WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE ON CENTER ST. From the Houston Press‘s magnum opus on the Washington Avenue scene: “Drunk people walk through the yard, pee on the house, sit on the porch swing and bark at the dogs. They scream and yell and fight until all hours every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and now during the day on Sunday. The music from District can be clearly heard from the driveway. ‘Right now you could go sit in my bedroom and feel how the house just thuds. The windows rattle,’ [longtime Center St. resident and property owner Helen] Espinoza said. There are constant accidents at the nearby intersection. With police focused on Washington, late-night drag racers take to Center Street. Espinoza says she has a hard time getting cops to come at all. [Neighbor Marie] Martinez, meanwhile, spends much of her time fighting new liquor licenses in court. She can’t hold them off forever, though, and while she’s fighting one bar, others pop up. Five liquor licenses are pending in the area right now. As more nightspots open, more people flood into the neighborhood to park. They block driveways or sometimes just use them, tear up the grass and get stuck in the drainage ditches. Marlene Gafrick, the director of city planning, says her department began working on the parking problems in March and has tried to bring each of the 35 to 40 bars and restaurants up to code. She too must hustle to keep pace with the development. Soon after one bar finally agreed to rent a nearby lot, for instance, the lot went under construction. . . . After a long fight, Espinoza finally won ‘No Parking’ signs on her side of the street. The factory across the way put up its own, with chicken wire, along its long and tall chain-link fence. People just cut them down.” [Houston Press]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Washington Corridor
HOUSTONIANS NOW EAT THEIR VEGETABLES IN THE STRANGEST PLACES 
Food and travel writer Salma Abdelnour, who grew up here, takes New York Times travel section readers on a tour of 5 Houston restaurants carved out of former something-or-others: the car dealership that became Reef, the ice house that became Beaver’s, the burlap factory that became Textile, the appliance warehouse that became Block 7 Wine Company. Somehow the spaghetti-western-themed strip center that ultimately became Stella Sola gets mixed up in this crowd (Abdelnour calls the building a “town house”). She adds: “In the film ‘Urban Cowboy,’ based in Houston and nearby Pasadena, the mother of the John Travolta character told him, ‘You just can’t get good vegetables in Houston.’ You certainly can now.” [New York Times] Photo of Stella Sola: 2Scale Architects
The Wall Street Journal‘s Katy McLaughlin picks on a few loud restaurants:
Many of the most cutting-edge, design conscious restaurants are introducing a new level of noise to today’s already voluble restaurant scene. The new noisemakers: Restaurants housed in cavernous spaces with wood floors, linen-free tables, high ceilings and lots of windows—all of which cause sound to ricochet around what are essentially hard-surfaced echo chambers.
Upscale restaurants have done away with carpeting, heavy curtains, tablecloths, and plush banquettes gradually over the decade, and then at a faster pace during the recession, saying such touches telegraph a fine-dining message out of sync with today’s cost-conscious, informal diner. Those features, though, were also sound absorbing. . . .
Restaurateurs often say the only complaints they get about noise are from older clientele. As people age—and particularly when they are 65 or older—they often lose acuity in hearing high-frequency sounds, making it harder to understand speech, says Mark Ross, a professor emeritus of audiology at the University of Connecticut.
The Corkscrew wine bar at 1919 Washington Ave. will be closing for good on February 9th. Appearing in its place by March will be a new “organic bar” from the same owners. Bee Love will serve infused cocktails and other drinks with fresh, local, organic ingredients and no syrups or mixes, reports the HBJ‘s Allison Wollam. And the bar will grow its own limes, oranges, and lemons.
[Corkscrew co-owner] Andrew Adams, who also owns The Washington Avenue Drinkery at 4115 Washington Ave., says it may take a little longer to get a drink at Bee Love than at other rowdy bars along the Washington Avenue corridor because the drinks will be made for “experiencing,†not just drinking.
Adams also says that by the end of March he plans to open a new over-30 nightclub right next door to Bee Love. It’ll be called Trixie’s and feature eighties music.
- Closures pop cork on wine bar sector consolidation [Houston Business Journal]
- Washington Ave. Latest: Wrestler-Themed Tacos To Calm the Nightly Grind [Swamplot]
Photo: Heights Blog
So much new stuff going on it’s impossible to keep track of it all!
