Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Missing Houston's Mainstream Meme

Somebody needs to reach out and offer some assistance to Brian Caswell and Bill Floyd.  They have a great idea in opening a merged concept restaurant within the Houston Airport System but they've really dropped the buzz ball here by deciding to build out within Intercontinental Airport Terminal B.

IAH is yesterday's news.  It's so former Continental when compared to the new, exciting soon-to-be Hobby International.  By launching at InterContinental Caswell & Co are going to miss out on Billions in business dollars that are going to be available due to a sudden influx of South American business persons laying over at HOU in order to be re-cattled into planes with few amenities in order to be shuttled to other domestic destinations.

Heck, even United has said that Phase II of the Terminal B expansion is not going to happen.  As a matter of fact, if you listen to the Chron.commenters on almost every United story running on the Chron's site it's just a matter of time before United goes belly-up because a few dozen Houstonians have decided to switch their business elsewhere.  And good on 'em.  What are job-losses in the thousands when a city's fragile pride is at stake?

This surprises me a little because Caswell, except for Stella Sola, has been one with his ear to Houston's social tango.  He's someone who, for the most part (when he's not misunderstanding people's points and telling them to leave Houston that is), "gets" where Houston's movers and shakers want to be.

I can understand someone like Johnny Hernandez, of San Antonio fame, not "getting" Houston's social scene. After all, San Antonio only has one airport available for use by the general public so he wouldn't understand the need to keep current on these matters.  Caswell & Floyd however are a different breed.  They should understand where Houston is going and they should get that Hobby is now the preferred location of departure for the powers that be.  So why aren't they jumping at that chance?

Of course, there IS also the possibility that Caswell and Floyd are pretty smart guys and understand that IAH will remain the dominant player in the region despite HOU offering up a few more slots allowing people to cattle themselves to what is basically going to be Mexico and a few other periphery destinations.

Given that the best dining option in Terminal B is currently Scholtzky's, I welcome Caswell & Floyd to the Terminal.  Now, if we can just get a decent bar in there we'll be onto something.

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