A JOLT TO STRIP CENTERS EVERYWHERE 
Radio Shack announced this morning that it plans to close up to one-fifth of its U.S. stores. News had leaked earlier this month that the Dallas Fort Worth-based electronics chain had plans to close about 500 “underperforming” locations. This morning’s announcement brings that number up to 1,100, but no specific stores have been identified for shuttering. There are more than 80 Radio Shack locations in the greater Houston area. [Wall St. Journal] Photo: News92FM
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Tag: Openings and Closings
The portion of the newly tolled Grand Parkway between U.S. 59 and US 90A (and a little further north, to FM 1464) quietly opened to traffic last Thursday. Segment D of the third or fourth ring road around Houston (depending whether you count the Hwy. 6 and FM 1960 combo), which extends about 18 miles from the Southwest Fwy. to I-10, has been open since 1994 — but mostly as a sleepy divided double-lane highway with a super-wide grassy median. The new tollway redo is being opened in spurts. The Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority, which controls this portion of Segment D, expects to have the complete stretch of tollway open between the Southwest Fwy. and the Westpark Tollway open by the end of April. When it opens, 7 automated toll booths will line that stretch.
- Current Projects [FBCTRA]
- Remaining sections of Grand Parkway Segment D set to open by end of year [Impact News]
- Grand Parkway coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority
59 to 90A and Growing
Note: Story updated below. Midtown Auto Care, at 2519 Wroxton St., is still open for business.
The Eighteenth Cocktail Bar is the latest bar to die at at 2511 Bissonnet St., just east of Kirby Dr. Previous short-lived tenants at that location included the Antique Bar and a reprise version of the Gallant Knight. But this will likely be the last of the dying breed — at least in the property’s current incarnation. An LLC run by the owners of local Tex-Mex restaurant chain Escalante’s purchased the property late last year — along several neighboring parcels. Add those lots to the office building at 5311 Kirby, which the same entity has owned for a couple years, and you have about an acre and a half of land surrounding the Chevron station at the corner of Kirby and Bissonnet, with frontage on Kirby, Bissonnet, and Wroxton.
At the End of the Eighteenth Bar
A little smoothie-and-juice bar lodged in a glorified corridor set deep in a 19th St. retail building will be sextupling its space (and expanding and solidifying some portions of its menu) sometime this spring. That’s when Juicy in the Sky with Vitamins is scheduled to move on down from the Heights to the strip-center spot of recently shuttered Teahouse 101 (pictured above and at right) at 4720 Washington Ave. Architect-turned-vegetable-crusher Deborah Morris will shut down her tiny juice spot at 238 W. 19th St. when the new space opens — next to Max’s Wine Dive at Shepherd Dr.
- Previously on Swamplot: 19th St. in the Heights Not Quite Ready for That Sixties Vibe, Here Comes That 19th St. “Hippie Vibeâ€: Radical Eats Opening in Heights Ashbury Coffeehouse
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Juicy in the Sky
Two days after Swamplot reported the local-tech-nerd-soul-crushing rumor that Amegy Bank has purchased the Post Oak Park–West Loop site of computer retailer Micro Center, a few new and possibly conflicting (but maybe not) pieces of information have emerged about a possible deal. Yesterday, in response to a reader question posted on the Micro Center Facebook page, the company posted what at first appears to be an outright denial of the rumor:
Amegy Coming, Micro Center Moving?
NEW LOCAL FOODS IN FORMER TACO MILAGRO ON KIRBY AT WESTHEIMER KINDA ALMOST READY TO OPEN SOON 
The project manager from homebuilder Frasier Homes busy turning the interior of the shuttered patio-fronting Taco Milagro space at 2555 Kirby Dr. into a second location for Benjy Levit’s upscale sandwich shop Local Foods tells Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen that construction will likely be complete in a couple of weeks. How long after that before it opens for duck confit and falafel on wheat? “Shouldn’t be too far behind that completion date,” Guillen says an employee tells her. But we’re guessing they’ll take down the old Taco signage outside before then. Photos snapped of the corner shopping center space’s innards show a completed serving counter with display case and some colorful banquettes. The first Local Foods took over the former Antone’s space in the Rice Village in 2011. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eater Houston
The self-proclaimed “industry insider” behind a new office-space rumor website tells Swamplot that it’s “well-known . . . amongst the tenant/landlord representative crowd” that Amegy Bank has purchased the 4.13-acre site at 1717 West Loop South just north of San Felipe that’s currently home to Houston’s only Micro Center store. The owner and would-be seller of the property, according to county tax records, is the Ohio-based parent company of the 47,800-sq.-ft. computer and electronics store, which has been operating in that location since 1994. There is only one other Micro Center location in Texas.
