mkultra25

8 hours ago, native_Houstonian said:

Yes, I'm not a fan of the restaurant either.    The owner, Tila, is not very customer oriented.  Really don't know how she stays in business.

 

She must be doing something right, as you don't stay in business in Houston as a restaurant owner for 30+ years solely by chance (dating back to when Tila's was still on Lower Westheimer, where Katz's is now). 

First Look: 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon Pulls the Wheels

1 hour ago, KinkaidAlum said:

West Gray Kroger- Posh Kroger

aka "Cougar Kroger" (or maybe that should be "Kougar Kroger" for alliteration's sake)

Louisville has Houston beat hands-down when it comes to the variety of Kroger nicknames:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1exiDpPegC9o7ZYjPmxfNtM3PZc8&hl=en_US&ll=38.166063027538335%2C-85.69487794999998&z=11

It's certainly possible that they're still working out the usual new-restaurant issues, but Houstonia's review was pretty underwhelming:

https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2017/3/13/no-tea-no-shade-at-hamburger-mary-s

On 1/5/2017 at 11:49 AM, IronTiger said:

 

In the Greenspoint thread, I found the picture of what that same perspective looked like a few years ago. It was quite depressing.

If you thought it was depressing several years ago, try this (taken yesterday):

The only items that were left for sale in the entire store (aside from the fixtures) was a small section of men's clothing (mostly work pants), a small section of women's clothing, and a pathetic-looking table displaying several heavily-discounted coffee makers. 

7 hours ago, cspwal said:

Comcast seemed ok, but I had issues with rates being raised.  If you go with Comcast, I would buy your own modem. You'll save money within 8 months not having to pay the equipment rental fee, and you won't have the xfinity hotspot in your home.

Owning your own equipment is definitely the way to go, assuming you're reasonably comfortable with setting up and maintaining a router as well as a modem. I concur with Wirecutter's recommendation of the Arris SB6183 for a cable modem.

I've been reasonably satisfied with Comcast's speed and reliability, but any particular vendor's quality of service can be highly variable depending on where you live. When I first got cable internet, it was via Time Warner and had 1.5Mb download speeds, which was blazing fast after having previously been on 56K dialup. Since then Comcast acquired Time Warner's Houston-area customer base, and after many semi-regular speed increases, I'm now at 200Mb, but I'm only paying slightly more than when I had TW.

Comcast has a tendency to slip questionable charges in, so you have to watch the bill like a hawk and be prepared to (politely) dispute anything that looks fishy. They will almost always remove such charges if you have a legitimate complaint (pro tip: you will get far better results with an in-person visit to one of their storefronts, as opposed to dealing with the often-clueless CSRs on the phone). You will get the best deals from them with a 2-year contract. 

AT&T's U-Verse speeds are much slower than Comcast's for similar pricing. I've heard good things about their Gigapower service but last I checked it wasn't available in my area. 

On 3/10/2017 at 3:13 PM, intencity77 said:

Get rid of them!!

I never made it to the previous locations, but I was living near the one on Montrose when it opened and used to eat there fairly regularly. Great Tex-Mex, and Bertha was always there making the rounds in the dining room to greet and visit with customers. It was located in the strip center at 3939 Montrose (Branard and Montrose), in the location where Canopy is now, and whenever I drive by there, I still think of Bertha's.

Not sure that it was a logo per se, as much as just a generic sign installed at some point for expediency's sake. It's gone now, they covered it up again less than a day after it appeared. 

One of the Kroger signs has (temporarily, I assume) been taken down at the Kroger at Yale and 20th, revealing its history as a former Weingarten's location. Someone grabbed a pic and tweeted it earlier today:

https://twitter.com/ChrisBarnesInfo/status/836573060664799232/photo/1

16 hours ago, mollusk said:

 

I'm going to miss all those Merges of Death (***sniff...***).  They made such a great flimsy justification for daily devotions to Our Lady of the Blessed Acceleration .

All parishioners are commanded to downshift twice while double-clutching and recite Verse 4 from Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto:

Quote

We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

Although I suspect "Ora pro nobis" has probably been uttered far more often by countless drivers just prior to attempting one of those Merges of Death. 

On 2/22/2017 at 3:42 PM, KinkaidAlum said:

When I lived on Elmen I used to walk to the River Oaks Theater but that was in the 90s and there was also a theater at West Gray @ Waugh. Saw Mars Attacks there after a bowl. Never laughed so hard in my life. 

Ah, the Cineplex Odeon River Oaks Plaza. What a great theater. I remember when it opened to great fanfare, and when it closed in the wake of Loews' bankruptcy. Many fond memories, such as seeing Goodfellas when I was half out of it with what turned out to be a case of the flu.

