Fondren Village will fill its one empty storefront next month when a long-time neighborhood business moves in.

Zoubir Tabout Antiques & Interieurs will take on the space that housed William Wallace Salon until earlier this month (the salon has consolidated with their Fondren Barber Shop in the same shopping center).

Tabout made the announcement over the weekend on his Facebook page.

“We have some work to do before we open – and we have to move everything that is here to there,” he says from his current space next to Cups. “Parking has been a big deal here. Now [my customers] won’t have to circle and circle.”

Tabout also says the clock was ticking. “If I couldn’t find anything [in Fondren], I was going to have go somewhere else (his lease was coming up in February and was not being renewed). “I really like Fondren, so I was holding out.”

His new home in Fondren Village, about the same square footage as what he has now, is “a little different even if it’s just across the street,” he explains, citing the tenure of “established tenants” there.

And already, he is fond of his new landlord, Waddell Nejam. “He is very nice and keeps things neat and clean. There were others wanting the space and I was not expecting to get it.”

Tabout sees another benefit of the new location: a nice patio on the side of the building.  “Dagobert (his dog) is really happy for that,” he adds. “I’m really moving for him.”

Originally from Paris, France by way of New Orleans, Tabout was drawn to the “hip and trendy and bohemian” Fondren neighborhood some time after Hurricane Katrina. “I really like this area,” he says. “It’s one of the last locations with tons of little stores – not a shopping mall, but more European.”

Zoubir Tabout Antiques & Interieurs is offering a 30 percent off sale – “so I won’t have to take everything,” he laughs.