CAT CAFE LOOKING FOR A COZY SPOT TO CURL UP SOMEWHERE NEAR MONTROSE, RICE VILLAGE, WEST U 
A group looking to establish Houston’s first-ever combo café and cat lounge is focusing its search on existing retail or former restaurant spaces to lease in the Montrose, Rice Village, or West University areas. The website for Lola’s Cat Café says the new venue will be “more than just a coffee shop with cats.” Instead, it’ll be a hangout for people “who are either looking to adopt a cat or would like to spend some time hanging out with our resident kitties.” All cats on hand will be adoptable. [Lola’s Cat Café] Photo: Lola’s Cat Café
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Tag: Leasing
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RENT RUSH 
“One of the reasons rents have gotten pretty high in the last decade is people finally realized that owning a house is not what it’s cracked up to be. You can have a pretty decent apartment inside the loop for $2k a month which will only buy you about a $200k house which means you get an old small house between the loop and beltway, or a decent new house outside of the beltway. Also, you don’t start building real world equity in the house until after year 7 and coincidentally average time people live in a house is 5-7 years. Renting also allows for extreme flexibility in case your job changes, you create little clumsy clones of yourself, or simply don’t like changes in your neighborhood.
There was a study that showed that during the great recession there was a much higher rate of unemployment in Home Owner vs. Renters because after losing their job, Home Owners either were unable to sell or refused to sell their homes and simply move to an area with better job prospects.” [commonsense, commenting on Houston’s Most Expensive, Deadest Neighborhoods; The $10 I-10 Toll; Drinking from Lake Conroe] Illustration: Lulu
Kahn’s Deli was open at 2429 Rice Blvd. for more than 30 years. Now it’ll be closed at that location for at least the same amount of time. The deli’s history stretches back well before the move to that spot in 1984, though: The original Kahn’s opened in 1948, a few blocks away. The last pickles were served yesterday.
Helen Launching Next
The little windowless Montrose building across from the University of St. Thomas at the corner of Richmond and Mt. Vernon known as Talk of the Town III (pictured above as it appeared in 2011, shortly before much of it burned in a fatal fire) will soon join the ranks of the original Kirby Dr. Carrabba’s, Divino Italian Restaurant at 1830 West Alabama, and L’Olivier Restaurant and Bar at 240 Westheimer as yet another former Inner Loop adult bookstore turned legit non-porn restaurant. But it’ll be no staid European cuisine going into 1201 Richmond Ave. Former Brooklyn meatbrowner John Avila plans to open a barbecue joint in the building that incorporates a range of Texas food styles; he may or may not call it El Burro & the Bull. Culturemap’s Eric Sandler has a little fun describing the building’s repurposing: “Together with his wife Veronica, Avila plans to remodel the space to expose its original brick and to build a new kitchen and pit room onto the back of the structure. He’s already begun the process of pulling permits for the project and hopes to be open as soon as September.”
- Montrose makeover continues: Acclaimed BBQ pitmaster plans new restaurant in former porn shop [Culturemap]
Photo: ClutchFans poster juicystream
Talk of the Town
SUSANNE DISCOVERS THE GROCERY LURE 
How nice to live where there’s a grocery store just across the street! And how nice to have your apartments across from the supermarket — at least when you’re trying to fill them up: Ellie Sweeney, property manager for Finger Companies’ 396-unit Susanne apartment complex on the site of the former Montrose Fiesta Mart at 3833 Dunlavy St., tells reporter Catie Dixon that 80 percent of traffic to the leasing office from potential residents has been from shoppers at the Montrose H-E-B across the street (where the Wilshire Village apartments once stood). The Susanne’s website speaks highly as well — though somewhat distractedly — of its neighbor: “You’ve got your very own café right across the way,” the marketing copy announces, explaining that the H-E-B was “Designed to be the flagship Lake /Plato [sic] extravaganza.” Nine people have already moved into the Susanne’s first floor; the second floor opens for move-ins next month. All construction should be complete by the end of October. [Real Estate Bisnow; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Finger Companies
WHEN SYSTEMS BREAK DOWN 
A reader writes: “The non-profit I work for is currently looking for a new office. We found a great location in East Downtown, near the new rail line, recently renovated, and a great price. It is essentially our dream office.
