Here, courtesy of a Swamplot reader, are a few exterior views of the building at 1318 Westheimer after its weekend fire. “The damage is pretty severe,” Shawn Bermudez wrote on Facebook Saturday evening. The owner of Royal Oak Bar & Grill, which shut down in this location last September, had been renovating the property in order to reopen it as a bar named Present Company. That work was a month from completion, Bermudez estimates. Among the additions to the former 1950s home: new steel doors and windows. And here’s a view showing the current state of the new piggyback patio added in back:
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Though it will now take “much longer” to complete the renovations, Bermudez still plans to open Present Company, he writes. No one was injured in the fire — or in the other restaurant fire over last weekend, which damaged the Mary’z Lebanese Cuisine at 5825 Richmond Ave.
- Weekend fires damage two Houston restaurants — owners vow to rebuild [Culturemap]
- Royal Oak site damaged in Sept. 9 fire [Houston Chronicle]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â About Those Big Holes in the Sides of the Old Royal Oak Spot on Westheimer
Photos: Margo
We happened to be driving up Commonwealth to Westheimer when the fire was raging. Having just returned from Burning Man I can tell you it wasn’t the biggest fire I’ve seen in the last few weeks but it was impressive.
pretty smart of them to do it now while all the insurance investigators are busy with hurricane damage.
How polite of the property owner to make an already dangerous/uncomfortable walk along Westheimer even more dangerous and uncomfortable.
Notoriously unreliable HCAD records claim year built as 1957.
I’d guess it’s about 40 years older than that.