In the first dining change of hands since M Crowd maestro Mico Rodriquez speared a pair of Taqueria Cañonitas (now known as Mi Cocina's Cañonita) from its fold, Carlson Restaurants Worldwide has chipped off another of its emerging brands restaurants that have been on the block since January: Mignon. Nick Natour, owner of the Enclave restaurant, confirms that he and his brother Johnny, his restaurateuring partner, completed a deal to bag the stylish French steak house with a Plano attitude (next to one of those Cañonitas) this past Monday. Natour, who once owned Gershwin's restaurant before it was sold to chef Gaspar Stantic, says the deal gives him full rights to the Mignon trademark, a buyout trinket that will enable him to expand the restaurant throughout the area and maybe elsewhere. He adds the restaurant will remain open during the transition (which should involve at most some changes in software) and that Peter Gray of the Enclave restaurant will be installed as the new Mignon chef...Frankie Carabetta and his partners Ed and Michael Ruibal of Landscape Systems of Texas are slowly swallowing McKinney Avenue corner by corner. At least it seems that way. First the group sunk roots on the street with the tiny Rocco's pizza, a mostly takeout and deliverer of Italian goods situated in a former dry cleaner. Then there was the McKinney Avenue Tavern, a sports bar that was created out of a drastically gutted and refurbished Chelsea Corner. Now they've opened up Corner Bar at McKinney and Monticello, a hang-out bar with pool tables, pizza (utilizing the Rocco's recipe), burgers, wings, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, pasta and calzones. Corner Bar has come to life in the space that was most recently T-Beaux's Baitcamp, a Cajun grub and suds haunt. Before that, it was the original Chelsea Corner. "We renovated the hell out of it," Carabetta says. "It looks great again."
