Foodie News

Menil comes up with name for new cafe that Google is sure to love

Almost 500 people contributed suggestions to name The Menil Collection's new restaurant, but, in the end, the answer was obvious.

Bistro Menil.

"It's great," chef Greg Martin tells CultureMap. "It tells you what it is and where it is in 11 characters of space."

Many of the other "cool and hip" suggestions, suffered a Google problem.

"All of the entries appealed to us," Menil director of communications Vance Muse says. "Some were very amusing, funny names that kind of tweaked the art world a little bit, (like) 'My Kid Can Do That.'"

Asked about CultureMap's suggestion of Ceci n'est pas un cafe (this is not a cafe) after the Magritte painting The Treachery of Images, which will be on display at the museum beginning in February, Muse says "We loved that," but Martin notes that it, like many of the other "cool and hip" suggestions, suffered a Google problem.

"It needed to be 'whatever dot com.' In a search engine, it's got to come up first." The museum has already secured bistromenil.com. Muse identified another problem with our suggestion. "That could be hard to say on the phone. What if people hung up?"

Muse says that a similar issue sunk another top choice. "I really loved 'M.C.', but the first thing when you type that in is McDonald's."

Americo Nonini submitted the winning idea. "I thought of names that would make it obvious," Nonini tells CultureMap. "If you incorporate the name with something French, but not too ostentatious, so that most people when they hear it would know it's a restaurant at the Menil Collection."

The contest reminds some longtime Houstonians of a contest the now-defunct Houston Post held in the early 1980s, asking readers to pick a name for the newspaper's new Sunday magazine. The winning entry: The Magazine.

Bistro Menil should open around Labor Day. Martin says he's developing a menu that will please museum attendees looking for a snack, neighborhood residents who want another dining option and travelers who seek out the Menil during visits to the city.

"We are going to support farm to table as much as possible," Martin says of the menu, which will include pizzas, seafood, beef and more.

Muse thinks Bistro Menil will complement places like Lowbrow and the Eatsie Boys that have opened near the museum in the past year. "It's a really exciting neighborhood of cafes. We love them all," he says.

While Nonini wins a dinner for two at the restaurant, he is more excited by the honor of selecting the name.

"I'm going to use this as my claim to fame," Nonini says. "I have an ongoing connection to the Menil Collection."

Bistro Menil will reside in the location Dominique de Menil originally anticipated for a restaurant.

1 The Menil Parking Lot and Cafe rendering October 2013 day

Rendering courtesy of The Menil Collection

Bistro Menil will reside in the location Dominique de Menil originally anticipated for a restaurant.

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Farewell to the leaf

Massive tax debt brings abrupt end to Houston's beloved Canadian pub

The Maple Leaf Pub/Facebook

The Maple Leaf Pub has closed.

Houston’s favorite hockey bar has poured its last pint. The Maple Leaf Pub is officially closed.

Open since 2005, the bar had been a Midtown staple known for drawing legions of Canadian ex-pats and other hockey fanatics who cheered every shot, pass, and fight. Karaoke nights and other happenings kept the bar busy during the offseason. Still, the bar never fully recovered from changes in people’s entertainment spending brought about by the Covid pandemic.

In a statement, owners Olivia and Sean Blair mourned the death of the 20-year-old Midtown institution.

“For decades, she stood as a beacon of no-nonsense hospitality in Midtown, Houston,” the statement reads in part. “She weathered floods, bar trends, and barstool drama, always punching above her weight and pouring strong.”

Despite its beloved status in the community, the Maple Leaf couldn’t survive changing demographics, rising prices, and a dispute with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which seized the bar for owing more than $340,000 in unpaid taxes, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Sean Blair strongly disputes the amount the Comptroller states that the Maple Leaf owes. He tells CultureMap that an audit performed by the Comptroller’s Office didn’t account for everything from liquor spilled on accident to the Maple Leaf’s recipes that use a one-and-a-half-ounce pour instead of a one-ounce pour. While he wanted to fight to stay open, he called the amount owed “unattainable” for a small business such as his. Faced with the daunting task of having to find new investors who could pay off the debt and reopen the bar, he and Olivia decided to move on.

Rising costs contributed to putting the bar in a financial hole. Kegs of the bar’s most popular beers have doubled in price, Blair explains. A standard, half-barrel keg of craft beer might cost around $225-250. At those prices, the bar needs to sell a pint for between $7.50 and $9 to make a profit, but Blair says he encountered resistance from customers when he tried to do so.

Labor costs went up, too, especially for cooks. “After Covid, I couldn’t get anyone for less than $15 — or $18 if you want them to stick around,” he says.

The rise of streaming made it easier for people to watch the hockey games that people used to visit the Maple Leaf for.

Still, by his own admission, the Maple Leaf had a “helluva run.”

“Thanks to those who pulled up a barstool, sang karaoke, fell in love in the corner booth, or just needed a place to sit and not be bothered,” the statement concludes. “A final toast and unofficial wake to be held anywhere the spirit of The Leaf lives on.”

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