WTF IS TAKING THE SHIPPING CONTAINERS SO LONG AT THE MOON TOWER INN 
An only slightly cleaned-up report on the progress of the brewery and shipping-container redo at the Canal St. bar, straight from the Moon Tower Inn Facebook page: “as you all should know, we’re late for everything and some time’s we just plain don’t show up. but DO NOT WORRY, moon tower will be OPEN SOON. using new technology (shipping containers etc) is tricky business and moves a lil slow with our fine city. so, we’re not gonna say exactly when we’ll be back open yet ’cause we’re ass holes like that and we like the suspense. but, our brewery equipment is damn near built and the containers for the kitchen and bar are being fitted at a welding yard and are almost ready to bring on-site! so… everything’s a go! SEE YOU THIS SPRING . . .” [Moon Tower Inn on Facebook, via Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eddie S.
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Tag: Bars
A self-proclaimed “loyal reader from the First Ward” ventures into Woodland Heights to snap and send this photo documenting construction taking place at the former gas station at 2631 White Oak — home most recently to Beer Island — and the continuing transformation of White Oak Dr. When construction is complete, the spot on the corner of Studewood will become the 5th Houston location of Little Woodrow’s.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
You’ll have the remainder of this month to say goodbye to another piece of the old Washington Ave: The Guadalajara Bakery at 4003 Washington announces, through a sign posted in a front window, that it’ll be closing down on February 29th, after 45 years in business. The Houston Press‘s Katherine Shilcutt reports that new building owners have plans to turn the breakfast-taco spot on the corner of Leverkuhn into a bar, and gave the bakery 30 days to vacate; the Chavez family has no plans to reopen elsewhere.
- Openings & Closings: January 2012 [Eating Our Words]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
DRINKING FOR THE GREATER GOOD Among the goals of OKRA, the new business organization founded by a group of mostly Montrose-area restaurant and bar owners (including Anvil’s Bobby Heugel, Chris Shepherd of the upcoming Underbelly, and Greenway coffee couple David Buehrer and Ecky Prabanto): Opening a new, collectively run non-profit neighborhood bar as early this summer — preferably in the refurbished digs of some recently shuttered for-profit drinking establishment. All proceeds would go to a different charity each month, which drinkers would get to vote on. Also coming this spring from the group: “a multi-pig roast unlike Houston has ever seen.” [Facebook; more from 29-95, Culturemap, and Eater Houston]
What’s that? The metal scrap heap formerly known as the Tavern on Gray (and before that, Blue Agave and several other temporary food-and-drink installations). Coming next to the corner of West Gray and Waugh: this 5-story Hanover West Gray apartment complex. The Tavern on Gray is now the Tavern on Milam, at 3017 Milam in Midtown.
More reader pics of the North Montrose scene the bar left behind, from over the weekend and early this week:
The next contender for the endcap of the Modern strip center at the corner of North Shepherd Dr. and 34th St. refashioned last year from the longtime home of Garden Oaks’ Binswanger Glass Co. is almost in. Taking over from the stalled out Octane Coffee and Wine Lounge will be the Shepherd Park Draught House — a pub featuring a full menu and an interior festooned with punk, pop, and rock memorabilia. Its owner: Ken Bridge of Delicious Concepts, the same company behind Heights restaurants Lola, Dragon Bowl, and (most notably) Pink’s Pizza, which has a convenient location next door. Expected opening date: “very soon.”
Twitter correspondent Emily Hurst sends this from-the-train-window view of the shuttered Byrd’s Market space at 420 Main St., at the corner of Prairie, as seen this morning. The owners of Georgia’s Farm to Market — the outsize buffet venue and natural-foods grocery store in that former Kmart space on the I-10 feeder near Dairy Ashford, formerly known as Sandy’s Market — are planning to open a second location here in November. Georgia’s Downtown will include a restaurant, a small grocery store (featuring many of the same products Georgia and Rick Bost pull from their farm and ranch in Waller, their own meat-processing plant in Bellville, and other local sources), and a beer and wine bar in the building’s basement, called “The Cellar.” They’ll also be renting out the basement for events. Behind the craft paper and signs on the windows, the interior is ready for its remodel — designed by Ziegler Cooper Architects.
- From farm to downtown [Prime Property]
- Georgia’s Farm to Market has downtown on its mind with Main Street location [Culturemap]
- Georgia’s Farm to Market and Georgia’s Downtown
Photo: Emily J. Hurst
Do you know this building? It’s somewhere in Northeast Houston. And by October of 2012 it’s scheduled to become a brewpub run by startup City Acre Brewing Co. Owner Daniel Glover tells Houston Press food critic Katharine Shilcutt that the undisclosed location will offer food as well. A preview Oktoberfest event is scheduled there for next month.
