Montrose's hottest mixed-use hub rejuvenates with 3 new wellness concepts

WORLD OF WELLNESS

Photo courtesy of Skin Laundry/Instagram

Hot mixed-use hub Montrose Collective recently unveiled three new wellness concepts adding to their already jam-packed roster of top-notch restaurants and retailers. The walkable development is nestled in the heart of the storied Montrose neighborhood and has been a local favorite since it opened in 2021.

Skin Laundry, The Studio BE and Sisu Clinic officially opened their doors earlier this month. Sisu Clinic is a doctor-led aesthetic medicine destination offering a comprehensive range of beauty treatments, including Botox, dermal fillers, and more. Founded in 2018 by medical co-founders Dr. James Cotter and Dr. Brian Cotter and serial tech entrepreneur Pat Phelan, Sisu's mission is to empower patients to overcome their physical insecurities and live their best lives. The core tenants of the business are empathy, integrity, innovation, and timelessness. With locations in Miami and New York, the opening of their clinic in Houston is the brand's first foray into the Texas market.

"We are excited to have these premier wellness tenants call Montrose Collective home," said Barton Kelly, Principal at Radom Collective. "The mission of these two tenants – empowering individuals to be the best they can be and be present – perfectly aligns with the mission of Montrose Collective. Together, we encourage individuality, inclusivity, and community."

The Studio BE already has a large Houston following at its Heights location and is excited to expand its presence in Montrose. The boutique fitness studio offers yoga and Pilates classes — including mat, aerial, prenatal, and strength-training formats. One of BE's priorities is offering small in-person classes, allowing their highly trained instructors to focus and give personal attention to class participants. Beyond the traditional classes, The Studio BE encourages participation by offering virtual streaming or on-demand classes to all levels of experience and hosts wellness retreats and yoga teacher training throughout the year.

Skin Laundry, the California-based aesthetics brand, has more than 30 locations spread across the U.S. and chose Montrose Collective for its first Texas outpost. Known for using advanced technology and utilizing medical-grade lasers to rejuvenate skin cells, boost collagen production and improve clarity for transformative results, Skin Laundry customizes their services to each client's personal skincare needs. Skin Laundry offers a membership-based business model, offering three membership tiers for $150-$350 that provide various perks and services.

“Montrose Collective is now an integral piece to the fabric of the community with highly acclaimed restaurant concepts, unique brands and wellness experts,” noted Kelly. “In Montrose’s ever-evolving landscape, Montrose Collective will continue to stay relevant with the introduction of new tenants and one-of-a-kind events.”

To celebrate its newest tenants, Montrose Collective is hosting a Day of Wellness on Saturday, March 25, from 10 am to 1 pm. The outdoor event will feature a variety of local, health-focused vendors, a brown bag decorating contest benefiting Kid's Meals, and a mimosa bar at Sisu Clinic. Guests can also register to attend a cardio dance class led by Erin Stewart of Savor + Sweat – all proceeds will be donated to Kid's Meals.

Photo courtesy of Skin Laundry/Instagram

Skin Laundry is a wonderful addition to the wellness community in the development. Specializing in luxurious facials, this clinic stands out due to its team of registered medical professionals.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Gigantic 50-foot shark dives into Houston museum for jaw-dropping new showcase of Earth's greatest predator

jaw-dropping jaws

By the numbers, the great white shark is one of the most fearsome predators to ever exist on planet Earth. Consider:

Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths HMNS

Photo courtesy of Houston Museum of Natural Science

Yes, this is actually scale.

The largest great white ever recorded spanned 20 feet – half the size of a school bus — and weighed at least 5,000 pounds.
At any given moment, great whites possess 300 teeth — measuring up to 6.6 inches — and can regenerate and replace up to 20,000 in a lifetime.
Swimming up to 35 miles per hour, a great white can launch itself out of the water like a missile.

But those stats are child's play to the great white's prehistoric predecessor, the megalodon (which literally means "big tooth"), which grew to 65 feet long. Known by scientists and fans as the "Meg," the massive monster will star in Houston Museum of Natural Science's new exhibit Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths.

