brucesw

1500 block, south side, between Windsor and Ridgewood. Looks like on Google it would've been 1513. The bungalow next door was a hippie ice cream shop as I recall.

The diagram (circular) above of lower Westheimer is misleading. It does not show all the streets that cross or intersect Westheimer. The Round Table, a gay bar (m) and Prufrock's (n), which I understood were co-owned, were not next door to each other, they weren't even in the same block and neither was right on the corner. Whitney was the cross street and both bars were one house removed from the intersection. Michaeangelo's was (and still is) east of Taft; I haven't been down that way in quite some time but I think it's right were Mason intersects but does not cross Westheimer. The Yelp listing has a map that is a little better although it doesn't clearly show Mason coming all the way down to Westheimer and it also has some pictures. Edit to correct: the Yelp listing has one pic of the building, all the rest are of the food.

Here's a lengthy article on the incident published last May in Houstonia.

Here's the Facebook page for this book published in July about the Houston music scene in the 1960s by Vicki Welch Ayo who was a teenager in Pasadena then. The book is available on Amazon at a discount from the publisher's price and you can look inside the book at a few pages. There are mentions of many bands and some of the venues that have been mentioned here on HAIF. And a feature from the Chronicle that includes an interview with the author. I've heard from Cy Statum, a disc jockey on KFMK, the pioneering album rock station in Houston, who later worked with me at KAUM. He's heard from another FMK jock, Gary Goforth that the book only mentions KILT and KNUZ and omits any mention of KFMK but I haven't seen the book and can't confirm that.

There was a lot of information on Houston Safeways/Appletrees that found its way into your B/CS thread. I can add to what I posted there: There was a Safeway on Chimney Rock at Gulfton in the 70s, same exterior as the Holcombe/Greenbrier and Westheimer/Weslayan stores but smaller inside, I think. Not a good location for such a large store, too close to the store in downtown Bellaire and surrounded by lots of warehouse/light industtrial rather than residential. That one may not have lasted long enough to become an Appletree and I'm virtually certain it was never a Rice Epicurean, despite being only about 3 blocks from the Rice headquarters on Gulfton. That was a bingo hall for a while and now is a private academy. The Foodarama on S. Wilcrest @ West Bellfort was a Safeway, obvious from the north wall along W. Bellfort, especially. I worked part time out of an office half a block from there briefly in 83/84 but don't remember it at all. I would not have been doing any grocery shopping while I was there, however. The 'Your Super Savings Thrift Store' or whatever the name is on Dashwood @ S. Fondren, west of the old Sharpstown Mall was a Safeway and probably an Appletree, also obvious from the front of the building. I'm not sure about the Fiesta on Bellaire @ S. Gessner but I think it was a Safeway. Have to look at the building again.

That was a Randall's just before becoming a Foodarama but I don't know if it had been a Safeway/Appletree before that. As best I can remember the building, it looks more like a Randall's.

In the 70s and up until 1985, that was an Eagle. That may have been the original occupant.

Service Merchandise bought out Wilson's. There was a WIlson's on 59 @ Bellerive in Sharpstown. I don't remember what all is in that space now but part of it is occupied by a Quiznos. There was also a Service Merchandise (never a Wilson's, I think) on 59 @ Williams Trace in First Colony, in that big strip with the HD. I liked those catalog stores, especially W. Bell. Best Products was another. They usually had better quality merchandise than the big box stores like WM and Target that basicaly put them out of business.

Waukesha Pierce?, S. Post Oak at S. Main

I think this is the place that's supposed to have the bar and some china and other stuff. Just a few blocks from me but I've never been.

That's an interesting bit of information. I had never heard that. I remember a post by JR Gonzales in his Bayou City History blog in the Chron about Produce Row, aka Airline Drive, getting it's name from the fact there used to be truck farms along that road and it was just a natural gathering place to sell produce.

Came across this article by Lisa Gray published a few days ago in the Chronicle on downtown Houston's old Theater Row.

Never lived in the area but for some reason I have memories. I remember AJ Foyt's and Belden's, also the Wyatt's. Used to go to monthly meetings of the Houston Genealogical Society there until we outgrew the place. Could it have been PoFolks - a chain out of Florida that was short-lived here but still in operation elsewhere? I never made it to one but I seem to remember driving over there one day to go and finding it closed. Yes, Wild Kitchen has great burgers.

Bumping this thread. I went to the Houston Arts and Media History Book Fair in the Heights today and saw a presentation by Harry Sargent on his new book on Lake Jackson, part of the Arcadia Press' Images of America series just released last month. I'll be up late tonight poring over the pictures and I'm looking forward to meeting with Harry soon in LJ to share some of my memorabilia with him.

The one on I-10 is long gone; squeezed between the railroad tracks and the frontage road, it became something else - non restaurant related as I remember - for a while before disappearing in the face of the expanding freeway. I think that one was actually a Capt's Table Oyster Bar or something, the different name a result of a split in the family as I was told. The one at 59 @ Murphy/Wilcrest/FM 1092 moved down 1092 about half a mile and is still going strong. That move was necessitated by the widening of the freeway. The location on 1960 was originally a Capt. Benny's. Benny Heileman (? - Heineman?) gave a couple of businessmen a franchise of sorts as I understand, but they had never operated a restaurant before and didn't do well. It was sold to the manager of the Stafford Capt. Benny's whose name was Tom and it became the first Capt. Tom's.

