01/22/16 10:30am

Rendering of Chapman & Kirby, 2118 Lamar St., East Downtown, Houston, 77003

A clearer picture is emerging of Ancorian’s East Village development, headed for 2 blocks along St. Emmanuel St. in East Downtown between Lamar and Polk Sts. A Houston branch of the Swedish Our/Vodka distillery project plans to move in at the corner of Lamar and Hutchins St.; a block of office space in the complex has been claimed by Three Square Design Group, whose past work includes projects for Buffalo Bayou, Fort Bend, and Karbach breweries. On Polk St. at the other end of the development, The Secret Group’s not-so-secret comedy club has been under renovation for some time.

Investor-geared materials on the development also name Dallas’s Truck Yard as a planned occupant — the food-truck friendly beer and cocktail bar currently sells drinks out of an open-air building, an Airstream trailer, and a treehouse at its existing location up north.

Meanwhile, renderings have been released of the Chapman & Kirby gastropub, headed for the warehouse at the corner of Lamar at St. Emanuel St. The building was occupied until the start of this year by Asian-American restaurant supplier Kitchen Depot (which has moved out to a location on Harwin Dr. at S. Gessner Dr. near Beltway 8); the East Downtown space will be renovated and made over per designs by Māk Studio.

The front of the building is depicted with nearly a dozen new windows or entryways:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Added To The List
01/21/16 4:45pm

Future Site of Starbucks, 4660 N. Braeswood Dr., Braeswood Place, Houston, 77096

A pile of dirt is heaped up at the northeast corner of N. Braeswood Blvd and the West Loop feeder road this afternoon, next to a sign announcing the upcoming arrival of a Starbucks to the site. The lot held a Citgo station before demolition in mid-2013; a reader notes that construction crews have been poking around at the site for at least the past 3 weeks.

The blocky facade of the Halstead apartment complex can been seen in the background of the above snapshot — down the street to the east, the Halstead and next-door Meritage complex are slowly being joined by a midrise residential development going up at the corner of N. Braeswood and Frankway. East of that is a Proguard Storage facility and the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Coffee on 610
01/21/16 10:00am

51Fifteen, 5115 Westheimer, Galleria, Houston, 77056

While you’re waiting for that Galleria redo to wrap up, renderings have been released of the new home of 51Fifteen, the upscale bistro tucked into the existing Saks Fifth Avenue location along with its sister bar Bar 12 (currently located “amidst the men’s fashion selections”). The restaurant will follow Saks 5th Avenue to its new home, landing in its own swanky new space designed by the Contour Interior Design folks. The restaurant’s website is now booking events at the new location for dates as soon as April 2016.

Here’s a rendering from Beck Architecture of the new Saks building’s boxy exterior, slated for the spot where the Galleria III used to be:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

51Fifteen at 5115
01/20/16 10:15am

Downtown Aquarium Ferris Wheel, 410 Bagby St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

As of rush hour yesterday, a reader tells Swamplot, the Downtown Aquarium’s Ferris wheel at 410 Bagby St. was missing something — namely, the whole wheel bit. Workers were observed dismantling the spokes earlier in the day at the freeway-side restaurant-tainment complex. According to the restaurant’s website, the wheel is out for winter maintenance and won’t be spinning again until March 1st.

From Memorial Dr. headed west under I-45, here’s an evening snapshot of the newly unemployed support posts:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Bagby at Buffalo Bayou
01/13/16 4:58pm

509 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

517 Louisiana St. is down — the former haunt of the Longhorn Cafe (509 Louisiana, to the right of the hole in the above photo) was still standing as of 2 PM this afternoon, along with the pecan tree in its once-secret  courtyard. Both have permits lined up to follow 517 into the Great Beyond, to make room for surface parking on the block.

The hidden pecan tree is purported to harbor a ghost, rooted deep in some Republic of Texas history:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Louisiana St. Demolitions
01/13/16 12:30pm

Rendering of Shake Shack Houston, 5015 Westheimer Rd., Uptown, Houston, 77056

Shake Shack’s planned Galleria location made an appearance at the company’s quarterly investor presentation yesterday — the new rendering scraps the outdoor patio present in the previously released depiction, and an exterior wall appears to be covered in greenery. The Shack currently anticipates a late-2016 opening, depending on progress of the surrounding Galleria redo.

