Antone's "neighborhood" prototype opens with wrong neighborhood name

The Chronicle runs some free PR for the company that now owns Ninfa's on Navigation and Antone's:

LEGACY Restaurants may be a new Houston company, but its businesses are familiar to almost everyone in town: Ninfa's on Navigation and Antone's.

That's why, as the company goes about making its mark on the two — creating a whole new concept based on the original Antone's, while freshening the menu and making other minor changes at Ninfa's — it is striving to maintain the character of the two local icons.

Ninfa's on Navigation, in particular, is a beloved landmark that is much like it was when it opened in 1973, so "the whole trick is to preserve and enhance it without changing it," said Chris Harter, Legacy's president and CEO.

With Antone's, the goal will be to modernize it while bringing back its original vision.

Some Houstonians can recall the original Antone's Import Co. on Taft near downtown. When Jalal Antone opened in 1962, he stocked it with gourmet Mediterranean imports. It was like a mini Central Market.

The original store is gone and the four Antone's sites that Legacy owns, to varying degrees, are less like gourmet markets and more like sandwich shops.

To return it to its gourmet market roots, Harter, former president of Chicago-based Levy Restaurants, hired chefs Philippe Schmit and Alex Padilla to come up with a fast-casual Mediterranean market-themed concept.

Schmit, who was the creative force behind Bistro Moderne, is Legacy's executive chef and culinary director. Padilla, developer of three restaurants in California, is its corporate chef.

The prototype, which opens Friday, is Antone's Market & River Oaks Cafe at 2311 W. Alabama. All future Antone's will match that format, but their names will vary to reflect the neighborhood.

That all sounds very exciting and well researched and focus-grouped and all, except for one minor matter: 2311 W. Alabama is not in River Oaks, but in Upper Kirby.

But hey, why let facts get in the way of good "neighborhood" marketing?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/14/08 11:34 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (7)

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