Lavine plans to build a tavern empire, opening hoity-toity wetting holes tweaked and tucked to individual metro neighborhoods. Lavine's project shaping up in the former Standard/Stolik/Martini Ranch corner will be called Strong's Everyday Tavern, and it will serve burgers, ribs and entree salads beginning in early July after the space is gutted, the mezzanine is shrunk and the stairway along the front is pushed out of the way. His next tavern encampment target: Grapevine.
That corner space has been a jinx for the last couple of years. But the condo encroachment should juice it up a bit. What's that adage? Oh, yeah. Pioneers get shot, and settlers get rich. --Mark Stuertz