The immersive shark fest opens Friday, May 26 to members and Saturday, May 27 to the general public. Tickets are available online.

Dive into the shark tank

Meant to educate and inspire awe and curiosity rather than hysteria, the new exhibition features six galleries that include live shark tank, 14 life-sized models, interactive and touchable items, dazzling digital displays, fun photo ops, and meg-sized chunks of information about the ocean's apex predators.

Visitors can meet these fin-tastic friends via a 360-square-foot virtual “shark tank,” where sharks of all shapes and sizes (there are eight different orders and more than 500 species) swim by, showing off their sleek shapes, bioluminescence, and grace.

Meet the monster Meg

A giant, life-sized, 50-foot model of a female megalodon — in full swim pose and jaws that easily down an entire refrigerator or a few humans — wide open in a toothy grin. The megalodon's sheer mass compared to humans, its color (gray to reflect the sea wall with a "great white" belly) will be on display for photos and wow moments.

Another gallery takes viewers back more than 400 million years to the earliest sharks and fossilized shark teeth. Each visitor can select a fossilized tooth dating back to the Miocene era to keep as part of the journey.

Some gentle bamboo and epaulette sharks will join stingrays (cousins of sharks), sea urchins, and a host of other sea dwellers in an easily viewable tank, which will offer an up-close-and-personal perspective as to why these creatures are so essential to the ecosystem.

No excursion would be complete without swag, and this one offers up toys, puzzles, t-shirts, magnets, and more at the Island Store, which also houses megalodon teeth, fossilized coral, and a 100,000-year-old giant fossil clamshell.

Fans of these finned friends

While they have survived every mass extinction event in the past 450 million years and have ruled their water kingdom for some 300,000 years, sharks are now in peril by the worst predator of all: humans. Spurred by bloodlust after the release of the 1975 epic film and novel Jaws and other sensational pop culture vehicles, an average of 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year.

Whether for sport, shark fin soup (where fins are cut off while the shark is cast back still alive and left to drown), scientists worry that this decimation could mean the end for many of these astounding creatures. '

“Sharks are remarkably diverse and efficient predators but are more threatened than threatening. In fact, over one-third of shark species are now facing the threat of extinction,” said Nicole Temple, the exhibit curator. “With this exhibition, we hope that our guests are able to explore the misconceptions, mysteries, and mystique of sharks to help pave the way for conservation efforts, as well as explore their unique adaptations and behaviors that continue to inspire scientific innovation around the world.”

“Sharks are critical to maintaining the health of our oceans, which are a huge carbon sink for the planet,” Temple adds. “Really, sharks help keep us alive.”

Consider this a chance to visit to a monstrous meg, snap a selfie, and say thanks.

-----

Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths opens Friday, May 26 (members) and Saturday, May 27 (general public) at Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Dr. For tickets and more information, visit HMNS online.

Disney's Little Mermaid remake goes swimmingly despite new so-so songs

Movie review

The biggest problem with the majority of the live-action updates to classic Disney animated films is that they haven’t been updates at all, choosing to merely regurgitate the moments audiences know and love from the original in a slightly repackaged form. That’s great for nostalgia, but if that’s all viewers wanted, they’d just go back and watch the original.

The Little Mermaid falls into much the same trap, although the filmmakers get at least a little credit for trying to offer something new. The story, of course, remains the same, as Ariel (Halle Bailey) has a fascination with everything above the surface of the ocean. Her rebellious nature, at odds with strict King Triton (Javier Bardem), leads her to spy on a ship with Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) and his crew, putting her in position to save Eric when the ship crashes into rocks.

Now totally enamored of Eric, Ariel is convinced by the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) to give up her voice for a chance to live on land and make Eric fall in love with her. Trouble is, despite the help of Sebastian the crab (Daveed Diggs), Flounder the fish (Jacob Tremblay), and Scuttle the seabird (Awkwafina), Ursula has no plans to let Ariel succeed fair and square.

