SpaceGhost

Demo permit issued for Chappell Jordan, house directly behind had a permit issued last week.

I have it as Luke Market/Luke's Grocery from the 40s-50s. By the late 60s it had become Rutland Food Market, and seems to have been closed by the 1970s.

Search the county property records, and you'll probably be able to figure it out.

On the other hand, I'd be glad to figure it out for a research fee! 😂

Construction fencing is now up according to a commenter on my site.

Plumbing permit filed

24 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I thought Jim Crane owned this lot? 

He does, and tbh this is probably just a clerical error. Also looks like all the money from the Nau Center was "refunded" in 2015.

Found something very interesting this morning while working on the upcoming Demolition post. Check out who is listed as the occupant for the demo permit. This could of course be outdated info, but could the Nau Center be back on?

Demolition Permits issued for 1933 and 1937

I've found eBay is a good way to source old photos.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=%22finger+furniture%22&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=finger+furniture

1 hour ago, cowboybud said:

 

Where was the Diamond R Ranch "near Jetero Airport"? Same thing as H&H Ranch?

According to some other ads around the same time yes. It looks like H&H closed recently, and sold off most of their property prior to doing so.

Doing some research on North Oaks Mall for a new page on my site.

Turns out it was originally planned as a 200,000 square foot mall. Which while still small, especially for a modern mall, is much bigger than the current ~70,000 square feet of mall space that ended up being built. The mall was also planned to include a full size ice rink, racquetball court, and bowling alley in addition to the movie theater. Looks like what we ended up with was more of a compromise. I haven't been able to find any older photos of the mall, but do have some recent ones on the page. https://houstonhistoricretail.com/malls/north-oaks-mall/

1 hour ago, Judy Alter said:

Researching the life of Helen Corbitt who was restaurant managers for Joske's in Houston,--must have been the downtown store in the late 40s. She only worked there briefly. Does anyone have any helpful information about the restaurant or Corbitt's tenure?

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).

Quote

"The Gourmet Shop, where domestic and imported delicacies, exclusive lines of soups, preserves, and vegetables, cheese and candies will be sold.

 

The Garden Room is reached from a sunken garden of flowers and shrubs with contemporary Georgian decorations off the third floor. The dining space carries a gardenia and magnolia motif in the rug, walls and in-between treatments.

 

The Palomino Bar is just what the name implies a-a food counter in rustic, ranch-like atmosphere, where a snack can be gotten quickly. Over the bar is a valance of cutouts of Palomino ponies, saddles, and spurs. Stools and counter are in Palomino colors."

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.

On 3/3/2013 at 9:52 PM, ChannelTwoNews said:

It's a bit off topic from the new development, but this does involve the Cole Theater so I figured I'd post it in this thread to see if I could get any bites.

 

I've been trying to find a commercial that Randalls did when they started their "R-Cola" line of sodas. I'm thinking it was somewhere around 1994 or 95? It actually involved the "R" logo appearing on the back of the then yellow-ish wall of the building. It was there for years and began to fade away until the wall was repainted and it's traces were covered in the not too distant past. I also know there was an article about the events in the Herald-Coaster at the time.

 

I've checked my old tapes and so far, haven't found it. Will keep looking though...

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.

On 7/29/2018 at 1:39 AM, chapnick136 said:

Space Ghost I was feeling a little nostalgic so I looked up my old place of employment and found your comment. I worked at the Federal Rd. location many years ago and was their the day they shut the doors. I totally for got about the train, thank you for the reminder!!! Our location couldn't afford the $5,000 a month increase in rent but I think the company just couldn't keep up with the competition anymore. The chain was in existence for a long time and I suppose it ran it's course. I have fond memories as I was  18/19 and still a wild child. 

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

On 7/15/2018 at 0:45 PM, ArchFan said:

I wondered about this too, since they seem to have disappeared from Houston.  Turns out there is a Wikipedia entry for "Tony Roma's" that tells the history.  Also, their company website lists the US states and countries they currently operate in: 

 

USA LOCATIONS

California Florida Hawaii Illinois Iowa Nevada New Jersey Texas [in Laredo and McAllen; one in San Antonio is listed as temporarily closed]

 

WORLDWIDE LOCATIONS

Aruba Australia Bahrain Bangladesh Brazil Canada Chile Costa Rica

Dominican Republic El Salvador Germany Guam Guatemala Indonesia 

Ireland Japan Malaysia Mexico Curaçao Panama Peru Philippines

Saipan Singapore Spain Thailand United Arab Emirates United Kingdom 

United States Venezuela

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/

23 hours ago, HardcoreHoustonian said:

Here's a rough drawing of Montclair's layout around the mid 60's-70's. I'm almost positive it was a Big Bonus Stamps store next to Weingarten's because the stamps were pink. I'm not 100% certain about the 7-eleven, it could have been U-Totem or Stop N Go. There may have been other stores between Walgreens and Grants, but if there were I have forgotten them. 

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.

On 6/10/2018 at 1:04 AM, HardcoreHoustonian said:

I grew up in the 1960's & '70's a few blocks from there and never knew about this plan. Very interesting. It also covers my first two jobs, Woolco (Berings) & Weingartens (Randalls). Thanks for posting it.

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?