PINKBERRY HOUSTON CAMPAIGN: WEBSTER AND THE WOODLANDS FIRST Beachhead for the inevitable local invasion of second-wave frozen-yogurt pioneer Pinkberry: across I-45 from Baybrook Mall in the Baybrook Passage Shopping Center. The location, at 19325 Gulf Fwy., is scheduled to open on September 30th. The second of the dozen spots planned for the greater Houston area by the regional franchisee will be somewhere in The Woodlands, but won’t open until next year. [Houston Business Journal] Update, 11:30 am: That Woodlands location will be in The Woodlands Mall.
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Tag: Retail
HEIGHTS SHIPPING CONTAINER FOOD COURT A food-truck-court-like conglomeration of shipping containers housing vendors selling waffles, burgers, barbecue, Mexican, Asian, or Cajun cuisine is being planned for a 25,000-sq.-ft. lot co-owned by the proprietor of C&D Scrap Metal at the corner of North Shepherd and 14th St., the Chronicle‘s David Kaplan reports. “Kitchens on 14th,” as designed by Uptown Sushi and Tiny Boxwood’s architect Issac Preminger, is expected to include trees, water features, and communal eating areas in a park-like setting. [Prime Property]
NOW POPPING OUT BURRITOS 
Jack-in-the-Box-owned Chipotle competitor Qdoba Mexican Grill has opened its first Houston-area location (in a little while, at least) — in a former Hollywood Video location near Home Depot at the end of a strip center at 17400 Spring Cypress Rd. in Cypress, just northwest of Hwy. 290. Last year Brij Agrawal, the owner of 75 local Subway franchises, signed an agreement with the fast-casual chain to open 15 new Houston Qdobas within 7 years. [QSR] Photo: Qdoba Mexican Grill Houston
MORE JOLTS FROM BUFFALO GRILLE COFFEE Now in the H-E-B Buffalo Market parking lot at Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet, on the site of what used to be the Buffalo Grille: the first in a network of eVgo electric vehicle charging stations to be planted in parking lots around the city. The plug-in spots are right near what used to be the coffee serving area, notes Chronicle energy reporter Tom Fowler. Opening in the next couple of weeks: stations near NRG’s headquarters at the Shops at Houston Center downtown, and in front of 2 Walgreens: at 19710 Holzwarth St. and 8942 W. Sam Houston Pkwy. North. 25 of the Houston-area stations, featuring both 240-volt and the faster 480-volt chargers, are scheduled to open by the end of the year. [Fuel Fix; previously on Swamplot]
What’s that looks-kinda-huge project going up on the southwest corner of I-10 and Bunker Hill Rd., just east of the Memorial City Mall? A reader writes in with some info, but wants to know more: “Anslow Bryant, the company responsible for the lotus-blossom-topped Memorial Hermann Tower, is handling the project. There’s a couple of cranes doing crane things and a temporary fence lining the spot already. In addition to spicing up that desolate parking lot, the project means the demise of the nearby Spec’s and the other four or so forgettable places that line that dilapidated strip center, too. Do y’all know anything? Tell me it’s something cool and not just an office building or a La Quinta.”