Rendering of Shake Shack planned for 5015 Westheimer: Simon Property Group

 

5015 Westheimer Rd.
01/12/16 3:45pm

Demolition of 517 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

Time to bid adieu to 2 more of downtown’s oldest buildings: readers sent both sky-high and excavator-side photos of yesterday’s teardown work at 517 Louisiana St., and 509 is permitted to follow). According to the building’s owners, the next-door Lancaster Hotel’s parking crunch is the reason the 2 1906 Theater District neighbors will meet their flattened fates, along with a long-hidden pecan tree that shades a once-secret courtyard at 509. Taking their place: a surface lot for 50 cars — and, maybe, one day, an expansion to the hotel.

517’s transformation to empty space was complete by the end of the day yesterday:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Coming Down in Downtown
01/11/16 10:45am

La Calle Tacos y Tortas, 909 Franklin St., Downtown, Houston, 77002

La Calle Tacos y Tortas, 909 Franklin St., Downtown, Houston, 77002Some blue fists are clenched on the ground floor of the Bayou Lofts building, at the northeast corner of Travis and Franklin — La Calle Tacos y Tortas purports to be bringing Mexico City-style street fare to the space at 909 Franklin St. Owner Ramon Soriano Tomka anticipates a February opening, and is currently plugging the chance to win free tacos for a year via various social media platforms.

The storefront is the former home of dim sum spot Hong Kong Diner, and sits between the former homes of Franklin Street Coffee and Brewery Incubator, the kitchen-kickstarter-turned-brewery-fermenter that was evicted in 2014 following complaints about a late-night game of naked Twister.

A rendering posted to La Calle’s facebook page shows what the spot could look like after buildout is complete:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Taco Solidarity on Franklin St.
01/08/16 4:30pm

PONDICHERI NYC WILL DEVELOP ITS ARTISTIC SIDE Meanwhile, in New York City: Restaurateur Anita Jaisinghani will be opening a second location of Houston’s Pondicheri, this one in the Flatiron district on W. 27th St. between Broadway and 5th Avenue. During the day, the outpost will offer casual and to-go options, including some of the signature pastries from the Houston locale’s bakery counter; a finer dining menu more in line with Jaisinghani’s Indika will appear at night. Jaisinghani says that the food at the NYC spot will be more experimental than the fare offered in Texas: “We’re just going to make [the dishes] more interesting. New York is a great opportunity to do something more creative and exciting. Why wouldn’t we do that?” [Eater NY]

01/08/16 11:00am

Proposed East Village Development, Polk and Lamar at St. Emmanuel and Hutchins Sts., East Downtown, Houston, 77002

From the folks currently in the process of bringing you Heights Mercantile: plans for East Village, a 2-block mixed-use complex planned along St. Emanuel and Hutchins Sts. between Polk and Lamar in East Downtown — a few blocks south of the Dynamo’s BBVA Compass Stadium, and across 59 from the George R. Brown Convention Center and Discovery Green. New real estate investment and development firm Ancorian (founded by Finial co-founders Neil Martin and Michael Sperandio with Matthew Donowho) is behind the development; as of two months ago, land for the project (across the street from the Yen Huong Bakery and the now-closed Kim Hung Supermarket) was still being acquired.

A few renderings are up on the Ancorian website — the view above is of a Lamar-facing courtyard and a renovated version of the warehouse currently housing Kitchen Depot. But a presentation dated late November shows many additional angles, siteplans, and renderings of the planned development, one block of which is credited to the design firm of Austin-based Michael Hsu, and the other to Māk Studio Architecture:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Beer Before Liquor on Hutchins
01/07/16 4:15pm

Rendering of Medical Center Crossing, 1709 Dryden Rd., TMC, 77030

Just north of the hypodermic peaks of the St. Luke’s Medical Tower on Main St., the tower at 1709 Dryden Rd. is slated for redevelopment as the Medical Center Crossing complex — the office space, leased by Baylor as recently as 2013, will be converted into an Embassy Suites hotel (shown from the northeast corner in the rendering above). The tower was sold at the end of 2014 to an entity connected to Pritesh Patel — the Fort Worth developer who previously purchased the Samuel F. Carter building at 806 Main St. and turned it into a JW Marriott after peeling off the building’s extra glass-and-marble skin.

