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Gonna put it out there that the rate of new Berg concepts hitting the market in Houston is starting to have a bit of a Mattress Firm of restaurants feel to it. I like his restaurants and Trattoria Sofia is packed all the time. But is there enough room in the Houston restaurant market for 18 different restaurants, most of which are high end concepts?

HISD will show no significant improvement in testing and will continue to lose students at an alarming rate. Abbott will then claim that this shows that public schools are damaged beyond repair and make HISD his case for vouchers in 2025. Whitmire will cave to the firefighters and then have to slash the City's budget. A revitalized Texans will cause a group of investors to come together to back a plan to renovate the Astrodome into a multipurpose event space that can compliment the conventions, rodeo and NFL tailgating. The plan will go nowhere.

Acorn St. would need a big upgrade to be able to handle the truck traffic. There are a bunch of big speed bumps on that stretch of the road to keep the locals from drag racing on it. I am a bit sad to see 5050 Acorn Golf go, but am also a bit ambivalent as about a third of the balls in each bucket barely had dimples and would not fly. And it was like hitting balls off a vacant lot that was recently mowed.

www.stopheightsstarbucks.com (just kidding)

I would not be surprised to see an HEB. The one on Shep at 24th and 25th is overflowing with customers during busy times of the day and so is the one on Washington. There is going to be a lot more multifamily being built in the GOOF in the coming years as the Heights runs out of room.

Baso is in soft opening with its first service tonight and tomorrow. No info on the menu yet.

It is hard to compare Houston to DFW if you just look at the arts because DFW dilutes its arts scene between the two metro areas. So, on one level there is a lot more going on in DFW. They have two orchestras, two ballets, two operas, two major art museums, dueling chamber music societies, etc. On any given week, you will have more choices in the DFW area than Houston. Houston's orchestra has lagged behind Dallas, but has recently caught up. Hopefully, renovations to Jones Hall will make it into an actual concert hall instead of a civic center that ruins symphony concerts with horrible acoustics. Houston's opera and ballet are definitely better than DFWs. Rice U's music school is better than SMU's by a good bit. But the one thing DFW has is an actual jazz scene thanks to the proximity to UNT (and UNT has a jazz scene that is better than Houston's). If DFW was just a single metro area, I think their arts scene would be superior to Houston's. DFW has a much longer and deeper tradition of supporting the arts. Houston has been very fortunate that its major arts institutions have had excellent leadership and have in many ways performed on a much higher level than you would expect for a southern city. San Antonio's orchestra went bankrupt. Austin's symphony is a "per service" orchestra where are the musicians do not get a salary. In the early 2000s, Houston's orchestra had some management issues and labor discord. But the orchestra brought in new leadership and things have been going very well since then.

Tried it. The donuts are like cronuts. Layered and fluffy inside. Two donuts will fill you up. They are good, but nothing that I will be craving any time soon. I miss Hugs and Donuts and Morningstar.

Gas station owners do not make squat off the gas they sell. The oil companies give the stations a tiny margin on the gas sales because the gas station is really just a way to create a captive audience for the convenience store. EV charging stations are a very different operation. There is an opportunity to make a decent margin on the electricity sold if the EV operator buys enough electricity to get a good discount on the market. And there are people planning EV stations that will work with a solar array. The main challenge of an EV charging station is that it usually takes 10-15 min to charge an EV. Any retail has to be geared towards giving people a place to hang out and spend a few bucks instead of just running in and grabbing Beaver Nuggets (mmmmm beaver nuggets). So, there will be a lot of trial and error to see what EV owners respond to. There will also be competition with traditional gas stations, with Buc-ees having plenty of room to install lots of charging stations and retail strip centers with plenty of room for EV charging stations. Time will only tell whether people respond to a stand alone charging station with a coffee shop or some other retail or would prefer to just sit in the parking lot at Target and play on their phone while they wait.

I will see your SPCA and King Biscuit and raise you a Beer Island at the corner of Studewood and White Oak.

It is about time we are finally getting some good restaurants from Pearland.