The only thing remotely “disco” about the newly completed renovation of the Kroger at 3300 Montrose Blvd., aka Disco Kroger: The tiny lights inside the new letters on the newly stone-clad entrance. And they’re now covered in plastic. No disco ball in sight. But inside the 41,000-sq.-ft. store, it’s all hustle: Most of the checkout lanes are now express lanes, designed to get shoppers with less than 20 items out the door as quickly as possible. A new QueVision system monitors the number of customers and open lanes, helping cashiers predict how many will need to be open in the next half-hour:
Today was opening day for the third-ever Joe V’s Smart Shop, H-E-B’s growing chain of low-cost supermarkets. How low-cost are we talking? Well, put it this way: Checkers at the store won’t even touch your money. That’s right: You’ll be sliding it into a Wincor Nixdorf iCash register yourself — it sucks up your bills and coins and spits back change. And for a good number of the groceries you buy, you’ll be unpacking the items yourself too, directly from the boxes they were shipped in — just like you would at a big-box warehouse store. In the 51,000-sq.-ft. space carved out of a former Kmart at 12009 Northwest Fwy., on the west side of Hwy. 290 at 43rd St., the boxes and pallets are the displays:
Posted on HAIF: images from earlier this month of the empty but almost ready-to-open H-E-B at 3601 FM 1488 in The Woodlands. At 104,000 sq. ft., the North Woodlands Market will register as the biggest of the 4 H-E-Bs in the area. Inside, reports Chris, the cameraphone photographer, everything will be bigger than usual. Alas, no closeups of the guacamole bar. A similar layout and format is expected at the Sugar Land store scheduled to open in September.
OUT WITH THE IMPORTED PO’ BOYS, IN WITH THE LOCAL BOLOGNA 
The owners of Benjy’s Restaurant next door plan to open a local-foods market in the recently vacated Antone’s Import Co. space at 2424 Dunstan St. Benjy Levitt describes the market, which he’s calling Local Foods in Rice Village, as a local version of its predecessor. There’ll be sandwiches and salads, as well as prepared foods from next door, including Benjy’s beer nuts and cheese crackers. Levitt tells Sarah Rufca the store, expected to open in October, will get its food supplies from 15 to 20 local vendors: “We’re going to be using artisan bread; if there’s bologna in a sandwich, it’ll be house-cured.” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: West U Examiner
COMMENT OF THE DAY: RETAIL JUSTICE “I agree . . . It would have been much more efficient for the county to have just rented space in a strip shopping center. Maybe they could have found some place with a drive through. May we affirm your conviction? Would you like fries with that? Just imagine the possibilities.” [J., commenting on Inside Downtown’s Brand-New 1910 Courthouse]
TRACKING SUGAR LAND’S SUGAR AND CHEESE 
Where Sugar Land’s Cupcake Cafe couldn’t hold on, macaroni and cheese is going in. The owners of the Jus’ Mac mac-and-cheese-is-all restaurant on Yale St. in Sunset Heights have announced they’re ready to expand to a second location: 16525 Lexington Ave., in a strip center at the corner of Austin Pkwy., behind the First Colony Mall. Expected completion date for the cupcakes-to-pasta makeover: November. [HAIF; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT WILL KILL THIS “We are excitedly discussing the replacement of bookstores with clothing stores (no matter how generic the former or how euro-cool the latter) . . . I’ve been rooting for an H&M in Houston for years, but I never thought it would be moving in to the empty shells of half the city’s booksellers. This is sad.” [Ares, commenting on H&M in Houston: All in the Malls]
H&M IN HOUSTON: ALL IN THE MALLS Swedish clothing retailer H&M is in talks to lease space at the Galleria, in the Memorial City Mall, and The Woodlands Mall for its first 3 Houston-area locations, leasing-agent sources tell Heather Staible. According to the timetable given to her, the Galleria location would be the first to open — in early 2012. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
H&M COMING TO HOUSTON — SOMEDAY, SOMEWHERE 
Taking the place of the Borders bookstore space in the Galleria? No one is saying. But the Swedish clothing retailer’s first Dallas store is opening today (at NorthPark Center) and a company PR manager tells Heather Staible that H&M has plans to get down to Houston, too: “The details of where and when are still hush-hush, though.” [Culturemap] Photo: Trill Will
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE LOST SCENT “It broke my heart when they closed down the location near my high school on Hilcroft many years ago. [It] was a great place for ‘off campus’ dining. Don’t even get me started about the closure of the original Taft location without warning. Don’t they know it takes decades to achieve that wonderful aroma from all those imported cheeses, olives, etc.? This is a smell my children (and I) will never experience again.” [jgbiggs, commenting on Po’ Boys Priced Out of the Village]