BEER CHALLENGER WILL LAUNCH FROM STEALTH LOCATION The launch crew reports it has been “keeping things quiet” while building a brew house and obtaining licenses: “Construction is under way on the Galactic Coast Brewing Co.’s brewery, which will be located in Galveston County where League City and Dickinson meet, just outside the city limits. John Ennis, Galactic Coast spokesman, says that location was chosen because it will allow the brewery to get Phase I of its plans up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible. The location was chosen for its proximity to top attractions such as NASA and the Clear Lake-Kemah waterfront. ‘This is going to be a true beer odyssey and there is a reason we chose to launch our brewery just down the street from the home of U.S. manned space flight,’ he says.” [Houston Business Journal]
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Tag: Openings and Closings
It looked like the end of the line for the Chevy dealership in the streamline building at the corner of Houston and Washington Ave just west of Downtown: GM notified Knapp Chevrolet last May that it would not be renewing its franchise agreement with the 62-year-old Houston company. But a law passed by congress and signed by President Obama in December set up a neutral arbitration process for jilted dealerships, and late last month Knapp learned that its appeal had been successful. Unable to obtain new cars from GM for about a year, Knapp has survived by buying inventory from other local Chevrolet dealers. Expect to see a few more cars on the lot soon, now that Knapp has been reinstated.
- Houston GM dealer avoids shutdown by winning appeal [11 News]
- Chevy Dealership Will Stay Open [Click2Houston]
- Obama’s signature kicks off arbitration process for rejected GM, Chrysler dealers [Automotive News]
- Previously on Swamplot: GM Wants To Take Away Knapp
Photo: Chris Adams
On his Facebook page, Shaun Kelley claims to be just “moving my business.” But abc13 is reporting that the Shaun Kelley Weight Control storefront at San Felipe and Voss shut its doors for good yesterday — shortly after the local fitness guru declared bankruptcy.
An unspecified nearby gym will take on Kelley’s trainers and clients, according to the report. Shaun Kelley Weight Loss Center memberships cost $15,000 a year, though shorter memberships were available.
Kelley gained national attention 2 years ago after the FBI interviewed a former employee to determine if Roger Clemens might have obtained steroids or human growth hormone through Kelley or his clinic. The employee claimed Clemens had met with Kelley at that location, but Kelley claimed Clemens was an acquaintance who had never visited the clinic.
Okay, then. But what about Donald Trump?
“We had gone to many places calling themselves farmers markets but their produce was coming in from California and Florida,†Susan Becker tells the Chronicle‘s Samira Rizvi. The 3,800-sq.-ft. Katy Fresh Produce Market she and her husband opened this week at 5026 East Third St. in Katy calls itself a farmers market; it’ll be open every day except Tuesday and “at least half” of the produce will be from local farmers, reports abc13’s Kevin Quinn, who spots bell peppers from Alvin, green beans from Cat Spring, and peaches from Fairfield (the city, not the subdivision).
- There’s a new farmer’s market in town [Ultimate Katy]
- New farmer’s market opens in Katy [abc13]
Photo: Katy Fresh Produce Market
“I have to say, I have always had luck with Asian food in some sort of repurposed fast food building,” declares The Heights Life blogger Viula. Surely everyone hopes her good fortune continues: A Heights Asian Cafe (or, as the banner puts it, Height Asian Cafe) will soon lay claim to the booty that is the vacant Long John Silvers building on Yale at 22nd St.
Likewise, Jenni’s Noodle House expects to open its 3rd location in the former Mrs. Baird’s Bread outlet at 602 E. 20th (at the corner of Oxford St.) in less than 8 weeks.
Ah, but there’s more than Asian food moving in. Viula has the rundown:
Another year has passed, which means it’s time for yet another business to move into the little house across the street from Hugo’s Restaurant, at the northeast corner of Westheimer and Mandell, where the Westheimer Curve finally figures out how to go straight. So what comes after Juliet and Romeo, Remix, and the Pleasure Chateau? Thanks to an inquisitive Swamplot reader with a camera, we know that the next tenants at 1550 Westheimer will be a Mixxwell Audio Lab. According to a construction worker our reader spoke to, it’s a DJ school.
Sadly, it appears the Pleasure Chateau’s lovely chandeliers have been removed:
I asked if I could look inside, the contractor explained that he didn’t have any access inside, but that the instructors would be there sometime this week. I did get a chance to look through the window and I must say it looks completely redesigned . . .
Photo: Swamplot inbox
BETTER RETURN THOSE VIDEOS NOW, BEFORE THE LATE FEES EXTEND TO INFINITY Just in case the closing sales at the Southbelt, Webster, and Katy locations didn’t give you enough of a hint, the company that owns Hollywood Video announced yesterday it will be shutting down all 2,415 of its stores nationwide for good, including its remaining 7 6 5 Houston-area locations. [Reuters; previously on Swamplot]
Remember the swingin’ days of a couple of years ago, when InnerLoopCondos bought Bistro Vino and got ready to tear down the 24-year-old Montrose restaurant at the corner of West Alabama and Roseland? And then the company put out that goofy little internet survey asking us to vote on which type of condo-building cliche you’d like to see shoved onto the site? If you’re one of the lucky participants who somehow managed to write in “Give it up,” congratulations! Your choice has been selected!