- City Acre Brewing Co. [Facebook]
- Openings & Closings: See Ya, Tequila [Eating Our Words]
- Teaser: City Acre Brewing [Eater Houston]
Photo: City Acre Brewing
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RESTAURANT RUSH IN SHADY ACRES “Given the success of hugely popular Cedar Creek just down the street…and the new Hubcap Grille opening about a block away on 19th…and Gatlin’s BBQ…and the new spot opening soon on 23rd…I’d say this part of town has a hungry (and thirsty!) population who will ensure that this new Corkscrew location does well. Welcome to the neighborhood – very happy to have you here!” [LaLa, commenting on The Corkscrew Pops Open in Shady Acres]
Reopened in a new location over the weekend, after a year or so of mellowing: wine bar and former Washington Ave nightlife pioneer The Corkscrew. That mysterious Heights location turns out to be in Shady Acres, in the former strip-center Washateria at 1308 W. 20th St., where there’s now this patio out front.
- Welcome [The Corkscrew]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Rush to White Oak: Is the Corkscrew Next?, Here Come Bee Love and Special Sauce: The Corkscrew Twists Itself Into Something Hard and Fruity
Photo: Candace Garcia
Coming next April to this Studewood corner just across 8th St. from Antidote Coffee, according to My Table: a second, more food-focused location of the Sonoma Retail Wine Bar and Restaurant on Richmond that backs up to the art galleries on Colquitt. Venture Commercial’s leasing package for the property shows the existing 2,160-sq.-ft. building at 803 Studewood spiffed up, with this adjacent apartment building knocked down to make room for 24 parking spaces:
BLIND ITEM: “POPULAR PUB INSIDE LOOP” FOR SALE — GUESS WHICH Your clues: “This very popular pub boasts great reviews, has been in business for 16 years and is a big hit with the neighborhood crowd as a place for local residents to gather and enjoy adult beverages in a relaxing atmosphere. It is one of the very few places in Houston that has a bocce court (lawn bowling). . . . The median age of their clientele is probably 30-35 and they enjoy playing bocce in their spacious beer garden, watching the world go by from their sidewalk [cafe], relaxing indoors in air conditioned comfort, watching their favorite sports on any of their indoor / outdoor televisions, playing a game of darts, enjoying their favorite music from the internet jukebox or taking advantage of the free Wi/Fi. They are well known for their great beer/wine selection and friendly service.” [BizBuySell, via Twitter user ucalledthewolf]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE WAS ALL THAT BOOZE WHEN WE NEEDED IT? “Yep, I won’t be doing any drinking in that building. Attended too many funerals there; which would have been helped by an open bar.” [miss_msry, commenting on Heavy Drinking in the Old Funeral Home: Kirby’s Settegast Kopf Going Multi-Bar]
The vacant Settegast Kopf funeral home on Kirby and Colquitt, long the butt of jokes from the proprietors of Radio Music Theater across the street, will soon be home to as many as 4 separate bars, according to plans now working their way through the city permit office. Club Rush, a Railhouse Restaurant and Bar, and Twist Bar are the names attached to the permit applications, though a comment from the fire marshal notes that the plans themselves label the establishments Twist, Fountain Bar, Club R Oak, and Hendricks Pub. It looks like the Hendricks Pub would be carved out of the former Chase Bank drive-thru next door at 3312 Kirby; a TABC application for that building is tied to an attorney by that name.
The entire block of Kirby between Colquitt and West Main, including the 2-story retail building on the north end that includes a Cafe Express, is owned by an entity controlled by New York investment firm Thor Equities, though New Regional Planning broker (and planning commission member) Blake Tartt III, who sold it to them 3 years ago, still has a sign out front. Thor’s plan to build a complex called the Kirby Collection on the site apparently stalled not long after it was announced, though the project still has a placeholder page on the company’s website.
The sole Houston location of The Tilted Kilt Pub & Eatery, on Hwy. 6 between Westheimer and Briar Forest Dr., has closed. A reader, who writes that the popular breastaurant “always had a full parking lot whenever I drove by,” wants to know why. Sadly, the folks at the company’s Las Vegas HQ haven’t answered any of our questions directly. Instead, Swamplot readers, here’s your vague but perhaps carefully worded statement, purporting to give the lowdown on just how tough it is to run a little Vegas-style beer, wings, and skimpy costumes show out there in West Oaks:
