WHERE THE FOOD TRUCKS ARE PARKING ON HWY. 6 
One advantage of the new Energy Corridor-area food truck park that officially debuted last week at 800 Hwy. 6 South, backing up to the Addicks Reservoir: the 3.5-acre grounds mean there’s room enough for a variety of trucks — as well as seating areas that comply with City of Houston regulations by keeping 100 ft. away. Katharine Shilcutt finds plenty of parking, music, fire pits, and ambition there too: “‘We want to make a farmers market over there,’ [My Food Park HTX co-owner Liz Gandy] told me, pointing to a series of metal structures that already form the shape of a roadside produce stand. ‘We get so much shade in the afternoons right here. It’s just beautiful.’ Behind the future market area, the acreage goes from gravel to grass, surrounded on three sides by dense thickets of trees. Back here, where many people choose to dine, it’s quiet. You can barely hear the traffic from Highway 6; you feel like you’re in the country.” [Houstonia] Photo: My Food Park HTX
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Openings and Closings
BALLY’S I-10 SHOPPING CENTER TO BE BLASTED AWAY FOR NEW OFFICE TOWER 
MetroNational has immediate plans to tear down this 2-story 12-year-old former Bally Fitness Shopping Center on a 3.44-acre site facing the I-10 feeder at the northeast corner of the Memorial City Mall — and replace it with some sort of new office tower, Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Dixon reports. The health club (along with all 9 other Houston Bally’s locations) was taken over by Blast Fitness last year — and shut down entirely this spring. As of the end of last week, all remaining tenants in the building at 9801 Katy Fwy. have closed up shop as well. MetroNational (as usual) wouldn’t comment on plans for the site half a mile east of its headquarters, but Dixon gets the scoop from the stores themselves: Le Peep plans to be gone from the site only for 14 to 16 months, however; it’s been promised a ground-floor retail space in the new building. T.N. Tailor Alterations also says it has a spot in the new development; no word on the Starbucks. [Real Estate Bisnow] Photo of Bally Total Fitness at 9801 Katy Fwy.:Â MetroNational
BLOCKBUSTER BUSTING ITS LAST BLOCKS 
Did you realize there was still a Blockbuster Video store open near you? There are 13 of them in the Houston area, in fact — though only 2 of them (at Studewood and North Main and South Post Oak at Bellfort) are in Houston proper. (The rest are in Katy, Seabrook, Baytown, Kingwood, Spring, Humble, Sugar Land, Channelview, Pearland, and Pasadena.) Well, at least until January. The company announced today it will close all 300 remaining stores in the U.S. by early next year — and shutter its DVD-by-mail service by the middle of next month. When Dish Network bought the company out of bankruptcy more than 2 years ago, Blockbuster had 1,700 U.S. stores. [Bloomberg] Photo of Pasadena Blockbuster, 3950 Spencer Hwy.: Yelp
BARS WITHIN A BAR AT LOWBROW IN MONTROSE 
Eater Houston reports that Lowbrow, the restaurant and bar from Free Press Houston founder Omar Afra, will open tomorrow night here at the corner of W. Main and Mandell in Montrose. This photo shows the mural that’s replacing the former Sophia sign. Inside, there will be even more art: The place will have wallpaper that sports drawings of the Astrodome, Houston Oilers logo, and Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk sculpture at the nearby Menil Collection. And it appears that there will also be a channel of rather meta reality programming for you to watch: “[A] projection screen . . . will play scenes from other local bars.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eater Houston
BIENVENIDOS, BRICK AND SPOON 
Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen reports that brunch and bloody mary purveyor Brick & Spoon is almost ready to open in Montrose after renovating the spot to which Bocados said adiós at 1312 W. Alabama, just across the street from the University of St. Thomas. Owners of the Louisiana chain Bryan Jewell and Ryan Trahan tell Guillen that they will be ready to go November 11. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Bocados: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
Here’s a pic of the new storefront of Houston’s 3rd Three Brothers Bakery. You can see it for yourself at 4602 Washington, between Shepherd and Patterson. (It’ll share that retail center with Bedrock City Comics.) Apparently, behind those mirrored windows there’s quite a buildout of the former District Lounge going on: This new location will be open a bit later than the others and will include a coffee bar and patio where you can chill outside with your dawgs. Or dogs. Both, it seems, will be welcome. There’s been no opening date announced, but a PR rep says that the place should be ready to go early next year.
- Previously on Swamplot: Is That Three Brothers Bakery on the Line?
