kylejack

I assume you mean Under the Volcano on Bissonett. That is a tiki bar, but I guess it doesn't fit their ridiculous uber casual tiki bar vision.

More of a Dia De Los Muertos theme, I'd say, and not a tiki menu either.

except if it was next to your house you'd probably complain. 

 

 

I'm excited about this place opening.  I'm a bit confused though... isn't Volcano under the sun technically a Tiki bar?   Did it close when I wasn't looking?

Under The Volcano? No, not a tiki bar.

If you fancy yourself a new urbanist, you must clamor for GFR in EVERY building. You must also demand rail everywhere, and condemn freeways and suburbs. It is the mantra. Unfortunately, most new urbanists...or wannabes...cannot actually tell when ground floor retail is useful and when it is not, so they demand it in every building, even when the building is not in a walkable area.

 

The naivete is not yours, but theirs.

All new construction should have sidewalks along the public right-of-way, Q.E.D. all new construction should be in a walkable area, especially inside the Loop.

Totaling them:

Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, Hyatt Place, Marriott Marquis, JW Marriott (806 Main), Holiday Inn (Savoy building, maybe still speculative)

Anything else?

806 Main has white wood or some similar material going up on the brick.

The Texaco building doesn't draw many homeless, not nearly as many as, say, the convenience store at Main and Walker, where the Commerce Towers are thriving.

Strolled through there today and there is absolutely zero signs of any work,.

Work requires permits. The permit process is slow.

Yes, Ladybird is a welcome respite on Thursdays.

I figured they were just using Battelstein's for access into 806.

Fortunately I do not believe in ghosts and would therefore never need to disclose the presence of one.

So you are all agreed that nobody should EVER try anything new and downtown should just stay perpetually shitty. Ok.

Wow, you really are in a bad mood.

As I said earlier, the taco idea sounds great. Funny you should complain about reading comprehension.

Yes, they've peeled off a ton of the gunk and a lot more brick detail is visible. Most of the upper areas are being painted with the green paint. Base coat or something?

The trouble with good kolaches: Not enough demand. Much as I'd love to have a Hillje's or Prasek's quality kolache in the tunnels, they don't have hundreds of people stopping through like those places do. This low demand and the pressure to provide a good selection means you have to throw out a lot of kolaches at the end of the day. Kolache Factory is resigned to this and sell theirs for half off after 2 PM, but are still left with plenty of spares. So with all that waste, that means to break even with a higher quality kolache is to raise prices significantly. But not too high or you start hurting your demand. Not optimistic that it would work.

First of all, premium burger joints tend to stay pretty busy during the lunch hours. Now if they're getting by charging a higher margin, why would McDonald's benefit from charging a lower margin?

Besides, the surface McDonald's by the police station already does stay busy all day. Not like they need another location for possibly higher rent. Only certain spaces have a vent hood installed in the tunnels, and installing one where one doesn't exist is expensive, hence all the cold cut shops.

Thirdly, McDonald's sucks.

I think your taco suggestion is the most likely. Some of the others have execution issues because of the limited hours they have to sell.

Danielpwills must be happy Gertner's closed.

Apologies if this has being posted already - neat photos of the Savoy interior: 

 

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/a2013/06/holiday-inn-to-be-built-in-place-of-abandoned-hotel-in-downtown-houston/?cmpid=hcsel

I prefer Secret Squirrel's photos.

We talk a lot of smack on Dallas, but I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the members of the Dallas Fire Department for manning our fire houses this morning so that our firefighters could say goodbye to four of their own at Reliant Stadium. Also, thanks to firefighters from San Antonio, Fort Worth, Brenham and Galveston. But Dallas chartered two buses to come down to help.

 

 

 

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Firefighters-from-across-Texas-fill-in-while-HFD-4579734.php?cmpid=hpfsln

Agreed

You keep two dollars for every one you give to the government out of your $400K income. Seems fine?

Whenever it gets spent, it is counted against your income. You're playing a shell game of trying to make it seem like $400K is really only $100K year after year, but whenever you spend that $300K on an investment in your business you get to discount it from income for the business.

And besides, your original premise is about spending that money on capital investments, so you're not saving it to spend it later, you're spending it now. In the hypothetical, that is.

Business income is filed on my personal income taxes - I don't take home $400,000/yr - it just looks like it on the taxes.  Money must be spent on capital improvements/maintenance/on going expenses, and also stashed away for future expansion/unforseen problems....

 

Business income of $400,000 results in take home of usually about 35% of that....If the investments pan out its great for everyone.  If not, its money lost.

 

It is precisely why the tax increases are so hard on small/medium size businesses.

Revenue and income are different things. Capital improvements, maintenance, and expenses (and depreciation, and lots of other things) are claimed against income. Capital investment losses can also be claimed against income.

Perhaps you missed the long post you declared boring.  It was full of facts on Taxes.

 

Fact - top tax rate is 39.6%

Fact - capital gains rate 20%

Fact - 1 year minimum investment period to claim capital gains

Fact - Govt prevents groups employers from grouping up to leverage buying power against insurance agencies

 

That is a multitude of facts....perhaps you should put the calipers down and brush up on reading comprehension?

Why are you so worried about "being on welfare later" if you're in the top tax bracket? Only the top bracket pays 20%, everyone else 15%. That is, people making over $400,000 a year.

You do realize that capital gains, are gains on income that has already been taxed once at the marginal rate, right?  I make $100 at my day job and I pay $39.6 to the government and get to keep $61.4...from that I take $50 and re-invest so that I wont be on welfare later in life....more than 1 year later (yes 1 whole year) I that $50 is worth $100 b/c I'm not an idiot, and when I want to take that $100 and move it to another smart investment, I now get to pay another 20% in capital gains (that was changed from 15%)...so my original $100 has now been taxed to the tune of $39.60 (regular income) + $10 (capital gains $50 basis, $50 gain)....so I have paid $49.60 on $100 - that is nearly 50%...

No, you had $150 of income, not $100.

Working link http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.houstonchronicle.com%2Fbusiness%2Farticle%2FOld-Savoy-Hotel-to-be-Holiday-Inn-flagship-4577185.php&ei=8UOvUce1A4SlqwGat4HgDw&usg=AFQjCNGNJbEYcOkhz_KryCNmayOoM6uCKg&sig2=S57-V2RAFxUML1CEFlMBcw&bvm=bv.47380653,d.aWM

Yes, I'm sure a lot of people think handicapped people falling over is funny, but what Red said is still not sarcasm even if you think it's funny. 

Sarcasm is usually when you say the opposite of what you truly believe for effect. Like "Oh yeah, I'm sure I would have found that hilarious to see a handicapped person falling. :huh:"

So whether or not it was sarcasm, that is for Red to say. Tone doesn't transfer well over the inkernets.

And FWIW,  HEB sucks.  I used to shop their exclusively, but they really went downhill over the past several years.  The produce selection at the newish Montrose HEB is absolutely terrible. 

I got some awesome mandarins there a little while back and they were delicious.