Jump to content

Historic Houston Clubs


Subdude

Recommended Posts

El Tango Dining Club

304 Preston

Demolished

ElTango.jpg

Bismarck Restaurant

719 Franklin

Extant

Bismarck.jpg

Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine

1019 Commerce

Extant

LoveStreet.jpg

The Cellar, Les Quatre Saisons, Moulin Rouge

300 Block Milam

Demolished

MarketSqWest.jpg

The Golden Fleece

807 Congress

Extant

GoldenFleece.jpg

Gary Smith's Plantation Club

215 Milam

Extant

"Live Banjo Band!"

Plantation.jpg

Peacock Dining Room and Grill

707 Fannin

Demolished

Peacock.jpg

Genora White Kitchen #2

616 Main

Demolished

Genora2.jpg

Genora's White Kitchen

1007-1009 Main

Demolished

oct21houston2.jpg

Ship Ahoy

1007-1009 Main

Demolished

ShipAhoy1.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kelley's Famous Corral Room

910 Texas

Demolished

Kelleys.jpg

China Clipper

1006 Milam

Demolished

ChinaClipper.jpg

The Normandie

1009 Milam

Demolished

Normandie.jpg

Simpson's Dining Car

1415 Main

Demolished

Simpsons.jpg

Ten Fathoms

740 Polk

Demolished

740polk10fathoms.JPG

Santa Anita Mexican Restaurant

1919 Louisiana

Demolished

SantaAnita.jpg

Old Mexico

120 Gray

Demolished

OldMexico.jpg

West's Dairyland

Main at Gray

Demolished

WestsDairyland.jpg

Ritz Dining Room

1214 McGowan

Demolished

RitzRest.jpg

Weldon Cafeteria

4916 South Main

Extant

WeldonCafe.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spark Plug Club

1142 Adele

Extant

SparkClub.jpg

Athens Restaurant

8037 Clinton

Extant

AthensRest.jpg

Frontier Restaurant

4107 OST

Demolished

FrontierRest.jpg

Bill Williams MacGregor House

5100 OST

Demolished

williamsmacgregor.jpg

Golden Hour Restaurant

5111 Griggs

Demolished

GoldenHour.jpg

Jimmy Menutis Lounge

3236 Telephone at Wayside

Demolished

menutis.jpg

Las Vegas Inn

3706 Telephone

Demolished

lasvegasinn.jpg

Dubose Tel-Wink Grill

4318 Telephone

Extant

TelWink.jpg

Old Hickory Stick

4521 Telephone

Demolished

HickoryStick.jpg

Spanish Village

4720 Almeda

Extant

SpanishVillage.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stables Restaurant

2703 Weslayan

Demolished

Stables.jpg

Lamb's Smokehouse

2706 Westheimer

Extant

Lambs.jpg

Suzanne Cafeteria

2912 South Shepherd

Extant

Suzanne.jpg

John's Sea Foods

1927 West Gray

Demolished

CapnJohns.jpg

Marquis Lounge

1957 West Gray

Exant

"Lounge for discriminating patrons"

Marquis1.jpg

Ming Palace

2011 West Gray

Extant

2011wgray.jpg

Felix Mexican Restaurant

904 Westheimer

Extant

Felix.jpg

Michelangelos

307 Westheimer

Extant

Michelangelos.jpg

Alfred's

Town & Country, 9123 Stella Link, 2408 Rice Blvd.

Alfreds.jpg

Vittorio's Italian Restaurant

2529 Rice Blvd.

Extant

Vittorios.jpg

Look's Sir-Loin House

6112 Westheimer

SirLoin2.jpg

The Railhead

6400 Richmond

railhead.jpg

Safari Restaurant

4902 Richmond

Extant

Safari.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Railhead was my absolute favorite restaurant as a kid in the 70's. It has been about 20 other places since then. T-Town 2000 was and is the last incarnation there now, with shootings and stabbings nightly.