Photo: Allyn West
AFFECTING THE BAR-TO-RESTAURANT RATIO IN MIDTOWN 
An update about the former Midtown bar that a Swamplot reader reported was turning into a new Midtown bar: It’s gonna be a restaurant (that will serve drinks). Eater Houston reports that Michael Paolucci, who owns Pub Fiction, will be opening Cook & Collins, not (as had been reported) Bremond Street Grill, here in the former El Xuco Xicana space at 2416 Brazos near Bremond. Was there a change of heart or something? Nah, says Paolucci: “I know [M]idtown very well. There are too many bars and not enough restaurants. Until the restaurants start coming, it won’t become a world-class neighborhood. I’m from Chicago and in Chicago, for every bar there’s a restaurant; in [M]idtown, for every 20 bars there’s one restaurant.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Here’s a rendering of the renovations that JT ARC Studio has drawn up that show a 1938 house and former Methodist Hospital storage space gussied up into an art gallery. Located just south of W. Gray at 1707 Waugh in Hyde Park, the gallery and event space, to be called 1707 Collective, plans to open this spring. And it appears that work on the 1,674-sq.-ft. multipurpose building, which HCAD records show was finished in 1938 and renovated in 1990, is already underway:
A PREMATURE PHOTO OF PREVIEW, OPENING SOON IN SUGAR LAND 
This signless storefront, a reader reports, will be the home of Preview, the seafood restaurant opening this November just a few doors down from the forthcoming Welfresh Market on Hwy. 6 in Sugar Land. Chef Jason Liao explains to Eater Houston why he chose the ’burbs: “[B]ecause it fit into his budget, is a high-end area and he ‘saw what was happening with Underbelly, Uchi and Oxheart opening in uptown, midtown and [central] areas’ but wanted to take a different route. ‘I’m not trying to do volume or turn tables,’ Liao says. ‘I can afford that small space in that area, and can have people who appreciate what we do [want to] go out there and eat.'” [Swamplot inbox; Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
Here’s a pic of the foliage and signage of the closed Wel-Farm Supermarket in Sugar Land — which, a reader reports, will soon have its hyphen removed and hyperbole reduced when it opens later this fall as the Welfresh Market. The grocery store, specializing in Asian produce, is located inside the shopping center near Dulles Ave. at 4635 Hwy. 6.
- Welfresh Market [Facebook]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Looks like MAM’s House of Ice will be opening inside this 780-sq.-ft. former paint supply liquor store at 1040 W. Cavalcade — just in time for winter! This spot is a bit east of where the sky-blue dessert trailer usually parks at Rutland and 20th. Why here? The owners explain to Eater Houston that they “‘tried really hard not to go into a strip center because [they] wanted to have green space’ so that families could go out, extend blankets on the green and enjoy the outdoor picnic tables.” HCAD records show that this new lot comes in at 3,500 sq. ft.
- New Orleans Style Snoballs [MAM’s House of Ice]
- MAM’S House of Ice Snoballs to Open in November [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Snoballs at MAM’s: the Heights of Ice
Photo: Eater Houston
IZAKAYA-WA OPENING REAL SOON IN MEMORIAL 
Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen reports that that Japanese izakaya-style restaurant and bar that a Swamplot reader in August reported would be opening in the Memorial Bend Shopping Park will be opening this Wednesday. And Guillen suspects that the location just inside the Beltway at 12665 Memorial Dr. could very well prove to be very well chosen: “It seems that the restaurant’s proximity to some Japanese corporations will likely encourage a strong Japanese following.” [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Houston Sushi
THE HIGH-TECH BURGER JOINT IN THE WOODLANDS 
Wanting to try Fielding’s Wood Grill, now open in the strip center on Research Forest Dr. where Shenandoah meets The Woodlands, the Houston Press’s Molly Dunn discovers an amenity inside that could prove tricky for the finger-licking clientele: “There’s . . . an iPad bar . . . to surf the web, chat with friends or play some games. It’s as though they took a portion of the Apple Store and placed it smack dab in the middle of the restaurant.” [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
We hardly knew ye: The Sonic Drive-In at 7001 Harrisburg and 70th has quietly closed and covered its windows with solemn gray-painted plywood. The place had been situated among other chains and franchises and bus terminals near the recently installed big yellow bumper at the end of the forthcoming East End Line, catty-corner from the Magnolia Transit Center and a few blocks north of the Gus Wortham Golf Course (and perhaps the potential future Botanic Garden).
DOWNTOWN’S LITTLE DIPPER WILL BE VISIBLE THIS SATURDAY 
Now there’s an astrological sign on the window foretelling all the boozing to come: Eater Houston’s Darla Guillen reports that the owners and operators of hipster havens Antidote, Poison Girl, and Black Hole are preparing to open their latest venture, Little Dipper, at 304 Main St. Downtown “in the weeks to come.” And if you can’t wait that long, Guillen adds that the bar will be open for a few hours this Saturday for a preview party. [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: @LittleDipperBar
