Houston blogger Shoegirl Corner noticed an interesting gentrification trend the other night while hanging out at her mother-in-law’s favorite old-man bar in the historically Hispanic neighborhood of Lindale:

These small neighborhood bars in the Hispanic parts of town have always had the same crowd visiting. Many of the people live in the neighborhood, or like Rey’s parents and their friends, used to live in the neighborhood. They drive across town from near Missouri City, Katy and other suburbs, just to visit their old bar. And now as the demographics of our inner loop neighborhoods are changing so is the clientele.

At the end of the night we saw these new [non-Hispanic] patrons standing by the door looking very pleased, with their tamales in hand. A lady comes by around 1:30 and sells some great tamales. I know because my mother-in-law buys them.

”Look,” Rey said, “they just came for the tamales. Now that they have them they’re going home.” I cracked up.

That must be what they say in Cancun at the end of every Spring. Except instead of tamales, it’s herpes.

Gentrification at the Neighborhood Bars [Shoegirl Corner]