Is the Look's by the Dome still there, I think the sign is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never knew there was a Stables on Weslayan. There was one on Westheimer just east of Weslayan and on S. Main @ Kirby. Steak House Associates: Stables, Courtyard, Bud Bigelow's and Bordman's (where Chuy's is on Westheimer). All very good restaurants.

Love the cars in front of Lamb's. Let's see: 55 or 56 Buick wagon, Volvo of undetermined vintage, 57 Chevy, 54 Olds.

I'll have to go look up some of these extant buildings to go look up since I don't recognize many from the pics.

Dig those cats and kitties hanging out in front of Michelangelos. Way cool.

I saw your comment before the pic finished loading and was expecting to see some young men plying an old profession, as they have on lower Westheimer for years. Maybe that's what we are seeing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that Micheangelo's postcard dated? I'd put it at 1967-69.

Hope Lower Westheimer can once again have as vital a street life. If we can persuade people to step out of their townhomes onto the street (instead of into their cars) perhaps it can happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So has the Museum of Houston come calling yet? lol
Yeah, this will show them who has the better online museum! :lol::lol:
Hope Lower Westheimer can once again have as vital a street life. If we can persuade people to step out of their townhomes onto the street (instead of into their cars) perhaps it can happen.

You know what the problem is with that stretch now? There are a couple of strip centers on the south side that are fronted by parking lots. I just don't think you can have a vital street life unless buildings front the sidewalk. Otherwise it will always turn into a non-pedestrian suburban-type streetscape. Put the parking lots in back!

The one from Michelangelos really cracked me up! I can only hope to be that groovy one day...

I'm just hoping that the people in that picture, or someone that knows them, stumbles on this topic. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Probably some chemical assistance. B)

That reminds me of Cheech & Chong's "Big Bambu" album. "Unamerican Bandstand" hosted by Laid-Back Lenny. He said: "We now have the winner of the 'How many downers you can drop' contest". "The lead singer of the band couldn't make it because he stuck himself in the eye with a coke spoon".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
I knew John's Sea Foods as Captain John's Oyster Resort. I sat in there in 1980 and watched the "Miracle on Ice" game between the Soviet Union and the U.S. It had a fire some time after that and didn't reopen. It was where the Pier 1 is now on West Gray. Across the street from Captain John's, on the same side of Gray, was the Mrs. Baird's Bakery, another cool building that I wish was still there. It was replaced by a Walgreens, Blockbuster, strip center,etc.I would like to have a photo of the Mrs. Baird's building.

Across the street from Captain John's was Weingartens/Safeway/Appletree and now Kroger. In the early 70s there was a small three screen cinema in that old strip center called the Park I, II and III. The Park III was like a repertory theatre before the River Oaks became one.

As a teenager, I went to that cinema when it first opened. Is it still standing?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
How can people be "laid back" with loud, live music playing?

I used to run the door at Club Bojangles and under it La Bastille. Killer music, man. Wayne Cochran, the blue eyed king of soul, Buddy Rich, Fats Domino, The New Christy Minstrels. One night at La Bastille a bum-looking fellow came down to the club so I doubled the door fee to try to keep him out. A minute later the bar manager came running to the door asking me if I had charged the man. I proudly told him the story. He said, "You can't charge him - that's Woody Herman!"

After hours we used to go down to The Cellar and take our own bottle so we could drink. The picture on this site of The Cellar makes it look much nicer and hipper that I remember. It was very rundown, no live band, fleabitten sleeping bags on the floor, and the "entertainment" was local hookers who strutted, in a wobbly fashion, their stuff on the runway, stripping at they went.

I'm amazed that those brain cells are still there and functioning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Speaking of "Bojangles"...

Does anybody else here remember that restaurant/club Sonny Look had on Market Square in the early 70s? My dates and I frequented that place a lot because he booked in some pretty big name entertainers. I remember seeing the Four Freshmen, and anybody who ever saw those guys can testify to how great a show they put on.

