The Scoop on the Last Business Standing at Houston’s 3939 Montrose Blvd

SweetCup Gelato owner Jasmine Chida is a rarity these days: a local small business owner who doesn’t seem to have any complaints about her landlord. This is especially notable since she also operates the last remaining business in one of Montrose’s most well-known strip centers.

Originally constructed in 1984, 3939 Montrose Blvd once stood as a bustling cornerstone of the neighborhood, housing restaurants, nail and hair salons, a dry cleaner, and a fitness center. But any Houstonian who has driven past or stopped over for a scoop of stracciatella likely noticed that the strip center now houses only one remaining tenant within its 26,522 square feet—Chida’s 14-year-old frozen treat emporium, appropriately enough in a former Marble Slab.

The slow exodus didn’t come from a mustache-twirling villain behind the scenes. Several factors contributed to the entropy, and plans to fill the rest of the storefronts continue to move forward. Still, Chida doesn’t mind being the last one standing. She turned the lonely reality into a humorous social media campaign, posing her wares in front of the graffiti-etched signage out front and performing skits about her years in the space.

With her lease up for renewal next year, she doesn’t yet know if she’ll remain the final tenant, meet some new neighbors, or move out entirely. “I’m trying to enjoy every minute of it and just take it all in and really enjoy our new customers, our regulars, our longtime customers—everybody,” Chida says.

A self-described “San Antonio transplant,” she scoped out the Montrose neighborhood for about a year before deciding to make her home among the art, culture, and community she grew to love. Restaurateur Claire Smith—who recently opened chrôma in the former home of Bistro Menil—was already at 3939 Montrose with Canopy (the accompanying Woodbar didn’t come until later). At one point, the center boasted 100 percent occupancy. There was a dry cleaning business next door, Timberline Fitness’s original location, an eye doctor, an IBC Bank, a General Joe’s Chopstix, and office space upstairs. Before that, there was queer bookstore Lobo and Monica Pope’s first restaurant, the Quilted Toque. Nippon also made its home there before moving farther down Montrose Boulevard, closer to the Museum District.

Chida grew close to her neighbors. She dined at Canopy several times before conceptualizing SweetCup. She watched as the children of Montrose Cleaners grew up, doing their homework in the back while their parents worked the dry-cleaning machines and interacted with customers. “Montrose was, back then, very much alive. Much different than what you have today,” Chida says. “It felt like somewhere I could belong, not somewhere that’s just like, ‘Oh, open a business, and that’s it.’”

Her neighbors at 3939 Montrose started leaving before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, which “really affected small businesses.” Leases were up, and numbers were down; Chida herself started selling gelato pints via the now-defunct Kickin’ Kombucha distribution system to make up for the lack of in-person customers. The dry cleaners retired after their kids headed to college at the University of St. Thomas across the street. Timberline Fitness, needing a larger space, found a new home along Richmond Avenue. Smith wanted to focus more on running her now-closed restaurant Alice Blue in the Heights and raising her then-teenage son. COVID-19 may not have been the exclusive reason for the closures, but it certainly hastened the center’s current state of nigh-suspended animation.

“It gave us some opportunity to look at how we might how we might retend it,” says Bob Schultz, president of RHS Interests, which owns and operates the strip center. “Montrose has evolved quite a bit since that time… We’ve been a little nervous about some of the construction that’s going to happen there, and how do we coincide that with a renovation?”

Schultz knows little about the original owners or developers, but when he “bought it off the courthouse steps” in the early 1990s, following a foreclosure, it had only a few tenants. “It was a very dark place, didn’t have much lighting,” he adds. His plan was to “freshen it up, and … and bring life back to it.”

And Schultz and his team did. They invested directly in many of the businesses that inhabited the strip center. He helped the cleaners go independent after they initially opened as a Dry Clean USA franchisee, and he assisted the owners of Timberline Fitness in building out their inaugural space. He remains friends with Chida and other former tenants, and even attended Smith’s soft opening for chrôma.

The heyday of full occupancy is still a goal to strive toward, but Schultz says the space hasn’t seen any new businesses, and not because of a lack of interest (potential renters, including several chefs, often approach Chida with questions about where to go with leasing questions). Rather, it’s Schultz’s deliberate choice to selectively curate future commercial activity.  

“The frustrating part to everybody…is that the beginnings of these things are incredibly important. The first tenants that you choose in some of the most important locations set the tone,” Schultz says. “So, we have turned down quite a few offers of interest.”

Hookah lounges, for example, tend to be pretty fly-by-night operations; there’s a lot of interest in opening one up in the strip center, but that doesn’t exactly fit with what RHS has in mind. Right now, they’re aiming for health and wellness businesses to continue on in the spirit of Timberline, as well as a restaurant to occupy the still-empty former Canopy.

A full renovation isn’t out of the question, either. The RHS Interests website already has a mockup of a potential updated façade, estimating expenditures at around $3.09 million. Rent currently sits at $33 to $55 per square foot, on par with other retail spaces in the 77006 zip code.

Schultz is happy to see that the sidewalks and roads will finally get fixed, even as he weighs it against his hopes of restoring 3939 Montrose to its original vibrancy. Despite appearances, the space meets the City of Houston’s parking minimums, and additional parking is available behind Handies Douzo next door.

Meanwhile, Chida continues to await answers about the future of SweetCup and its original home, but she prefers focusing on what matters most to her: the art of gelato and building up the Montrose community around it. “I wouldn’t feel like this is SweetCup without the spot,” she says.