Mexico City natives Jorge and Isaac Alvarez have since secured a lease-purchase of the former restaurant property from its would-be redevelopers. Jorge Alvarez, a custom-home developer himself, had a crew from his Alvgar Construction company renovate the 1930’s Tudor-style home and patio.
The brothers’ “modern Mexican” restaurant, Ocean’s Ceviche, isn’t expected to open officially until May 21st, but intrepid Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia brings you this little preview of the spiffed-up grounds:
Swamplot advertiser Robert Searcy typically knows his way around southeast Houston, but finds himself a bit disoriented on a recent venture north to Garden Oaks. An encounter with the former strip-center home of Binswanger Glass at North Shepherd and 34th St. has him stumped:
Someone renovated it and anyone who takes a center like this and DOESN’T slather it in stucco with the obligatory strip of crown molding on the top, well, in my book they deserve kudos just for that. They seemed to have brought it back to its original design. There is one tenant in there now and a sign on the corner slot saying an application to sell liquor has been filed. It says it is for some kind of a coffee shop named Octane, (but apparently one that sells booze too). At any rate, a sensitive renovation and then a tenant mix that isn’t a combo of a check cashing place, a nail salon & a subway sandwich shop? I don’t know how to act.
Oh, but part of it’s already gone to the dogs:
The owners of the international foods emporium voted best grocery store in the city by Swamplot readers last year have announced they’ll be opening a second location Downtown, across the street from Discovery Green — whose opening day was voted the Best Moment in Houston Real Estate in the Swamplot Awards the previous year. What Swamplot Award-winner mashup will they think of next?
The new 28,000-sq.-ft Phoenicia Specialty Foods — smaller than the 55,000-sq.-ft. store on Westheimer near Kirkwood — is expected to open at the end of this year across McKinney St. from the Downtown park, in the ground floor of the One Park Place apartment tower. But park visitors will likely have to walk around the building to get their freekeh on: The store’s entrance will face Austin St.
We know what you’re wondering — will the pita be floating down from the ceiling on a conveyor belt Downtown too?
Come June, promise the owners of SSQQ, the popular social dance studio will reopen just to the west of Restaurant Depot, in the former Kmart beached on the asphalt shores at 20th St. and T.C. Jester near Timbergrove.
Last weekend, SSQQ shut down the Bellaire strip-center site it had occupied for 30 years. Why’d it up and leave? Doctors’ orders, reports the Bellaire Examiner‘s Steve Mark: First Street Hospital, which owns the center on Bissonnet just outside the Loop, is planning an expansion that would slice the center in half, knocking out SSQQ, Sweetwater Pool & Patio, and a Radio Shack. (Not all is lost, though: Charlie’s Hamburgers and that nail salon in the center at 4803 Bissonnet will get to stay.)
Besides easy access to restaurant supplies, what’s in store for students taking a swing at new Bachata and Whip moves at SSQQ’s new location?
The new wrapper on what used to be a For Lease sign in front of the former La Strada restaurant building at the corner of Westheimer and Taft mentions lunch and dinner, but not brunch. The name of the new tenant: Caffe Bello.
- Previously on Swamplot: Arrivederci, La Strada
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Today, tomorrow, and Thursday are the final days for The Fabulous Flea: After this sale, shop owner Mary Daly and her husband hope to sell the little Bammel Lane antique store — along with their cozy 4,018-sq.-ft. house next door. The compound, designed by Kurt Aichler, also includes a pool, an open-air poolhouse, and a small collection of courtyards on a 15,000-sq.-ft. lot.
The whole 4-6 bedroom, 3-1/2-bath package is priced at $1,995,000. But you might be able to find a few pieces of furniture for a little less than that at the shop’s final sale this week:
How cute! Just a few days after a restaurant publicist emails news about the new Sabetta Café & Wine Bar set to open in the former location of Café Zol at 2411 South Shepherd just south of Fairview, a Swamplot “reader” sends in a photo (which just happens to be named in the same very specific style as the ones sent by the publicist) of the new sign out front and asks us if we know anything about it.
Only what you tell us! Let’s see: that it’ll be the new digs of former Simposio’s executive chef Riccardo Palazzo-Giorgio and his wife, Donna; that they’ll be serving “classic, signature dishes from the twenty-two different culinary regions of Italy,” and that you expect it to open in May.
A spokesperson for Buffalo Grille parking-lot tenant H-E-B confirms that the popular West U brunch-and-lunch spot will be moving from its current location on Bissonnet at Buffalo Speedway after its lease expires next year, “to a new location yet to be determined.” But one possible new location for the Buffalo Grille — a portion of the former JMH Market on Rice Blvd. — was just snapped up by the owners of Thompson + Hansen Nursery and Tiny Boxwood’s. The Buffalo Grille’s John McAleer tells the West University Examiner
“Right now…pickings are very slim. Any vacant space in the West U area, or the closest you can get to it, we’re looking at it. We have a year left, and we’re looking at that perfect location to find.”
How awkward: McAleer’s parents, Mac and Betty McAleer, “are part of the management team that owns the land on which the Buffalo Grille and H-E-B are situated,” the Examiner‘s Charlotte Aguilar and Steve Mark explain. And Molina’s Restaurant — displaced from the shopping center a few years ago when H-E-B redeveloped it — is still looking for its own replacement West U location.