Ray Rogers and the Bojangles also performed there just before, or at about the same time that he was opening his own club Bojangles over on Franklin. Of all the local entertainers I've seen over the years, I still regard Ray and his group as the most talented and most entertaining. They just put on one helluva show.

Ray gave Lisa Hartman her first singing opportunities. Speaking of, I know that Ray's now married to Jonni Hartman, and is Lisa's step-father, and Clint Black's step-father in law, but does he still perform anywhere?

And as long as we're talking about Ray and the Bojangles, does anybody know whatever happened to Rex Kramer, the Bojangles' original front man? After his "thing" with Liza Minnelli, he seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth.

Sometime around 1970, Liza Minnelli did some shows in Houston, and while she was in town she went to The Bojangles show one night. She and Kramer immediately went into heat for each other. She liked Kramer so much she took them all on the road with her as her backup group, but that was mainly to stay "close" to Kramer. He wasn't totally useless -- he arranged a lot of her recordings -- and was with her in Germany during the filming of Cabaret.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from a Time Magazine article about Liza. written in 1972.

"Unlike most of her romances, the affair with Rex ended with some unpleasantness. Rex's ex-wife is suing Liza for $500,000, charging alienation of affection. Rex, who now plays in joints in Houston, apparently saw a more unstable side of her nature than did most other people. "The pace she sets for herself is simply terrific," he says, "but she just can't slow down. She would worry about not sleeping and would start taking downers to help herself." He describes terrible tantrums, after which she would "literally rave, then collapse."

Liza angrily rebuts him point by point and now claims that she knew all along that Rex was using her. Finally, to get rid of him in Germany, where he was such a nuisance that he was barred from the set of Cabaret, she says that she and her secretary, Deanna Wenble, arranged an elaborate, melodramatic scheme to make him think she had fallen in love with a cameraman. "He said he'd leave me only if I fell in love with somebody else," she explains."

Kramer was banned from the sets because he was a monumental pain-in-the-ass who was always trying to insert himself into the production process. The producer and director had to put up with him because he was schtupping their star, but Liza also got tired of him and dropped the group. Kramer dropped out of sight, but Ray took over the group and kept it going as Ray Rogers and the Bojangles and the rest is history. But where is Rex Kramer now?

Edited by FilioScotia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Filio, I have wondered the same thing about a couple of "local" acts, like Roy Head, and Johnny Lee. My mother used to date Roy Head back in his heyday, I can remember hangin' out with him a few times back in the late 70's early 80's. I met Johnny Lee a couple of times back when Urban Cowboy came out, my father and him were drinkin' buddies at Gilley's then when Johnny opened his own club they would alternate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roy Head seems to be still around

Believe it or not, I found a website that says he was singing at a little honky tonk on I-45 up north of Conroe as recently as April of 2003.

Check it out. http://www.thebulletin.com/archives/2003/april/royhead.htm

And Johnny Lee is still out there singing and recording. These days he can be found in Branson Missouri most of the time. He doesn't have his own theater. I'm sure he sings at Mickey Gilley's Theater and other venues.

Here's a link to his fan club. http://www.johnnyleefanclub.com/news.htm

Edited by FilioScotia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

He's still gigging all over Texas.

Look for him to perform in February at the Gulf Coast Hall of Fame Show in Port Arthur.

http://www.panews.com/communities/local_story_360114821.html

Believe it or not, I found a website that says he was singing at a little honky tonk on I-45 up north of Conroe as recently as April of 2003.

Check it out. http://www.thebulletin.com/archives/2003/april/royhead.htm

And Johnny Lee is still out there singing and recording. These days he can be found in Branson Missouri most of the time. He doesn't have his own theater. I'm sure he sings at Mickey Gilley's Theater and other venues.

Here's a link to his fan club. http://www.johnnyleefanclub.com/news.htm

Roy in Port Arthur

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...