It isn’t calling itself a bar, but the website for a new craft-beer retail outlet planned for the former site of Kaboom Books next to the Antidote coffee shop on Studewood says it’ll offer “fresh pours” of draft beer and “growlers to go.” The Twitter account for Premium Draught at 733 Studewood announced yesterday that its construction permit has already been approved.
Meanwhile, the owners of Liberty Station on Washington Ave plan to open the craft-beer-focused Cottonwood Bar in the building shown above on Shepherd at 34th St., just north of Pink’s Pizza, according to the brand-new establishment’s Twitter feed — “adding everything we wanted to do at Liberty Station but didn’t have room . . . kitchen, more taps.”
- Coming Soon [Premium Draught]
- Cottonwood Bar [Twitter]
Photo: Cottonwood Bar
Only about a month after announcing plans to pepper the Houston market with 30 Aldi discount supermarkets over the next 3 years — with a third of them up and running by next spring, 
Didn’t the country’s biggest retail camera chain already declare bankruptcy and close a bunch of its Wolf Camera and Ritz Camera stores in Houston? Yeah, but that was back in 2009; now the successor company is going down that path again, a couple years after bouncing out of bankruptcy protection. In a news release, the company’s restructuring officer makes it all sound like part of a pretty picture: “To achieve our strategic vision of a super-store chain offering unique value-added services . . . it became necessary to implement this vision through a Chapter 11 filing.” 
On the occasion of the opening of the Houston area’s second Pinkberry (in the Woodlands Mall, tomorrow), the frozen-yogurt franchisor is announcing its first inside-the-loop location: next to Walgreens, across the street from Central Market in the retail building formerly occupied by Village Kids and Janie and Jack — at 3838 Westheimer. The first area Pinkberry (pictured at right) 
To all of you who’ve been emailing, 
Aldi isn’t exactly Trader Joe’s without the hype, but the 2 grocery chains are owned by sister companies from Germany. (Aldi Nord operates 1,200 stores in the U.S., mostly in the eastern half; Trader Joe’s is owned by Aldi Süd) Both of them specialize in private-label products. And they’ll be traveling in some of the same circles too: While Trader Joe’s is opening a measly 3 stores in the Houston area this year, its bigger and cheaper cousin has just announced a much grander Houston-opening gambit (after plans for a store outside Katy’s Oak Park Trails subdivision were 