Bank Tower To Squash Computer Store?
LATEST EXPLETIVE-LADEN, LANDLORD-BLAMING, BAR-CLOSING TIRADE COMES FROM THE USUAL 
Cottage Grove lesbian bar The Usual shut down its patio-by-the-railroad-tracks location last week, and marked the occasion with a Facebook announcement declaring enough was enough: “We planned on remodeling but our landlord refused to pay for all the roofing and electrical needs (as most of you know was much needed) . . . we decided to say fuck it and we will do it and make The Usual look better than ever . . . but then we got news that our renewal would double our rent and our landlord is such a dick he knows we can’t afford that and he is so greedy and wanting to sell the property and could not because we were still there, he knew he had to get us out . . . well . . . we fought and fought but unfortunately had to make the decision to move . . . we will be absent for a short while but will return soon and can’t wait to see all of you!” A mysterious post on Yelp from a first-time reviewer points to an alternative — or perhaps additive — explanation for the sudden closing of the bar at 5519 Allen St., facing onto T.C. Jester: a TABC license that had expired at the end of last November. A more recent Facebook posting declares The Usual is “On the hunt for our NEW location!!! Only going bigger and better!!” [The Usual on Facebook, via Culturemap] Photo: LoopNet
Note: Story updated below.
O ye of little faith, casting doubts here and there that a little 13,000-sq.-ft. standalone fine dining and lounging experience on Westheimer across Stoney Brook from AutoZone would ever open its doors after a mere 3 years of construction, a few long silences, and working so hard behind the scenes to get every detail right! It takes time, and actual anticipation, to truly earn the status of Houston’s Most Anticipated Restaurant. So take this: Fish and the Knife opens today. As in: You can park your car in the big parking lot out back, walk right in through the big wooden doors, and order yourself some sushi and a Japanese-style steak. And maybe this weekend, or some other big weekend night soon, wiggle your tail and fins to the rhythms and the flashing lights in the transformed 4,000-sq.-ft. “Las Vegas-style” nightclub inside.
Okay, but really, what took this place so long to open? Here’s the owner of the new spot at 7801 Westheimer, trying valiantly to explain it all:
A Good Restaurant Took Time
Going into the spot at 917 Franklin St. downtown where the Red Lantern Vietnamese restaurant shut down last year: a new restaurant from Arena Theater chef Mark Latigue, featuring “Creole, Cuban and Caribbean” Cuisine. Courtesy of another Skyhawk aerial camera-wielding quadcopter hovering above the Islamic Da’wah Center across the street, here’s a spy video of the Commercial National Bank building it’ll be in — on the ground floor.
Downtown Restaurant Spycam
On-again off-again would-be Westheimer sushi-nightclub debutante Fish and the Knife has given up on target opening dates, reports Eater Houston. “The big debut is back on track,” reports Darla Guillen in a post that includes actual photos of the actual completed interior at 7801 Westheimer. After almost 3-and-a-half years of construction and several blown promised-opening deadlines, she writes, “the owner is (understandably) reluctant to announce an official date.” But, um, the restaurant is “definitely on schedule to open soon, and is currently hiring staff.”
Update, 3 pm: A daring update to Eater’s report notes the owner now “expects to be open by Feb. 10.”
