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The Heights Restaurant And Bar Scene - More Coming


Freelander

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Niche suffers from a number of maladies. Class envy is not one of them.

Back to Stella Sola, tho. Actually...I heard the new tenant will have NO parking spaces and have a wine+walkability pairing menu in which after each course you walk briskly for 5 blocks, then valet 2 cars and before your next course. If you can't meet the time constraint, you have the option of Metro bus stop quik-clean duty, or a 100% upcharge for your next wine flight. I understand it's pretty much the brass ring for chef-driven sustainability.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Not anymore. Killen's bailed. Word is that building is going to become a doctors office.

Still don't know who your source is, but they're apparently wrong.

Per Ronnie Killen on an Eater comment:

The second floor of the building was always going to be Dr offices. We are still working on the lease. I have already purchased grills, granite, carpet, tile, china, stemware. The city takes a lot longer than I had originally thought. My bad.
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Floyd now has a restaurant in Webster. in the old boat shaped buiding in front of Garden Ridge Pottery and the Burlington Coat Factory (old Hydroponic Fiesta). 528 at 45. Still great food. get there before it somooow gets chainified as well.

They just opened a new location in Sugarland about 2 months ago. In the parking lot of the mall between JCPenneys and the Methodist Hospital. It's in a building that appears to be cursed as arestaurant location. Ruby Tuesday first built their for their 2nd (or third) failed attempt to break into the area. Then another restaurant opened for about a year, then caught fire. Now this.

I know this is a thread about the Heights - sorry for the diversion, but I had no idea who Floyd's Cajun Seafood was until I read this thread. Now I will have to go try it.

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  • 1 month later...

Still don't know who your source is, but they're apparently wrong.

Per Ronnie Killen on an Eater comment:

It turns out that Killen has ditched the Heights:

http://www.theleadernews.com/?p=1832

http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/09-10-12-killens-steakhouse-in-the-heights-is-dead-is-the-stella-sola-space-doomed/

After this, I cannot imagine who would want to take a shot at that space.

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Maybe some of the people already lined up trying to make offers/deals?

Lightening doesn't strike twice. There aren't that many Ronnie Killens out there, much less people looking for a space for a very high end restaurant. The problems Killen had with the landlords are not going to go away with a new tenant.

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How do we know that it was a problem landlord? Maybe Killen was being unreasonable in his demands. All I see here is that one restaurant owner was unable to come to an agreement on a lease with one landlord. There could be myriad reasons for that, only one of which could be a troublesome landlord. IF the Heights is a premier location for high end restaurants, another will take Killen's place. If it is not, then we'll see something else.

Maybe Killen should check with Ainbinder. They would probably work with him and his granite.

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How do we know that it was a problem landlord? Maybe Killen was being unreasonable in his demands. All I see here is that one restaurant owner was unable to come to an agreement on a lease with one landlord. There could be myriad reasons for that, only one of which could be a troublesome landlord. IF the Heights is a premier location for high end restaurants, another will take Killen's place. If it is not, then we'll see something else.

Maybe Killen should check with Ainbinder. They would probably work with him and his granite.

It is not every day that two big name chefs walk away from a location within four months of each other. Killen is red hot. His venture in Houston would have printed money. He already sunk real money into building out the location.

Unless someone files a lawsuit, we will never know for sure. But, I wonder whether the parking dispute was because Killen may have wanted a lunch service like he does in Pearland and the landlord wanted to lease the rest of the property for business hours. Stella Sola was dinner only.

High end restrantuers are a fickle bunch. I do not see them rushing in to replace Killens.

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Lightening doesn't strike twice. There aren't that many Ronnie Killens out there, much less people looking for a space for a very high end restaurant. The problems Killen had with the landlords are not going to go away with a new tenant.

I've seen lightening strike a million times....

I have heard through a completely unverifiable source that several potential restauranteurs are already in talks... Killen's problems with the landlords probably won't go away your right, but someone else might not have these same problems.

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  • 1 month later...

Not really Heights area, but Garden Oaks. New place called Cottonwood at 3422 North Shepherd, just north of the strip center with Pinks Pizza. Looks like another of the "creek" family of restaurants design style. Anyone know about this? Looks about to open any day. I heard soft opening this weekend.

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http://www.theleadernews.com/?p=3018

Never been to Union Station. My preference is always for something original, but this seems to fit the neighborhood. Way more excited about Coltivare. But, I have to give some credit to the developers for putting in ground floor retail when so many other developments going up in parts of town that just scream for ground floor retail and street life have blown off mixed use. I guess the Bikram Yoga studio is not happening.

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retail and residential in one nice building.... utopian paradise, yet the ones who always push their distopian agenda still complained about this development. I'm very excited about this opening, I spend a good bit of my time in that immediate area (brazilian arts foundation), having another place to eat within walking distance will be great!

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But, alas, no Bikram Yoga, and I am disappointed with the ommision. Bikram would be a great Houstonian capitalist, I mean, this guy tried to copyright yoga positions and sues the pants off any studio running the thermostat over 72F. And he had to rewrite his first book to remove all references to medical studies he didn't conduct. I think he is the Canadian behind Eme's Place.

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retail and residential in one nice building.... utopian paradise, yet the ones who always push their distopian agenda still complained about this development. I'm very excited about this opening, I spend a good bit of my time in that immediate area (brazilian arts foundation), having another place to eat within walking distance will be great!

I always gave them credit for at least having ground floor retail. There is absolutely nothing utopian about wanting mixed use developments. They are sprouting up like toad stools after a down poor in the Galleria area.

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