Longtime (and formerly late-night) Midtown Vietnamese mainstay Van Loc has announced it will be shutting down soon after 28 years in business. The restaurant’s owners have posted a note (shown at right) letting customers know of its plans, but have not announced a closing date. The freestanding restaurant building and its parking lot sit on the southern portion of the Midtown block at 3010 Milam St., between Rosalie St. and Anita, a block north of Elgin St.
LAST EDIBLE PIECE OF THE HANOVER RICE VILLAGE’S RETAIL FOOTPRINT FINALLY OPENS THIS WEEKEND 
It may have taken some time to weld all those custom steel bow windows, but the Cyclone Anaya’s Mexican Kitchen on the east side of the Hanover Rice Village apartment complex between Cloud 10 Creamery and Punk’s Simple Southern Food, is at last ready for its enchilada debut. The restaurant’s official opening is scheduled for this Sunday. The first Cyclone Anaya signs were spotted at the 5214 Morningside Dr. storefront last September. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox
It’s taken awhile for the usual spotters of this sort of thing to notice, but Heights French bistro and créperie Salé-Sucré has been locked out of its storefront at 2916 White Oak Dr., between Tacos a Go Go and the Lucky Food Store, since last Tuesday. Philippe and Beline Harel opened the restaurant in the former White Oak Bakery 2 years ago. A letter posted on the door by the landlord, DC Heights LP, claims the restaurant’s operators have failed to pay rent. A lock box now attached to the front door is one sign that no one’s expecting them to return.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
The former Cattleguard Restaurant, an old-western-style wooden facade planted in front of a bundle of metal buildings in the parking lot between the Drury Inn & Suites and the Wyndham Hotel at 1010 Hwy. 6 North, just north of I-10, is being made over as a fourth location for Christian’s Tailgate. Christian’s Mazen Baltagi tells Swamplot the Energy Corridor spot is being outfitted with more than 35 beer taps and more than 50 teevees, and should be ready to open within 5 or 6 weeks. The Cattleguard Restaurant had lasted more than 20 years at the site, but shut down early this year.
Photos: Mazen Baltagi
The Teotihuacán Mexican Café at the corner of Irvington and Cavalcade (now helpfully labeled “Festively adorned Tex-Mex restaurant” on Zagat-powered Google Maps) will be relocating a few blocks south once renovations to a structure the 3-restaurant chain’s owners purchased in late May can be completed. Kuko’s Taqueria shut down at 3707 Irvington Blvd., between Alber St. and Collingsworth, this past June. It appears some work on the interior is already taking place, notes reader Christopher Andrews.
Photos: Christopher Andrews
This fire-lane-accessible structure at 3200 S. Fry Rd., on the eastern edge of Cinco Ranch, will soon be the home of Los Robertos Taco Shop, a 3-location (soon to be 4-) chain expanding east from San Antonio. The taco outpost, which will stay open 24 hours, 7 days a week, will be taking over for the Chicken Express that closed at this spot earlier this year. Conveniently located immediately north of the Cinco Ranch Alzheimer’s Special Care Center, the drive-thru lies just one parking lot south of Westheimer Pkwy.
Alonti Catering has done so well with the build-your-own burger spot it’s been operating in the Downtown tunnels since 2010 that it’s taking the concept straight to a feeder-road strip center — a mere 21 miles away at the intersection of Hwy. 290 and ring road FM 1960. The new eT Craft Burgers & Beer taking the place of Kim Kim Vietnamese and Paragon Pools in the end slot at 19841 Northwest Fwy. is scheduled for an official opening this Thursday, and will feature interiors by Uchi designer Michael Hsu and the entrance to the nearby Starbucks drive-thru around back.
A fire that broke out in the kitchen of Spanky’s Homemade Pizza early this morning did considerable damage to the structure, reports Click2Houston’s Courtney Gilmore. But if you’re wondering about the “kitchen staff wanted” sign posted outside, or how owner Frank Roache could possibly declare on camera that the restaurant, which has been open on the South Loop feeder road at Woodridge only since 1976, would be “back up and running in about 6 weeks,” here’s a little background:
The much larger Gabby’s Bar-B-Que next door to Spanky’s at 4659 Telephone Rd. closed down earlier this year.