Cineplex Odeon theaters were top-notch facilities in their heyday, with the flagship Spectrum on Augusta being the place to go for unequaled image and sound quality. It was one of the first local venues to install multichannel digital sound, and was one of the last to have 70mm capability. Seeing Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm there was a life-changing experience.  

Hamburgers by Gourmet was briefly resurrected for about nine months last year in a new location on NASA Parkway. More info (including pictures) can be found on pages 2-3 of an earlier thread here:

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/15752-hamburgers-by-gourmet/#comment-244465 

9 hours ago, UtterlyUrban said:

"IWA"

 

Intentionally Wrecked Architecture"?

Corollary: the new building shall henceforth be known as "Incarnate Turd". 

On 1/26/2017 at 9:43 AM, Tumbleweed_Tx said:

 

I was also a regular at the Sharpstown Dream Merchant

The Sharpstown Dream Merchant was much closer in spirit to a 70s-vintage head shop than the later store on Westheimer. 

Pro tip for visitors trying to pass as locals: rent a full-size pickup and drive 85+ mph while never allowing more than a foot of space between your front bumper and the rear bumper of the car in front of you.

That site previously housed a fairly short-lived Prince's Hamburgers. I wasn't aware it had reopened as something else since Prince's closed, but from the pic it looks like they barely changed the exterior decor. I'm not surprised that it didn't last; the location was off the beaten path and when it was still Prince's they were only open until 4PM. 

20 hours ago, drecey said:

I was out in the gayborhood today with friends and we noticed the old Hollywood super center adult store under construction. The adult store moved next door into a smaller space. We went in to ask the worker what they were turning the old adult store into and he said a Hamburher Mary's. As we kept bar hopping we noticed the flyers everywhere. We even came across a Facebook page.

https://m.facebook.com/Hamburger-Marys-Houston-1312081512169702/

 

 

Hamburger Mary's is a burger joint that caters to the LGBT community with various Drag shows and other forms of entertainment. I believe they started in West Hollywood, CA.

So it's like Mary's, but with hamburgers?

14 hours ago, Subdude said:

The Camry I don't get.  This is supposed to be a regular ol' car for regular ol' people, and yet Toyota keeps trying to push the styling envelope with it.  My guess is that the typical Camry buyer would be perfectly content with a sedate, boring design.  That is the Camry heritage.  

Camrys are anodyne appliances for people whose attitude toward driving falls somewhere on the continuum between indifference and outright hatred. Once autonomous cars become truly ready for prime time, they will take a big bite out of the Camry target market. 

7 minutes ago, KinkaidAlum said:

Here's the biggest change coming as I just got notice via my neighborhood... no more free surface parking. All street parking in the Rice Village will become metered. Free parking will be moved to the roof.

How are the boundaries of the Village defined, as far as the area that the change will affect? Something like University, Kirby, Tangley, and Morningside?

13 hours ago, UtterlyUrban said:

Sears will continue to have the rights to sell Craftsman at Sears.  However, Craftsman will now also be sold elsewhere.

That is indeed the case. I got an email from them this morning with additional details:

Quote

Craftsman is and has been an important part of the Sears family for ninety years. And thats not going to change. The research and development team at Sears and Craftsman will continue to develop new innovations that will be available exclusively at Sears and Kmart stores and online. However, as part of this transaction, Stanley Black & Decker will gain the rights to develop, manufacture and sell Craftsman-branded products outside of Sears and Kmart, which will make Craftsman products more broadly available in the USA and internationally. 

Craftsman remains committed to maintaining the very best aspects of the Craftsman brand. You'll still find the most high quality tools available at the best value, along with our exclusive lifetime warranty on Craftsman hand tools, which has been a hallmark of the brand for generations. 

Sears will continue to have the most extensive range of Craftsman tools and lawn and garden products, along with the same trusted service you rely on. In addition to being sold primarily at Sears and Kmart, Craftsman will soon be available at other retailers nationwide.

1 hour ago, Chi-Char-Hou-Dal said:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/05/sears-kmart-stores-closing/96195504/

 

Damn - immediately looked and was disapointed the Midtown Sears didn't get the AXE

It's mentioned in the video linked in that piece that Sears is selling their Craftsman brand of tools to Stanley Black & Decker (I wasn't even aware that those two companies had merged, presumably creating a Power Tool Colossus). There goes just about the last reason to set foot in a Sears store. 

Sorry to see the Greenspoint store close, although I've expected it each time they've announced a new round of store closures over the past several years. Its demise will make the mall even more of a ghost town than it already is, if that's possible. 

Probably not too many folks still around who remember how nice a department store it was in its heyday. It's been a mere shell of what it once was for a long time now. 

The return of the Reddy Room (at least in name), the reincarnation of Rockefeller's - what's next, Club Hey Hey arising from the grave?