Directed by Rob Marshall and written by David Magee, the film clocks in at nearly one hour longer than the original, going from 83 minutes to 135. They accomplish this feat with the addition of several songs, including ones “sung” by Ariel while she is without voice, a relatively clever way to get into her thoughts during that long stretch. There are also additional scenes that give Prince Eric more of a backstory, making him more than just a pretty face on which to hang all of Ariel’s hopes and dreams.

The new songs are hit-and-miss; Ariel’s “For the First Time” is a fanciful number that fits in nicely, but “Wild Uncharted Waters,” a solo song for Prince Eric, feels unnecessary, and the less said about “The Scuttlebutt,” a rap performed by Scuttle and written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the better. What most people want to see are how the original songs are done, and they come off well for the most part. The actors’ voices are uniformly good and the staging is engaging.

Other changes seem half-hearted, at best. A vague environmental theme broached at the beginning is quickly dropped. The cast is very multicultural, but haphazardly so. The film is obviously set on and around a Caribbean island, making it natural for The Queen (Noma Dumezweni), Eric’s adopted mother, and other islanders to be Black. But giving Ariel “sisters from the seven seas,” allowing for mermaids of several different races and ethnicities, feels odd and forced, and a little creepy given that King Triton is supposed to be the father of all of them.

The fact that Bailey herself is Black, while great for representation, is neither here nor there in the context of the film. Bailey has a voice that is equal to everything she is asked to sing, and her silent acting is excellent in the middle portion of the film. McCarthy makes for a great Ursula, bringing both humor and pathos to the role. Hauer-King, who bears a similarity to Ryan Gosling, plays Eric in a more well-rounded manner.

The live-action version of The Little Mermaid, like almost all of the Disney remakes, never truly establishes itself as its own unique thing. Still, it’s a thoroughly pleasant watch with some nice performances, which clears the bar for success for this era of Disney history.

---

The Little Mermaid opens in theaters on May 26.

Photo courtesy of Disney

Halle Bailey in The Little Mermaid.

New Jersey-based Viet-Cajun seafood restaurant steams up first Houston location with crawfish, po-boys, and more

be nice to the crabs

A New Jersey seafood restaurant has debuted in West Houston. Nauti Crab is now open in the former Hank’s Cajun Grill space at 11660 Westheimer Rd.

Open since 2016 in Metuchen, New Jersey, Nauti Crab owner Ryan Mai has chosen Houston as the next outpost for his Viet-Cajun fare. The restaurant specializes in boiled seafood such as crawfish, shrimp, mussels, crab, and lobster paired with different sauces and spices.

“Continuing our incredible journey started in New Jersey; we are excited to bring our unique flavors and unforgettable dining experience to seafood enthusiasts in Houston,” Mai said in a statement. “We chose Houston as a second location because Houston is one of the most diverse food cities in the United States. Houstonians are passionate about Cajun cuisine, just like we are! Houston is a perfect match to continue the Nauti Crab brand.”

Meals at Nauti Crab are built around boiled seafood. Diners may select different shellfish such as lobster, king crab legs, Dungeness crab clusters, blue crab, shrimp, and crawfish. From there, choose one of five flavors, including the signature Nauti Cajun that blends garlic butter, lemon pepper, and Cajun spices. Finally, select a spice level (ranging from mild to extra hot) and optional add-ons such as corn, potatoes, garlic noodles, or andouille sausage.

The menu also includes appetizers such as wings, fried calamari, and shrimp tacos. Nauti Crab offers sandwiches like the shrimp po’ boy and crab rolls as well as rice and noodle dishes including Dungeness crab over garlic noodles and shrimp fried rice.

Pair them with drinks from the full bar, including wine, beer, cocktails, and sodas. Sit at the bar to follow sports on the restaurant’s flatscreen TVs.

Nauti Crab comes to Houston after having been well received in New Jersey. The restaurant maintains a solid 4.7 stars on OpenTable and 4.5 stars on Yelp.

Photo by Rebekah Flores

Nauti Crab offers different varieties of boiled seafood.

To celebrate its grand opening, Nauti Crab will be offering a 10-percent discount on Saturday, June 3. In addition, a DJ will play music and giveaways will take place throughout the day. After that, the restaurant will be open Monday-Friday from 3-10 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 am - 10 pm.

View All Listings