- Opening Soon? A new “Houston Ave. Bar” at the site of the former Farmers Coffee Shop on the corner of Houston Ave. and White Oak. Here’s the evidence: A permit for a “2 story addition” to the property was approved by the city last month. The corner is already a popular gathering place for floodwaters — several commenters on HAIF have posted photos of the intersection after Hurricane Ike (see above) and Tropical Storm Allison.
- Moved: The Central City Co-op Wednesday market, from that Ecclesia space next to the Taft St. Coffee House to new digs at the Grace Lutheran Church at 2515 Waugh, just north of Missouri St. Sunday markets are still at Discovery Green. Next up for the co-op crew: Selling enough veggies to pay off those loans used for the church buildout.
- Opening Softly, Later This Month: A place called Canopy, from the folks who brought you that place called Shade. Claire Smith and Russell Murrell’s new restaurant will go in the spot where Tony Ruppe’s was, in the double-decked strip center at 3939 Montrose, reports Cleverley Stone. Three meals a day, 7 days a week, plus 3 seating areas:
a bright and refreshing dining room, festive bar and side street patio. We will eventually offer curbside “to go” service.
- Opening Early Next Month: The brand-new Dessert Shoppe, in the strip center portion of 19th Streete in the Heights. Fred Eats Houston writes that sisters Sara and RaeMarie Villar will be serving up “whole cakes and pies to individual desserts, along with assorted breakfast pastries, cookies, quiches, cupcakes, and some breads.”
- Reopened, for the First Time Since Ike: The Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Galveston. The combined boards of the International Shriners and Shriners Hospitals for Children had originally decided to close the hospital for good, after 30 inches of water wandered through the building’s first floor during the Hurricane. Shriners voting at this summer’s convention in San Antonio reversed that decision. The new hospital will have a smaller staff and budget. The Chronicle‘s Todd Ackerman reports that the hospital should already be open for reconstructive surgery cases; burn victims will have to wait until December for treatment.
And yet even more new stuff:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: APARTMENT MODEL SHOWINGS “If ‘Nudist sundeck + 1 hired model –> 100% occupancy’ was the case, then the Core (on Washington Ave) and Bel Air (on Allen Parkway) and many others in the similiar ‘scene’ and price range would be at 100% occupancy too. But they are not. BTW, the Bel Air pool is really really nice!” [irfan, commenting on Taking More Than Half Off at Those Apartments with the French Quarter Look]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRAP KNAPP WITH VELVET ROPE LINES “Good riddance! This landmark has for too long stood in the way of shiny-shirt progress. Think of how many bars with names like ‘Elite,’ ‘Wealth,’ or ‘Entitled’ you could fit on that property! For my money, I might just have to call [it] the Bourgeoises, in honor of the now defunct Proletariat. And by ‘in honor of’ I mean ‘urinating upon the memory of.’†[Nord, commenting on GM Wants To Take Away Knapp]
On the list of dealerships General Motors intends to shut down: Knapp Chevrolet, at 815 Houston Ave. just south of Washington. Back in May, GM notified the longtime Downtown dealership of its intent to terminate its franchise agreement as of Halloween 2010.
Since then, the dealership’s owners have been trying to get the decision reversed: President Robert G. Knapp presented his case to a congressional subcommittee in July, after several appeals to the company were rejected. Knapp claims his dealership has been profitable, and that closing the dealership would significantly hobble GM’s local market share. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has gotten involved, introducing a bill in Congress that would make it easier for dealerships to appeal franchise terminations in court. Knapp is also collecting a list of supporters through an online petition to GM. More than 6,200 supporters have added their names to the list so far.
One of those supporters: The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, fans of Knapp’s moderne corner building, completed in 1941, 2 years after the dealership was first established.
- SaveKnappChevy.com [Knapp Chevrolet, via Swamplot inbox]
- Testimony of Robert G. Knapp (PDF) [GHPA]
- Knapp Chevrolet Co. [Houston Deco]
- Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Announces new initiative to save autodealers, Jobs [rblok]
- Automobile Dealers Fair Competition Act of 2009 (H.R. 3450) [Thomas]
Photo of Knapp Chevrolet: Chris Adams
A reader notes that a few of those new Villas at the Heights townhouses from Northgate Custom Homes, built “right on the railroad tracks on Heights Blvd, backing up to the recycling center” are now sporting new — and much lower — asking prices:
The most extreme price reduction on one went from $365k to $299k. There are now 5 units for sale with prices ranging from $289k to $309k. They are getting there, only another $40k to go before someone might actually look at them!
Front-row train-side Unit M — featured in Dave McC’s famous video below — seems to have taken a break from MLS, but it’s still listed on the Northgate website for just $299,900!
