Wooden siding now covers up all but a small portion of Shake Shack‘s coming store at 1002 Westheimer, in the spot where Burger King collapsed 2 months ago. The new coverings have the restaurant looking a little more like what’s shown in the rendering put out by the burger brand at the end of last month, right around the time that work started on its new building.
Here’s what progress looks like from the west, outside Blacksmith:
In the span of just 3 days, the Heights Jack in the Box has closed down and abandoned both its sky- and street-level boxes. The photo above shows the empty store and its parking lot off Shepherd, where a green cherry-picker‘s now the only vehicle present.
The property’s longtime owner — a national real estate firm that owns the land beneath lots of fast food joints — sold it in 2016, which was a transformational year for the rest of the intersection as well. A few months later, Abel Motors left its spot across Shepherd, making way for the Burger Joint that’s now moving in. And on the south side of 20th St., pizza joint Mellow Mushroom and adjacent desert shop Moody Ice opened up — in what used to be Dealer Sales‘ garage and office building.
The ice cream shop has plans to shoot the gap between its existing Heights and Rice Village locations with a new spot at 3502 S. Shepherd, in the house next to the Richmond Ave strip where Burgerim’s getting situated. Although Cloud 10’s summer menu — including mozzarella and black tea-corn flavors, as well as a sundae made with “freeze dried blueberries” — is still on rotation in the 2 current locations, it’ll probably be replaced by a whole ‘nother roster by the time the new store opens.
Five head-in parking spots line the building’s northern frontage along Colquitt St. They’ve been empty for the most part since hair salon All Decked Out checked out of the building, leaving it open to new arrivals.
Photos: All Decked Out Hair Salon (first); Tenavox (second)
BURGERIM KEEPS ON PLURALIZING WITH ROYAL OAKS VILLAGE LOCATION 
A new, Chiptole-adjacent location of Israeli burgers chain Burgerim is making its mark on paper and in person at the Royal Oaks Village shopping center building closest to Westheimer. Although the restaurant’s website lists its address there as 11815 Westheimer Rd., that number is reserved for the H-E-B that anchors the retail complex. 11805 is where signage bearing its Hebrew-suffixed moniker is visible now, in the window of Suite 340. Upon opening, it’ll join a handful of recently-opened Burgerims operating outside 610 as far-flung as Cypress. [Previously on Swamplot] Map: Brixmor
Make that 55 days that the prank poster installed by UH student Jevh Maravilla and a group of accomplices has been hanging in the Shadow Creek Ranch McDonald’s. And there’ll be plenty more time to see it: An unidentified McDonald’s representative tells Eater Houston that the store at 2815 Business Center Dr. has no plans to take it down, noting however that renovations are planned in the future.
Maravilla (right) took the photo of him and his friend Christian Toledo (left) at the Westside Event Center — just a mile away on the opposite side of 288. He then added graphic elements to mimic the other wall art in the store and ordered a print through Office Depot’s online service. Clad in a McDonald’s employee shirt he picked up for $7 at a nearby thrift store — along with a tie, clip-on walkie-talkie, and fake nametag dubbing him a “Regional Interior Coordinator” — Maravilla entered the store and hung the poster with the help of a few more friends.
He describes the undercover op beginning at the one-minute mark in this video:
A recent tax filing reveals Sweet Bribery is the moniker of the corner ice cream shop Braun Enterprises has been showing in its site plan for 250 W. 19th St. without daring to speak its name. It’s the last of the 5 new tenants that the developer’s been ushering into the former Chippendale Eastlake Antiques store since buying it in 2015. (One of which — an ice cream offshoot of Lee’s Fried Chicken & Donuts called Lee’s Creamery — appears no longer bound for the building.) Pictured above is the western flank it’d occupy, which backs up to Urban Float sensory deprivation spa’s entrance off Rutland St.
Next door to the creamery, clothing stores Mary & Moss and Proper are already doing business along 19th St.:
RICE VILLAGE DAT DOG RECEIVES TABC BLESSING 
Across the street from Torchy’s and next door to Hopdoddy Burger Bar, the vacant corner storefront at 5504 Morningside now has clearance to serve guests alcohol. It’s the most recent development for the space since a TABC notice appeared in the window, signalling that New Orleans hot dog chain Dat Dog was on its way there. Inside, the lights are on but there’s still nothing inside. Co-working space Platform Houston was the last to occupy its 2,919 sq. ft. Photo: Swamplox inbox
2424 Rice Blvd., Suite A. is about to become part of Katy Chinese chain Tiger Noodle House’s 2-restaurant dynasty. Since nonprofit home goods shop Ten Thousand Villages left the storefront — its last in Houston — between H&R Block and neighboring occult shop Serenity Studio, all of its meterless parking spots have been hogged by the dumpster shown above.
