to serve Montrose some devil juice — er, liquor. Sophia closed here at the end of February, you’ll remember, and Café Artiste mysteriously disappeared several years before that. Some sleuthing by a Swamplot reader — later echoed by Eater Houston and Culturemap — turned up that 2 of the likely new owners of the 2,400-sq.-ft. standalone near the Menil Collection are Omar Afra and Jagatjit Katial of Free Press Houston and Fitzgerald’s fame. Inquiries for more information haven’t been returned.

Photos: Allyn West

04/24/13 3:30pm

Note: More here.

It looks like that retail center that’s replacing the art gallery that burned down is beginning to shape up. And it looks like at least one of the future tenants intends to serve adult beverages. The sign behind the chain-link at the site names the applicant as Leaven & Earth, and a rep from the TABC confirms that the application, filed on April 17, is pending. The original plans for the site here at 1706 Westheimer describe a 4,829-sq.-ft. building — with 36 parking spaces behind it, accessible from Dunlavy — designed to replace the Galerie Mado Chalvet, which was lost in a fire and immortalized on a backpack in 2012.

Photos: Allyn West

04/17/13 10:00am

Regretting what he calls “too much shitty visual culture” in Montrose, artist Cody Ledvina has spent the past few months approaching businesses with ideas for murals as a way of changing that culture, wall by wall. (You might remember Ledvina’s redone Mary’s mural before the leather bar was closed to make way for Blacksmith.) The most recent mural is this elongated weiner dog stretching out on the side of EJ’s Bar at 2517 Ralph St. The photo’s taken from Kueter St. beside Buffalo Exchange and that fenced-in vacant lot on Westheimer near Dunlavy. Also shown here is part of a mural — that’s a skyline silhouette, there — on the side of Urban Leasing & Realty’s building at 1901 Vermont St.

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