The new owners of Marfreless have updated the website of the shuttered River Oaks Shopping Center bar to indicate that it plans on reopening in January. Which makes sense, since the previously promised summer 2013 re-launch date for the 2006 Peden St. location has come and gone. A comment appended back in December to a Facebook photo album showing renovations of the signless institution’s famed dimly lit interior provides an actual opening date: “probably” January 17th. What delights await inside? A unisex restroom with 2 stalls, chandeliers, plus new VIP areas carved out of what were previously storage rooms: “There will be curtains upstairs that you can pull closed for privacy or open for groups. Or . . . pull closed for groups, if that’s what you’re into.” The stairs, however, will still offer the “same place to hit your head.”

• Marfreless To Reopen January 2014 [Marfreless]
• “Make-Out Bar” Marfreless is Expected to Reopen Soon [Eater Houston]
• Previously on Swamplot: The Return of Marfreless, Weingarten Responds: Hey, It’s Not Us, It’s Marfreless, The End Coming for Marfreless in River Oaks

Photo: Marfreless