I was thinking that was the location that was being referenced. It was a restaurant in its latter days. I was there one time ca. 1975-76 with a salesman from my radio station, trying to get an advertising schedule. Can't remember the name of the place but the owner did mention it had been Bert Wheeler's residence (of liquor store fame). To digress a bit - the owner was bringing out dish after dish, showing off his menu. We were the only customers. I remember a thick filet, rare, and lobster tail. There was also tabouli, kind of unusual at a surf and turf restaurant. We were of course telling him how awesome everything was. I commented that the tabouli was so much better than the cellophane packs of makings for tabouli that you could buy in grocery stores which I had tried (are those still around?) which I said were a waste of money. He looked me straight in the eye and explained that those cellophane packages were his product and contained exactly the same ingredients as used at the restaurant. We got the account anyway but the restaurant was struggling, out-of-the-way from the developing foodie scene along lower Westheimer at that time, and didn't last much longer.

The address 8100 S. Main does place the Texas Corral right at the junction of OST and S. Main, on the west side of the street. The Astrodome does not front on Main at all, it is between Kirby and Fannin, east of Main Street. There's no way this club was torn down to make room for the Dome unless some investors bought the land for some other purpose. Keep in mind also the MLB franchise for Houston wasn't even approved in 1957, much less construction underway on a stadium. However, This thread on HAIF gives the location of the Grant Motel as 8200 S. Main, while this post in another thread, citing a 1969 directory, shows Lee's Den, an eatery, at 8100 S. Main, and the Grant still in existence so perhaps the club was not demolished but simply closed. The December 1948 Billboard article mentioning Jerry Irby taking over a 1000 seat nitery on S. Main gives no indication of the previous name; so far as we know, it was already the Texas Corral and just became Jerry Irby's Texas Corral. A search of those BB archives for Hitching Post Houston or Hitchin' Post Houston does not seem to find any evidence of such a club.

I remember the name Theodore's but I can't place the building on that corner. I'm sure I was never there, maybe never even knew where it was. Probably heard about it on the radio. I was at a restaurant in the 200 block of Westheimer, north side of the street, several times in the early 1970s. It was where we held some staff get-togethers when I worked for KAUM. It was 'Continental.' I remember it was where I first saw someone doing Everclear shots and the first place I ever heard the term portion control to explain the uniform sizes of the entrees and sides. The food was not memorable. I have been trying for years to remember the name of the restaurant and Stubbs does not ring a bell. It was in a wood frame house; as I recall we gathered in an upstairs dining area that was private; just off the room we were in was an enclosed porch overlooking the street. The building at that address now until recently housed Fabio's and was built only about 10 years ago. This was pre-1974. Twins, Bacchus, Chicken Coop, et. al. were much later in the decade weren't they?

Two big issues for the country after WWII were jobs and housing for vets. Compounding the housing problem was a shortage of building materials, especially wood, for construction projects. Several hundred vets and their families were housed on the UH campus in trailers. They did this also at A&M. Possibly the shortage of materials was part of the reason for the re-purposing of the other buildings. Wasn't UH pretty much always underfunded, too?

An earlier topic in the Historic Houston forum. There are other scattered mentions in that forum, too.

Weingarten's sold to Grand Union, which didn't last long (there could be a thread here on grocery store chains from elsewhere that didn't make it here). Safeway took over some of the Grand Union locations (Safeway was already here). When Safeway sold its Houston area stores to pay off some debt, they became AppleTree Markets, headed by a former Safeway exec who retired shortly thereafter and AT began to fall apart, eventually retrenching to just a couple of stores in B/CS. The Fiesta at W. Bellfort and Fondren was originally a Weingarten's, then Grand Union, Safeway and AppleTree. I shopped there under all the banners. The Seller's Brothers at Weslayan and S. Braeswood was a Weingarten's; it was one of the ones that was forced by a lease agreement to hold on to either the Weingarten's or AppleTree name long after the companies had exited the market as I recall. The Weingarten's in Freeport, on 2nd Street, just east of Brazosport Hi, was opened in the early 50s; a Penney's shared the center. The building has been demolished. The HEB on Plantation at Dixie in Lake Jackson was originally a Weingarten's. Back in October, JR Gonzales did a post about Henke and Pillot on his Bayou City Houston blog, with dates, pictures, addresses and tons of comments. I can't get the individual post to come up but here's a link to the October archive on BCH - it was a great month of features on Houston history.

I looked through my notes and found the reference I was remembering: "Big ad for Angelos Cafe (Oyster Bar) opposite Tower Theater. Grand cabin (?) dining room w/2 (...some kind of...) fireplaces, meat counter too." (my handwriting can be a little hard to read, even for me). This was p. 17, 10/4/46 - Houston Press, if someone has access to the papers and wants to look it up. I think there may have been a picture of the restaurant in the ad that I intended to go back and get a copy of some time. I'm almost certain this was the Press although this particular page of my notes I didn't remember to write the name of the paper I was scanning at the top; if it had been the Chronicle, there should have been a section citation along with the page # and the Post was virtually worthless in that era for my subject matter so it's not likely the Post. If it was where Mary's was 'opposite the Tower Theater,' i.e., caddy-corner, would have been appropriate but I took it to mean directly across.

I remember coming across a newspaper ad a few years ago when I was doing some research in the 1940s for a restaurant on the curve across from the Tower called Angelo's, a seafood restaurant/oyster bar. I remember thinking that must've been Charlie's but I didn't compare addresses so I don't know if it was that same building or if that was the original use. I think that Angelo's may have later moved out on South Main outside the Loop where it was known as Angelo's Fisherman's Wharf.

Wasn't that Montrose location originally (or earlier anyway) Tex-Chick?, the Puertorrican place now on Fairview?

That was it. Thanks. I was pretty sure there wasn't any lantern. I think that was the only f & c shop I ever went to. As I recall, the fish was very greasy. It was served in cardboard cone printed on the outside to look like a newspaper since f & c in England supposedly is served in rolled up newspapers.