SpaceGhost

I had personally never heard of her. Searched the Chronicle Archives and was able to find lots about her. The restaurant was named "The Garden Room" and featured the first fully electric kitchen in the South! She was also manager of the Palomino Bar (another dining room), and the Gourmet Shop. It seems she was there from the grand opening of the Houston Joske's (October 25, 1948). In 1950 she prepared lunch for the Duke of Windsor when he visited Houston, by Christmas they were selling items branded with her name. By 1951 she had been promoted to "Food Service Director". She was still at Joske's in June of 1951, but left sometime later that year for the Driskill Hotel in Austin. I can't post the photos here because of Copyright uncertainty, however if you can get access to the microfilm there are some great photos of Joske's from their grand opening.

Did you ever end up finding this?! Sounds awesome!

Makes me wonder how much longer until Croak Bend/Probly Dyin' finally shuts down.

Drove by this recently, looking close to being done with construction.

Confirmed via Chronicle Archives that the Weather Ball was removed in September of 1970. It was removed to "tidy up the citie's skyline". Some other earlier published articles announcing the removal mention that Conoco was changing their logo, and felt that large signage atop buildings was no longer in style. Found this at the bottom of an ad

Locations were as follows: Downtown 812 Main River Oaks 2010 S. Shepherd Sharpstown 111 Sharpstown Center Almeda 240 Almeda Mall Northwest 240 Northwest Mall Memorial City 730 Memorial City Greenspoint 347 Greenspoint It's from an older directory. I forgot to take a picture of the cover so I don't have a date for this list. From the design of the ad it really seems like it's from the 70s. I would upload it but this thread is limited to files 0.19 MB or less.

The first one was the Highland Village location, I even have vague memories of the TCBY location it replaced. As for my source, my fiance who was a manager for about 3 years worked at the nearby Uptown location. One of the employees there had transferred from Highland Village and had been there since the store opened. Also you're correct on West Gray the location in the strip center came first, the drive-thru came second.

Glad you enjoyed it! Do you have any pictures? If so we'd love it if you shared them!

I went by that San Antonio location probably less than a month ago, and it didn't seem temporarily closed. The signs on the doors, the locks, and the amount of dust on everything made it seem permanent.

This has been ongoing since 2016 http://swamplot.com/architectural-antiques-shop-leaves-1917-brick-and-mortar-spot-embraces-the-digital-age/2016-07-27/ As for what will go there, well it's Midtown and it's an old house so a trendy bar?

Alright, I did a little research here. There was only one Tony Roma's location in Houston. It was at 6356 Richmond Ave. It opened sometime between 1981 (Ariel Image shows no building) and 1986 (The first time the Chronicle mentions it). It didn't seem to open with that much fan fare, it closed very quietly without even an article in the Chronicle sometime between 1994 (Final Chronicle Mention) and 1996 (Mention of Replacement opening). From what I can tell the chain never gained much of a foothold in Houston and didn't grow past 1 location. In the Chronicle you can see them doing gimmicky things, like offering delivery probably to try to increase weekday dinners. It's location is at the West end of the Richmond Strip. Tony Roma's was likely built before the strip was really a big deal (as I understand it this occurred during the early 90s). Compared to other dining options in the area, Tony Roma's had a very small lot, and probably didn't offer the best prices especially when compared to former neighbor Chuy's (now Cafe Layal). Also by the mid 90's crime in the Richmond Strip was on the rise, and I wouldn't be surprised if that deterred customers. One interesting thing I did find during all this was, that the restaurant which replaced Tony Roma's (King Fish Market which closed in 2005) was opened by Chris King who also created Joe's Crab Shack. He chose the location for King Fish Market, because he opened his first Joe's Crab Shack just a couple of blocks down Richmond. I believe the current building is the same one which Tony Roma used. I checked HCAD which listed a construction date of 1996, however I seem to remember as a small child driving by and watching them cut away at Tony Roma's to make the patio (It was a spectacular building to watch being built bright orange and green colors). However, that could just be a case of "Child Brain" confusing two similar events.

So does anyone know if the North Main Street Tunnel was ever used by Street Cars? I saw a photo of the plaque and noticed that the Houston Electric Co. was listed as being part of the rebuild of the tunnel. They were of course, one of the streetcar operators the city had. However, this could be coincidental as Southern Pacific who owned the land above was listed as well, and it's possible that the streetcar was up there. On the other side, it is odd that it's called a Subway on the plaque. Google Maps of the location: https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7709408,-95.3590671,3a,46.4y,338.57h,84.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRek_WS4PXKxlEGw_fLWpAA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Picture of plaque: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nakrnsm/7058687659/

If I recall correctly the walk through section on the right (Where Massage Heights is now, and Souper Salad was) open closed right before Souper Salad opened, or shortly there after.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. It hasn't made the rounds to my website yet, but soon will. I had heard in passing that Woolco/Berings was also briefly a Kmart, do you remember this?

The only mention of J.L. Phillips I found in the Chronicle is attached. It cites him as developing Briargrove. NewsBank-document.pdf

Would be interesting to see this happen, however Iron Tiger's completely right. Chain Store locations are generally all approved by boards, and only decided on after tons of marker and consumer research has taken place showing this is a compatible area. Also as long as H-E-B owns that property they're not gonna give TJ's a chance at it. Just take a look at the former Fountain View location.

So a picture popped up on reddit claiming to be a Drive-In from Houston in 1957. As with most things on the internet, I have no idea if this is true or not. I need some help identifying if this drive in is actually from Houston. Supposedly the pipes blew A/C into your car. Anyone recognize it?

So, the Chronicle mentions they pulled out of Houston in October of 85, however no locations are mentioned. The number I keep seeing thrown around is 6. The Gessner location states a build date of 1987, and the Long Point/Blalock location was owned by something called "Casa Bonita" which apparently owned a few properties around town, but none of them had similar styling. So my advice on finding the locations would be to go find a 1985 Directory and look them up.

A bunch were found in this thread: http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/29412-lewis-coker/

Nice find thank you! Its crazy that the two Fort Bend Counth locations were both On the Border locations, especially since they were acquired something like 5 years apart!

Whoops I meant the Stafford location, the Brazos Town Center location was definitely an On the Border originally Edit: My bad! Looks like you were totally correct!

I know they bought the property next door which was Macaroni Grill to run as a seafood restaurant for a while, but what was the actual Gringo’s location originally? Edit: I meant Stafford

Crazy.. I wouldn't have been able to predict this! Also to answer my own question from a few years ago, apparently Fiesta may be moving into the old Kroger.

Yup, from the railroad tracks to about halfway between Weslayan and Drexel. The shopping center runs directly on Westheimer. The neighborhood runs from Westheimer to W. Alabama between Suffolk and Drexel.

Hmm, I wonder if it would have been an old discount chain eg: Fedmart, Gibsons... etc.