This doesn’t sound so much like a deli now, does it? How long ’til they start calling this part of Shepherd The Gastrow?
A little birdie points Swamplot to more info about plans for the former Cue & Cushion pool hall, hiding on the uh . . . secret Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau website:
510 Shepherd, designed by award-winning hospitality designer Joel Mozersky, will be a unique neighborhood restaurant concept reminiscent of a traditional London gastro pub, yet modernized in design and updated to take into account American tastes.
GUESS WHERE WALTER’S ON WASHINGTON IS MOVING! Here are your clues: It’ll be “downtown” in a 1928 “warehouse,” and have twice the floor space of the current Walter’s at 1425 Washington Ave. It will have free parking and will be “removed from residential areas.” Beyond that, owner Pam Robinson isn’t saying — until TABC approves the new location: “The venue has shows booked deep into the fall. There will be no cancellations. As soon as the new space — which Robinson hopes to announce in the next week or two — is ready, Walter’s shows will move there.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Live-music maker and fan Jeff Balke gets worked up over the rumor that Walter’s on Washington will be closing its doors after its Halloween show:
At one time, Washington Avenue was home to Rockefeller’s, The Fabulous Satellite Lounge, Club Hey Hey, the Bon Ton Room and The Vatican. Other notables including Walter’s, The Rhythm Room, Tones, Cosmo’s and others had their moments along the popular corridor. When Walter’s closes, that will be that for live music having been replaced by red velvet roped drinking spots that serve over-priced alcohol to those allowed in by bouncers.
Balke blog bonus: A blow-by-blow what-are-they-now guide to Washington Ave live-music venues gone bye-bye.
Houston Press music blog Rocks Off has this vague report: “The building has reportedly been sold and, we hear, Walter’s owner Pam Robinson is looking to relocate.”
- Final Nail in the Coffin for Washington Avenue Live Music [Broken Record]
- The Doucheification of Washington Avenue Soon Complete [Jeff Balke]
- Walter’s on Washington Closing In October; Club May Relocate [Rocks Off]
- Walter’s on Washington
Photo of Walter’s on Washington, 4215 Washington Ave.: Yelp user mark s.
Alison Cook likes the recently opened Block 7 Wine Company:
The new venture, located in a smartly rehabbed appliance store on Shepherd just south of the Washington strip, combines retail wine sales with a wine bar that also functions as a restaurant. There’s a short, well-edited menu that will soon be expanded but which already looks and tastes promising.
The place looks smashing: airy and crisp and cool, all gunmetal greys and silvers, with black notes for ballast, a shimmer of glassware and a few bright pops of color.
I admired the vintage store fittings salvaged from the original appliance business and repurposed as a check-out desk, as well as the reasonable by-the-bottle prices and the distinct personality of the list, which does not try to be all things to all people.
Speaking of which:
From my window table, I could see Soma, the Japanese fusion and sushi spot on Washington at Shepherd, and I trembled to think of the ravening scenesters that might soon invade my little idyll.
- First taste of Block 7 Wine Company [Cook’s Tour]
- Block 7 Wine Company
Photo of checkout station, Block 7 Wine Co., 720 Shepherd Dr.: Alison Cook
HAIF poster Htowngirl, who lives near the new Ei8ht nightclub at the corner of Roy St., complains about . . . uh, parking difficulties in her neighborhood. And posts a few photos of an early Sunday morning scene from a few weeks ago:
The parking for Ei8ht in the neighborhood is already horrendous, I can’t even imagine what it will be like when Taps, Busty LaRoue’s, and this new “country” bar open…
Sample of the parking issues… I live a few blocks off Washington, near Ei8ht…the scene outside my house at 3 AM Sunday Morning a few weeks ago. Drunk suburbanite 21-year-old drove into our ditch.
Still there in the morning…
COMMENT OF THE DAY: KICKING BACK ON WASHINGTON AVE. “I live in the Core (since October 2008), and I’m certain that there are no plans to extend this complex across the street. The Core is a great place to live, but like every other large inner city complex, they’ve been slow to fill vacancies here. With that said, it would be foolish for them to even consider expanding. The last I heard, there were plans to put a small two story shopping strip there similar to the one on the other side of the Core. Still no solid plans though from anyone. By the way, if anyone wants to live here in the Core, put me as a reference and you and i both will get cash back.” [Hector Garcia, commenting on Washington Ave.: Extending The Core?]