Don't Behave Poorly

Massive new sports bar and nightclub quietly opens in Midtown

Midtown remains one of Houston’s favorite places to party. The neighborhood’s status has only been enhanced over the last year or so, courtesy of new arrivals like Jack & Ginger’s, 77 Degrees, and Holman Draft Hall.

A massive new sports bar and nightlife venue has quietly begun a soft opening that will bring even more revelers to the area. Although it isn’t officially set to open until August 10, Pour Behavior has hosted trial runs each of the past two weekends and is serving happy hour this week from 4-7 pm.

Pour Behavior is a joint venture from three Houston bar scene veterans: Joe Arbeely (Lumen Lounge, On The Kirb), Chase LoVullo (Brixx on Washington, V21, Proof Rooftop Lounge) and Roveen Abante (Lincoln Bar). Collectively, they bring more than 25 years of experience and ideas to the project.

“We combined a lot of different venues,” LoVullo tells CultureMap. “Personally, I’ve done six projects. We’ve added and improved on each one of them.”

The 12,000-square-foot space features 40 65-inch TVs for game days, a range of seating options, and a custom light and sound system to keep the party going late into the night. Sliding doors along the front mean the space will be able to let cool breezes blow during nice weather.

Perhaps most importantly, the bar’s valet company has access to 600 nearby parking spots.

All that parking should come in handy, because Pour Behavior is more than just a bar. It also offers 7,000 square feet of private event space that’s divided into rooms big enough for 45, 125, and 400 people. The two larger rooms feature their own bars, and the largest room even has separate bathrooms.

Chef Jeff Auld comes to Pour Behavior from On the Kirb. While the menu of chicken wings, burgers, and pizzas looks like mostly standard fare, Auld has a commitment to quality that will likely exceed people’s expectations for such a massive venue.

Pour Behavior grinds its own burger meat, makes its own pizza dough, and even cuts its own french fries from Kennebec potatoes. The bar is buying from high-quality local purveyors, too, such as getting cheese from Houston Dairymaids and hamburger buns from Cake & Bacon.

“We just try to elevate really simple food,” Auld says. “The problem is, if we don’t nail it, it can be [bad].”

Rather than using something out of a jar, the sauce for the lemon pepper wings uses fresh-squeezed lemon juice and lemon zest for a pleasant citrus pop. Pizza arrive with legit char on the crust, and even the ribeyes are smoked on-site before being grilled.

On the beverage side, the bar has 40 taps with that mix both craft and macro beers. Cocktail drinkers will appreciate the speed of service provided by seven draft cocktails such as the Poire Behavior (vodka, gin, kiwi, Midori, etc.), the Pour Decisions (three kinds of rum, pineapple, coconut cream, etc.), and the Tijuana Scandal (tequila, watermelon juice, hibiscus syrup, etc.). Three bottled cocktails are available individually or in buckets of six. Bottle service is also available.

Pour Behavior enters a crowded marketplace with lots of popular venues, but the venue's compelling mix of options will help it stand out. Crowds have already flocked to the previews, and they'll only build as word gets out about Midtown's massive new party spot.

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Pour Behavior; 2211 Travis St.; Monday-Wednesday, 4 pm to midnight, and Thursday-Sunday 4 pm to 2 am.

Pour Behavior is ready to welcome patrons.

Courtesy of Pour Behavior

Pour Behavior is ready to welcome patrons.

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eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his Cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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