It’s been on standby as renovators take things out of the 2,664-sq.ft. interior. Now, they’re about to start putting things in: a building permit filed yesterday gives clearance for the restaurant conversion to begin.
Photo: Swamplox inbox
A pile of building parts is now all that stands in the way of the 4,500-sq.-ft. strip that Houston developer Ancorian wants to place at Yale and E. 27th, opposite the other shopping center it’s now ushering tenants into across the street. In place of the standalone Church’s Fried Chicken drive-thru — pictured above before and after its demo last week — a rendering now shows 3 newcomers lined up next to each other at 2702 Yale.
One of them carries on the site’s fast-food legacy with more of a niche focus:
DACAPO’S DECAMPS FROM ITS 11TH ST. CORNER NEXT MONTH 
A Friday afternoon Facebook post from the owners of Dacapo’s Pastry Cafe broke the news that they’re closing on September 29 and skipping town for Tahlequah, Oklahoma where they’ll be “retiring a little early†after 14 years in the storefront pictured above. Of all 4 structures at the intersection of E. 11th St. and Studewood — including the catty-corner Ruggles-Green-turned-Bellagreen, along with Liberty Kitchen and Someburger’s longstanding fast-food shack — the bakery is the oldest; it went up shortly after the surrounding North Norhill subdivision filled up with homeowners in the ’20s. Six years after Dacapo’s moved in, its building became part of the pistol-shaped Norhill Historic District. Situated in the district’s southwest corner — at the end of its original commercial center along 11th — it’s one of the few retail structures left over from the neighborhood’s early days. [Dacapo’s Pastry Cafe; neighborhood history] Photo: Dacapo’s Pastry Cafe
The recent removal of Drew’s BBQ’s signage at 819 Richmond Ave has left a piece of its predecessor Tonala Rustic Furniture uncovered along the street. The barbecue joint closed down last month after 3 years in the 100-plus-year-old house pictured above, tucked in the southeastern portion of Montrose near Spur 527 that’s known officially as Roseland Estates.
When Drew’s first picked up there in 2015, the house was white-ish and fronted by signage for the Living Mosaic Inclusive Christian Church. That display moved, along with the church itself, to The Montrose Center’s 3 story dingbat building 7 blocks away:
No one’s dined at Southern Goods since it caught on fire 10 months ago, but they could now if only they managed to get inside. A look through its storefront window on W. 19th St. reveals the entire dining room has been set for service, right down to the folded napkins.
Bar seating appears done up as well, with a row of wine glasses running across the countertop at the far end of the space:
Pictured above is the first action this shuttered Macaroni Grill by the Galleria has seen since changing hands last October: the erection of new green fencing around its empty stone and stucco building. Its new-ish owner is Hillstone Hospitality, the group behind the Houston’s restaurant chain as well as several other single-location eateries across the country.
Hillstone has been in the neighborhood even before getting its hands on the empty restaurant, however; the nearest Houston’s is just west on the corner of Fountain View Dr.:
MONTROSE SHAKE SHACK CONSTRUCTION IS ABOUT TO BEGIN 
A building permit filed yesterday for the corner where Burger King’s been lying in pieces on Westheimer near Montrose Blvd. reveals construction is imminent on the Shack Shake set to replace it. Upon completion, it’ll be Houston’s fourth Shake Shack location, after the one in Rice Village, at the Galleria, and in section 157 at Minute Maid Park. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplox inbox
Orange fencing is condoning off the corner of the Westchase Shopping Center where a new Regions Bank is planned in place of the El Palenque that shuttered there in May. A demolition permit issued for the restaurant building exactly a week ago means its days are numbered. But for now it’s still standing, fronted by landscaping and the new Port-o-Potty pair visible in the photo at top from Walnut Bend Ln., just shy of Westheimer.
Also on its last legs: the bank’s nearest existing branch on S. Kirkwood near the Westheimer H-E-B. A company spokesperson told the HBJ‘s Olivia Pulsinelli in June that the planned new branch will take over business in the area.
Photos: Jose Galvan (fencing); Troy M. (El Palenque)