During the lease negotiations the realtor said that after 90 days into the 3 year lease, if any plumbing, electrical, or HVAC issues arise, we would be responsible for paying it. Including any replacement and labor.
When countered with a ‘no,’ the realtor stated that this was a normal practice in Houston and ‘good luck trying to find a place that will let you get away with that.’
Being new to this process, we are curious if this is true. The current office we are in does not require that and I personally have not heard of it other places.” Photo: Russell Hancock
EATSIE BOYS SPACE ON MONTROSE WILL GO CREPE 
Melange Creperie will be taking over for the Eatsie Boys at the 1,200-sq.-ft. former Kraftsmen Bakery space in the same ivy-covered Campanile complex that houses the Black Lab at 4100 Montrose Blvd., according to a quartet of local media reports. The Montrose crepe stand raised $52,000Â toward a move indoors in a Kickstarter fundraising campaign earlier this year. After its lease on the property ends at the end of this month, Eatsie Boys will continue to operate its food truck, but the team behind it plans to focus on its other venture, the 8th Wonder Brewery. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Local Sugar
CAFE JAPON, MISSING FROM KIRBY DR. SINCE LATE LAST YEAR, DISCOVERED IN FORMER ZUSHI SPOT AT MEMORIAL AND WESTCOTT 
A World of Beer is headed into 3915 Kirby Dr. spot just north of the Southwest Fwy. that Café Japon quietly left near the end of last year, after a $14K-a-month listing for its 4,000-sq.-ft. space went up over the summer. Meanwhile, the exiled sushi restaurant reopened late last week in the slightly larger space formerly occupied by Zushi Japanese Cuisine in the bottom of the small office building at 5900 Memorial Dr. [Eater Houston] Photo: Greenberg & Company
WHERE MONTROSE’S FAVORITE CREPE STAND WILL GO AFTER SCORING $52K TO MOVE INDOORS 
With $2,215 to spare and a crepeload of promised food orders to fulfill, Montrose food stand Melange Creperie concluded a successful Kickstarter this morning. Meeting the $50K fundraising goal means the stand will be moving to an actual indoor location . . . somewhere. Owner and chief crepe-folder Sean Carroll tells Swamplot he’d like the restaurant to stay as close to its current regular location (403 Westheimer, at the corner of Taft St.) as possible — but exactly how close depends on the amount of additional investment that comes in. As a result of the Kickstarter, Carroll says, the restaurant has received a lot of inquiries about — and promises of — equity investment. “As we stand now with our Kickstarter plus our current equity promises . . . we can open a restaurant but it will be smaller and not in Montrose.” If he finds sufficient additional investment, he says, he’ll aim for a Montrose spot that’s about 2,000 sq. ft. and has a patio. [Kickstarter] Photo:Â Suzanne R.
With 2 years to go on its current lease in a Bayou Place II space at 315 Capitol St. downtown, the Architecture Center Houston has begun searching for a new home. Buy and renovate or build? Sure — as long as it’s a “long term solution,” the center’s director tells Swamplot. A new HQ should have more space than its current 5,000 sq. ft. spot (through the main doors under the canopy in the photo above), plus “more visible street presence and a better parking situation than we have now,” writes Rusty Bienvenue.
The new digs don’t have to be downtown: “Our membership doesn’t mind being pioneers and we believe we bring a cool factor to an area that few other organizations can match.” But it’s now or . . . back to plain ol’ office space, he adds. If the center, which combines gallery and meeting space with the Houston offices of the American Institute of Architecture and the Houston Architecture Foundation, can’t find something to buy in the next couple of months, it’ll go back to looking at lease space.
This flyer detailing the options went out to members last week:
Pioneers?
