thefensk

There was one on Hillcroft near Robert E. Lee High School in the mid 70s also.

Wow. Not sure about HBG, but there was another fancy burger place on Hilcroft near Lee ... can't think of the name. There were phones on the tables and you "called in" your order.

On the whole HBG on Kirby thing ... the original poster had it right, there was one down toward West University, in fact it was IN West University. I remember this because a friend of mine managed it for a while and he was complaining to me that they had WEEKLY health inspections instead of monthly like in Houston. They had a full-time health inspector who didn't have enough restaurants to inspect I guess.

We both had previously worked at the kirby location of Rolando's Burger Factory, which was between Alabama and Westheimer. I was Rolando's original employee at that location and trained at his original original location on Richmond in a reformed coffee shop that was close to Woodhead between Woodhead and Dunlavy.

The Kirby location was originally a really lame Jack-in-the-Box copycat called The Pied Piper, which I remember because I helped him clean it out and got tired of the stupid Pied Piper logo on the zillions of bags and such we were throwing out. The place was filthy!

Over a period of many months Rolando took the shell of the building and rebuilt it, expanding the dining room and changing (some might say creating) the decor as he built the business.

I think this may have also been the location of a 50s era fried chicken place called The Chicken Shack. Pre-KFC, or pre-KFC restaurant I might say since originally Col Sanders was selling the KFC concept as an add-in. I remember some cafeteria downtown featured Kentucky Fried Chicken.

For some reason this kindled a memory of a place called The Magic Mushroom but I don't have any specifics, just seem to remember the name.

Was that Los Troncos restaurant?

Yes, I think you are absolutely correct ... Los Troncos (The Treehouse)

I have another vague memory of a place I only went to a couple of times on Westheimer close to Montrose,

something like The Treehouse (it also had a Spanish or Italian name but always added Treehouse as a translation) ... it was built on a really strange floorplan with huge tree trunks throughout giving the impression that it really was a treehouse.

Nice place to take a date as most of the tables were set into little alcoves and were very private.

There was another short lived place on Westheimer in the same strip center with the old Budget Tapes and Records; it was a small Greek cafe called Kojak's. Their back room was set up almost like a grotto with weird stalagtite stuff hanging from the ceiling.

Killer gyros at that place ... in fact I had never seen gryros on a menu before that place. A line drawing of Telly Savalas on the cover of the menu really added to the funky charm of the place. Today the litigation police would have swooped down on them within minutes of opening.

Even though it's only been gone a short time, I miss the original Antone's on Taft. The chain Antone's pale in comparison to the original locations. I don't even know how many 'original' stores exist.

I also miss ZuZu, which was on Shepherd near Fairview. It was Mexican fast food and I remember a salsa bar or something... it was quaint with good food.

All of these posts got me to thinking ... there used to be a dingy dirty looking Chinese Restaurant on Elgin, around Smith or Louisiana or maybe even up as far as Milam or Travis ... heading East it was on the right.

For a long time it was the Tin-Tin but later I think it was changed to Blue Star.

I still always called it Tin-tin. It looked like a greasy spoon cafe, but they had just about the absolute best Egg Foo Yung in the world.

For that matter, that was from the time when most Chinese restaurants had Chinese AND American food.

I have fond memories of another place in Bellaire called The Mayflower ... wonderful food. I worked not far from there and ate lunch there a lot and they must have had six different lunch menus, with different specials every day of both Chinese and American lunches. You could eat there every day and go quite a while without repeating yourself and if you didn't want Chinese you could get chicken fried steak or roast beef.

No way i would remember that place without the picture.

I don't specifically remember the buffalo but I do remember the round fronted building

... this was like memory jab. Wow.

thefensk

Martha and H2B are correct. There were 3D injun savages cookin up Savage Fried Chicken on the roof.

Do either of you remember the buffalo on the Town House at Waugh and Allen Parkway?

57tbird is right, after consulting my references again, mom said,"oh yeah !, there were some indians on that roof, I forgot." she also went on to say how the fire looked like what 57tbird described. That place was apparently very popular. Hey,57tbird, which was delicious, the BEER or the Oysters, or Both !?

Yeah, I rememer all of this as well ... heap big Indians up there! I think a lot of the lighting was via neon ... seem to remember a lot of neon up there.

Bill Williams was also a big Fat Stock Show supporter and had at least one fully stuffed grand champion steer in his lobby ... a taxidermist's dream job probably. I seem to remember going there at least once as late as 1970 or 1971.

I was in awe of that place when I was a kid. We only ever went to the Main St location ... didn't know about others.

I was telling a friend how these old Houston threads are a cure for dead brain cells ...

We used to go to Leo's, and I remember the story of his riding with Villa. We also went to Old Mexico on Gray, Santa Anita downtown, and Felix on Westheimer. But, our favorite place was Del Rio on Shepherd near W. 26th. There is an electronics place there now.

Oh, man. Santa Anita. That was my grandmother's epitome of fine eating. I recall it as so-so, but it was pretty fancy ... at least to a kid in the 60s.

thefensk

I haven't lived in Houston for quite a while, but the place I miss is an old Mexican Restaurant that used to be on Shepherd Drive, Leo's ...

Old Leo supposedly used to ride with Pancho Villa and he'd work the register. It was supposedly a favorite hangout of ZZ Top. It had a funky atmosphere and a fairly generic array of standard Tex-Mex but it was real comfort food too and it was always good. I think it eventually burned down ... I was shocked when I came to town and saw only an awning ... no building anymore.

Yes, there was a Hamburgers by Gourmet on Kirby. I'm thinking it was between Westheimer and Richmond, but it could have been farther south. My favorite burger there was the bacon bleu cheese burger.

There was also a competitor, Rolando's Burger Factory. He actually predated HBG in his original location on Richmond Avenue, not far from Dunlavy. He later opened a number of locations, on Kirby just off West Alabama and farther up West Alabama I think, up closer to Univ of St. Thomas. I worked for Rolando for a while when I was in college -- He only used very lean meat and when I first started working for him he was proud of his fresh cut fries but success eventually pushed him to frozen, as the locations were too small to devote the resources to storing, cleaning, cutting fries day in/day out.