Ground-level retail will remain and expand — a siteplan released by Transwestern shows most of the building’s remaining restaurant tenants still in place, with an existing parking garage ramp exiting onto Fannin seemingly replaced by a 1,670-sq.-ft. storefront spot (Retail E in the plan below):

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Crossing the Med Center
01/07/16 2:30pm

CYPRESS BARBECUE TRAILER THREATENED WITH GUN VIOLENCE FOR SUPPORTING OPEN CARRY Brook's Place,  18020 FM 529, Cypress, TX 77433​Perennial Allison Cook’s Top 100 listee Brooks’ Place, the parking lot barbecue joint in Cypress which began offering a discount on New Year’s Day to those visibly bringing a holstered gun to the establishment, received a review via its Facebook page this morning threatening a Saturday shootup (with explicit reference to the spot’s “gun-toting patrons”). Owner Trent Brooks tells the Houston Chronicle’s Sid Kearney that he has contacted the authorities and that he is “not taking the threat lightly, not with all the crazy stuff that is going on in the world today.” But the barbecue shed-trailer will be open this Saturday, with peace officers stationed nearby if necessary. [Houston Chronicle, previously on Swamplot] Photo: Cletus O.

01/07/16 1:30pm

Rustika Cafe and Bakery, 801 Louisiana St., Downtown, Houston, Tx 77002

Stuck downtown jonesing for a turnover, or a maybe a wedding reception? A satellite outpost of Rustika Café and Bakery has crept into the tunnel beneath 801 Louisiana St. in the spot previously occupied by Porch Swing Desserts. The cafe is now open for business with a taco-heavy mini-menu to kick off operations.

A tipster tells Swamplot that sweets fiends will be able both to order and to retrieve custom cakes from the new underground locale, though they will still be constructed at the cafe’s original strip mall location (at 3237 Southwest Freeway between Tokyohana and the Michaelyndon Salon & Day Spa). This first franchise of the Mexican-Jewish mashup will also offer catering.

A few fresh snaps of the newly-stocked pastry counters beneath Louisiana St.:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Taking the Cake Down Below
01/05/16 3:15pm

VILLA ARCOS TACOS’ PERSONALITY SPLIT Villa Arcos Tacos, 3900 Navigation Blvd., East End, Houston, 77003A Sunday post to the Facebook page of Villa Arcos Tacos announced that the East End taco joint would be moving, changing its name, and offering barbecue alongside its familiar Tex-Mex specialties. An emphatic press release issued this morning, however, asserts that “None of these claims are true. In fact, they are completely false.” Villa Arcos operator Dena Gutierres (sister of recently deceased former owner Yolanda Black Navarro) told CultureMap’s Eric Sandler that she had been planning to end her 5-year lease on the space at 3900 Navigation Blvd. long before her sister’s November passing, in light of some $250,000 of modifications needed to comply with City inspectors’ requests. But Black Navarro’s son Christian insists that the restaurant will remain at 3900 Navigation Blvd., where it has operated for the past 38 years, and that he and City inspectors are “working together to determine what corrections are required”. Gutierres plans to open Texas Tacos and Barbecue at 1000 Telephone Rd. in the current home of Oak Leaf Smokehouse after her lease ends on January 31st. [CultureMap] Photo of Villa Arcos Tacos at 3900 Navigation Blvd.: Jamanta F. via Yelp  

01/04/16 11:30am

Kroger, 3300 Montrose Blvd, Montrose, Houston, 77006

Where you can: Aldi, Kroger, Spec’s (at least some of them), Brook’s Place (where it gets you a discount), Corkscrew BBQ, El Tiempo, Taste of Texas.

Where you can’t: Costco, Fiesta, HEB, Phonicia, Randall’s, Sprouts, Target, Trader Joe’s, the Galleria, Whataburger, and a slew of restaurants across town that have told Kyle Nielsen and friends that they plan to ban openly carried handguns at their establishments. Nielsen created a publicly accessible Google doc listing the yes, no, and maybe-so responses of various Houston grocery stores and restaurants to the question “Will you post a 30.07 sign banning open carry of handguns in your store, starting January 1?”

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

Aiming to Please