The current development is seeking a variance on parking minimums, not a liquor license. I do not recall whether Gelazzi had to get a private club license or could just get a liquor license. I think back then the dry restrictions had been partially repealed, but can't remember. But I do definitely remember some big fights between residents and Coltivare and Gelazzi over clueless idiots parking in front of people's driveways instead of just going up another block to park. I think that situation has improved a bit as people have become more accustomed to dealing with on street parking in the Heights. But this development is going to add a lot of cars to on street parking and this variance gives residents a chance to try to throw sand in the gears.

This will be interesting. Some neighbors vigorously (to put it politely) opposed Gelazzi's attempt to get a liquor license so they could sell boozed up gelato. It will be interesting to see whether they come out again to oppose this or whether they have been beaten down and have given up.

From what I could tell, Monica Pope abandoned the new restaurant after there were a lot of construction delays/issues on the interior build out. Big loss for the neighborhood. It would have been great if they were able to get it done. It is a great little neighborhood spot and hopefully someone else will be able to do something nice with it.

Posted October 18, 2021 (edited) Baso will be moving in to the building at 629 W. 19th St. Building is owned by Braun Enterprises. https://www.braunenterprises.com/629-w-19th https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/08-30-21-baso-new-restaurant-basque-spanish-the-heights-jacque-varon-fernando-recio-braun-enterprises/#slide=0 https://www.instagram.com/basohtx/?hl=en This was originally posted in the maliciously renamed thread f/k/a Lack of Restaurant Diversity in the Heights, but I couldn't quote it and post in that thread for some reason. This restaurant is finally getting close to opening. The build out is almost complete and they have started hiring.

Cooking Girl is excellent. The fish style beef is like eating candy. I miss breakfasts at Revival and the occasional kolache specials, but Cooking Girl will be an excellent addition.

This is the biggest clusterf---- I have ever seen in the courts or in real estate developments. When this first hit the fan with Terry Fisher, I read some of the pleadings and had a decent grasp of what the dispute was about. Now, in what appears to be the main case in Federal court, there are so many different parties, claims, counterclaims, cross claims, third party claims that it is impossible to figure out what is going on without having a 40 foot long white board and a long weekend to go through just the pleadings. With what the legal bills are in this mess, you could have had enough money to build three of these things. I think I am going to organize a class action of Heights residence to intervene in this lawsuit in order to ask the judge for an order requiring the developers to stop f-ing around and finish this piece of sh-- already. I do still see the occasional crew on this site, but not the kind of activity that would lead me to believe that this is going to get done any time soon.

I think the problem was that all the cool kids were either going to all the bars in Shady Acres or were going to Post HTX. Nightlife is ultimately what sustains these food halls. When Railway first opened, it was bustling. But it dropped off as Shady Acres got new venues and Post HTX opened. Then COVID hit and now there are even more bars and restaurants all over the Greater Heights area.

Tried it over the weekend. They were absolutely crushed with customers. It took about an hour and twenty minutes to get an internet order on Saturday. It is really good. Lots of creative specialty pizzas. We bought one pizza for each family member and had enough for another dinner. Pizzas are small but very filling.

Appreciate the density and not going to even argue that the Shep/Durham corridor should have architecture that respects the Height's historic styles. The ship has long sailed on that part of the Heights. But wow. This is what I would call the "We are just not even trying" period of architecture. My middle school aged kids do more interesting things on Minecraft (and I am not sure whether this design is or is not poached from something a middle school kid did on Minecraft). Hopefully, this is just a very early back of the napkin kind of rendering and the actual design will be better. But so far, what is this style supposed to be? Neo-soviet? Post-modern industrial Victorian farmhouse?

Early google review: Obnoxious techno music blasts constantly bothering the entire residential area even on week nights. This place belongs on Main not in the middle of a neighborhood. People shouldn’t have their walls pulsing 4 blocks away.

Front building is already gone.

This. The City of Houston's permitting department can be very difficult to deal with when you are doing something that is outside the usual box of strip mall pads and other typical commercial spaces. There are many horror stories about the City approving plans but then an inspector comes out during construction and wants to change everything. Even if you need only minimal changes to the interior, going from a residential space to a commercial space may require a lot of changes and updates. Better to spend a bit extra to get the project properly planned out at the beginning than face lengthy delays getting permits approved and then having to go back and redo things for whatever reason.

Preservation Ordinance does not govern building use. You will need to follow the requirements for non-contributing buildings.

Finally a Dad Burger. Still disappointed that Bork never opened. But this will help.