The Brick House Tap and Tavern has closed it's doors and removed the sign as they re-tool to open a casual Seafood restaurant.
As reported exclusively on this site, Ignite Restaurant Group has given up on Brick House Tap and Tavern at the old Houstons/Bucky's location and will be replacing it with a variation of their other brand, Joe's Crab House; the restaurant will be called Joe's Seafood Shack. There's no evidence that they've ever opened a "Seafood Shack" before, so we can only speculate that there will be less crab and more of other kinds of fish.
Brick House Tavern and Tap never got any traction in the Fort Lauderdale Market; despite an attractive happy hour and some decent grub, there was never anyone in the place. While the location isn't ideal, Houston's did very well there, but that was quite some time ago. No-one at Ignite has ever answered any of our emails, and it's fairly obvious from the complete failure of Brick House that they have no understanding of the Fort Lauderdale market. So I don't hold much hope.
Joe's Crab Shack is a national chain with over 120 locations. I'd compare it to a Bubba Gump's with Crab instead of shrimp; boils, pots, crab dips and crab nachos. Ultra casual in nature; they'll need to do a better job selling this restaurant than they did with the last one. A banner hung over a railing on US1 is no way to market a restaurant.
We've reviewed Joe's Crab Shack in Lauderhill; we suspect it will be similar.