The formerly bedding-starved heart of Montrose can now rest easy: Mattress Firm has arrived. The nation’s largest mattress retailer has snagged a new location in the former Blockbuster Video spot at 1002 Westheimer Rd. in the Westmont Shopping Center — right at the prominent corner of Montrose and Westheimer. With a mere 98 locations in the greater Houston area, and only 14 in the Inner Loop, Mattress Firm was certainly fortunate to be able to find this prominent spot. Now customers in the dead center of Montrose daunted by the long journey necessary to reach the company’s other outlets — at the corner of West Gray and Montrose (three-quarters of a mile to the north), at the corner of Westheimer and Shepherd (1.2 miles west), or at 2625 Louisiana St. (a mile to the east) will have a place they can travel to more easily — and, of course, rest a bit when they get there.
Mattress Firm Scores Again
The owner of the property at the southeast corner of Kirby Dr. and North Blvd. has indicated he might attempt to evict the Wendy’s franchise whose operator appears to have ordered the nighttime removal of 6 oak trees on public property surrounding the fast-food outlet earlier this week. Lias J. “Jeff” Steen, the property’s landlord, says he sent an email saying “I am extremely disappointed he took down the trees under cover of darkness . . . And I am looking at terminating our lease,” according to a report by abc13’s Deborah Wrigley.
Removed ‘in Good Faith’
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU STUCCOAT A BRICK SHOPPING CENTER IN COPPERFIELD 
It’s not exactly a stucco jacket — a marketing brochure for the redone Easton Commons Shopping Center at the intersection of Hwy. 6 and West Rd. in Copperfield indicates the new coating and foam cornice (pictured at top) on top of the old brick structures (pictured at bottom) are actually Dryvit, a brand of EIFS, or a way to get that stucco look without all the layers and labor. (It’s Oyster Shell #456 above and Monastery Brown #381 below, plus Lantana Cobble Texas Stone on the columns, if you’re keeping score at home.) But Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon says the new brick-hiding exercise for the shopping center is “paying off” for its landlord: “in the five months since beginning renovations at Easton Commons, NewQuest’s Josh Friedlander and team have brought on eight new tenants totaling nearly 33k SF.” Among the newcomers drawn to all that relieving smoothness: Pet Club, UFC Gym, Beauty Empire, West Oaks Music Studio, and FJ Liquor. NewQuest Epic Investments will be building up a few freestanding buildings in the center facing Hwy. 6, Dixon reports, to make room for a new Smashburger, Verts Kebap, and a third unnamed restaurant, possibly (the brochure indicates) a Corner Bakery. [Real Estate Bisnow; brochure (PDF)] Photos: Catie Dixon (after); LoopNet (before)
BARNABY’S CAFE IS COMING TO THE HEIGHTS 
The spot at 2802 White Oak Dr. from which City Oven and before that D’Amico’s Italian Market Cafe departed will soon be home to the seventh location of Barnaby’s Cafe, reports the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan. Landlord Revive Development produced the mockup of a Barnaby’s sign on the building pictured above. Revive’s Bryan Danna tells Kaplan Barnaby’s signed a lease for the 3,300-sq.-ft. space earlier this month and expects to open by the end of the year. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Revive Development
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: NAKED PEOPLE, SECURITY CAMERAS, AND YOUR COMMERCIAL LEASE AGREEMENT 
“It’s a bad idea having naked people in common areas unless it is clearly stated in everybody’s leases that there exists the possibility of naked people turning up in the common areas and presuming that the common areas are not open to the general public. Among other things, the people that wandered into common areas naked after business hours may also not have assumed that there may be security cameras around. From every angle, what happened here was a lawsuit waiting to happen. (I say this as a guy that has owned a multi-tenant commercial property with a clause in the lease that would’ve addressed this situation, and permitted it. Yes, that stuff happens. It’s usually not very interesting; meaning I was never invited to attend.)” [TheNiche, commenting on League of Extraordinary Brewers, World’s First Brewery Incubator Brought Down by Wayward Game of Naked Twister] Illustration: Lulu