BARNABY’S CAFE IS COMING TO THE HEIGHTS 
The spot at 2802 White Oak Dr. from which City Oven and before that D’Amico’s Italian Market Cafe departed will soon be home to the seventh location of Barnaby’s Cafe, reports the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan. Landlord Revive Development produced the mockup of a Barnaby’s sign on the building pictured above. Revive’s Bryan Danna tells Kaplan Barnaby’s signed a lease for the 3,300-sq.-ft. space earlier this month and expects to open by the end of the year. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Revive Development
The Heights coffee shop that took over the former Waldo’s Coffee House bungalow on Heights Blvd. just south of 11th St. earlier this year will be shutting down at the end of this month, a reader reports. Boulevard Coffee had opened at 1030 Heights Blvd. in March of this year. A note taped to the shop’s cash register (at right) tells customers the story. Photos: Laura H. (patio view); Swamplot inbox (note)
A reader is curious about the source of the new call-if-you’re-gonna-park signs (pictured above) that went up last week on Union St., which breaks off from and parallels Washington Ave, between White and Henderson: “Is this city of Houston? I’ve never seen signs like this before. Or, if this is a private individual, is this legal?” There are no meters installed on the street, the reader says.
The signs are near Julep, which opened at 1919 Washington Ave. in early August after a long gestation period, and the would-be restaurant and bar at 2003 Union St. pictured below, which Swamplot reported on at the same time, more than a year ago:
CANOPY’S NEW WAY IN 
A drive-in customer may have destroyed Canopy’s front door on Wednesday, but a bit of paint and re-engineering (a chair has been removed from the patio to make more room) now guides visitors to the side entrance. A special short-term exhibition of an improvised piece by artist Amy C. Evans now adorns the replacement plywood covering the spot where the car came in; it notes a few items on the restaurant’s menu and points customers both to the way in (through the patio door) and the neon OPEN sign. Well, used-to-be neon: The letters aren’t lighting up anymore after the accident, so more paint has been pressed into service (and applied directly to the window) to recreate their effect, below the still-lit neon tree. [Previously on Swamplot]Â Photo: Swamplot inbox
About 3 years ago, Canopy added an actual canopy to the south side of its spot at the end of the 3939 Montrose strip center. (It required a variance from the city.) More recently, the restaurant has been busy installing a new coffee bar and bar bar in the space next door, which it’ll be expanding into. (Former neighbor Montrose Dry Cleaners relocated further north in the same center a while back.) But the latest addition proceeded much more suddenly: Yesterday afternoon, around 2:30, a customer saw fit to install a drive-thru directly in front of the restaurant, by stepping on the gas pedal while under the impression that the car was in reverse.
A CHICK-FIL-A IS GOING INSIDE PENNZOIL PLACE 
If there’s gonna be a downtown office building collecting a few fast-food drive-thru franchises in its basement — minus the drive-thru parts, that is — it might as well be one with some street cred, right? Last year, a Sonic moved into the basement of Pennzoil Place, the Philip Johnson-designed double-trapezoid building pair on the block bounded by Milam, Rusk, Capitol and Louisiana. The building’s owners are now about to carve out more space for retail on the building’s lower floors — though only one of the added slots (at the corner of Rusk and Louisiana) will actually have direct access to the street. Joining Sonic in the building’s underground tunnel zone — along with an expanded eating area, revamped escalators, and a few more lease spaces — will be downtown’s fourth Chick Fil A. But don’t line up quite yet: The projected $1.2 million in renovations necessary to create the new spaces won’t be complete until early next year. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot; more info (PDF)] Photo: Flickr user telwink [license]
Last week Judge Randy Wilson (yes, the same judge who ruled earlier this year in the Ashby Highrise case) granted a temporary injunction preventing the owner of the converted bungalow at 705 E. 11th St. from locking out or evicting Zelko Bistro — or putting a for lease sign in front of the Heights restaurant (as caught in the photo at right from last month). Zelko was required to post a bond equal to a single month’s rent under the previous lease; the ruling requires the restaurant’s owners to comply with the terms of that lease as well.