- Take a Sneak Peek Inside Upcoming Spot Fish & The Knife [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Phew! Fish and the Knife Is Back to Its Usual ‘Opening Soon’ Status, Is Fish and the Knife Cutting Bait?, Fish and Knife: Beached Sushi on Westheimer
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Sooner or Later
LANDS’ END ENDING FOR GARDEN OAKS, BUT NO SEARS’ END IN SIGHT 
Garden Oaks, Oak Forest, and Independence Heights–area customers who received a not-entirely-clear email this morning from Lands’ End calling attention to the “big savings on everything” in the Sears store at 4000 N. Shepherd Dr. in Houston, but noting that “Unfortunately, we’ll be closing that location on 1/31/14″: Here’s a little explication for you. Only the Lands’ End store within the Garden Oaks Sears will be closing at the end of the month. The Sears itself will remain open, for the time being. Photo: Louisiana and Texas Southern Malls and Retail
If tracking the comings and goings of Bennigan’s in Houston has become a little confusing , that’s understandable. The Irish-stewish bankruptish restaurant chain suddenly shuttered all of its U.S. locations — including 20 in Houston — back in 2008; 3 years later, the chain’s new owners announced the impending arrival of as many as 10 new restaurants in Houston alone. The first of these new-concept franchises appeared under the tower sign of a strip-center endcap at Westheimer and Dunvale (above) in 2012. A second location opened just a couple of weeks ago in a former Aldo’s spot on the feeder road across I-45 from The Woodlands. And yesterday the company announced it had “nearly 100 restaurants under contract for development over the next several years worldwide,” including a new grand opening in Houston to be announced soon. Bennigan’s is also planning a comeback for its sister Steak & Ale chain, which had packed out of Houston with the Bennigan’s retreat in 2008. President and CEO Paul Mangiamele is planning a “big announcement” about Steak & Ale’s future on Friday.
But in the meantime, the comeback Bennigan’s at 8401 Westheimer has shut down, the always-checking-it-3-times staffers behind the b4-u-eat restaurant newsletter now report. A new location of smaller scale chain 59 Diner has already signed up to replace it.
- Bennigan’s Begins Again – Our Review [H-Town Chow Down]
- Bennigan’s Legendary Comeback Continues; Chain Plans to Double in Size Worldwide [Restaurant News]
- Steak & Ale’s Comeback [Facebook]
Photo of Bennigan’s at Westheimer and Dunvale: Laina C.
Bennigan’s Begin Again
The 1,500-sq.-ft. space deep in the crotch of the Ella Plaza Shopping Center just south of the railroad tracks at 3480 Ella Blvd. is the new home of modern dance troupe Suchu Dance. It’s also the former longtime Houston haunt of Patsy Swayze‘s Houston JazzBallet Company and the Swayze School of Dance. Long before the dance teacher made it big with her choreography for Urban Cowboy in 1980 and decamped to Hollywood, Swayze taught hundreds of gyrating Houstonians — including her 5 children, in the strip center corner. Her son Buddy, who as Patrick Swayze went on to star in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, started barging in on classes there at the age of 3, long before playing football at Waltrip High School across the street; he met his wife, Lisa Niemi, in the strip-center studio as well. He died from pancreatic cancer in 2009; his mother passed away in California’s Simi Valley last September.
Somebody Put Baby in a Strip Center Corner
A northern branch of Mercantile, the combo espresso bar and mini-mart that opened a few months ago in the Rice Village, will be opening up in the vacant First Stop Food Store spot shown above at the corner of Stanford St. and Hawthorne in Audubon Place, its owner confirmed this week. Mercantile could be described as the upscale version of Washington Ave’s Catalina Coffee (they’re run by the same owner). And that’s exactly what Houstonia‘s Katharine Shilcutt felt free to do: “Catalina Coffee is the brooding, sensitive, bookish older sister, while Mercantile is the peppy younger sister who wears Ralph Lauren and daydreams about horses and joins a sorority in college yet is no less intelligent or passionate than her sibling.” The perky youngster also carries more baked goods, groceries, and gift items on her dainty shelves.
- First Look at Mercantile in Rice Village [Houstonia]
Photo of First Stop Food Mart at 3321 Stanford St.: Swamplot inbox
Groceries in Small Packages
