Sneak Peek at The Durham House

Washington Avenue restaurant trades casual Cajun for refined Southern fare — but keeps prices reasonable

After three months of renovations, The Durham House will debut to the public October 9. Located in the former home of Woodrows Heights (previously Mardi Gras Grill and Floyd's Cajun Kitchen), the restaurant has undergone a transformation from casual Cajun to more refined Southern. (Update: The opened has been changed to October 22.)

The new space features whitewashed walls, corrugated tin accents and popular Edison bulbs. Blackboard walls highlight specials and list where the restaurant's ingredients come from. Of course, the expansive patio remains a major draw; in addition to TVs for watching sports, the patio also features a wall of pots that will supply lettuces and herbs to the kitchen.

"I want to position The Durham House to where it may not be all things to all people, but if you come in with an open mind and you want a good meal and you want to be treated well, we probably have something for you," owner Raj Natarajan, Jr. tells CultureMap.

"We wanted a fine dining restaurant that everyone would feel comfortable in," adds executive chef Don Schoenburg, who's known for the Gastro Punk food truck but brings an extensive resume in fine dining to the project. "A businessman can finish a meeting and they can have a martini or a drink at the bar, and they can sit right next to a line worker. They can both feel just as comfortable here."

Simply delicious

Schoenburg explains that he's brought a simple, straightforward philosophy to to his menu. ""My food doesn’t have 50 different preparations," he says. "Everything I do here you could do at your house, probably with the stuff you have in your kitchen right now. I have no special tools. It’s just simple, well-cooked food."

Po boys and fried seafood may be gone, but the menu features plenty of appealing dishes. Gumbo remains, but it's been given a new presentation and benefits from the addition of fresh blue crab. Similarly, Schoenburg has upgraded the restaurant's steak offerings with a smoked, 10-ounce prime ribeye. Served with sweet potato gratin and dutch oven cornbread, the portion makes a sufficient meal and is reasonably priced at $36.

"If we’re going to talk about value for the money, you’re going to get more value for your buck here," Schoenburg says. "Are you going to get a 16-ounce steak here? Never. Because you don’t need a 16-ounce steak. If you get a good steak, 10 ounces is more than you need."

On Saturdays, The Durham House will offer a special "Bayou BBQ" menu of smoked meats and seafood. During the interview, Schoenburg previewed the offering with a plate that included pork shoulder, beef ribs, alligator ribs and boudin noir — all smoked on site. The flavors are milder than Central Texas style barbecue, which allows the flavor of the various meats to come through more clearly.

Natarajan has brought a similar approach to The Durham House's beverage program that features almost 200 spirits on the back bar, 11 craft taps, approximately 20 bottled beers and a full wine list. Local bartender Aaron Lara has crafted the cocktail menu and will train the bar staff. \

Cellar beer

The most unusual aspect is a cellar beer program of eight to 12 options that Natarajan has been collecting since 2012. These premium selections will give craft beer fans something they can't find at other bars or may have missed when they were released initially. Similarly, the wine cellar features a few verticals to allow diners to taste how vintages evolve over time. Of course, other selections will appeal to more mainstream tastes.

"The beverage program, just like the food, is still extremely accessible. If someone wants to come in and their favorite beer is Coors Light, I have a lot of beautiful beers that I think they’d enjoy," Natarajan says. "Whether it be the food or the wine or the liquor, there’s a lot of geeky selections . . . We’re training our staff, and we’re really keen to engage everyone."

Boudain noir brings authentic Louisiana flavors.

Photo by Jack Thompson

Boudain noir brings authentic Louisiana flavors.

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6 questions with Mark Black

Terry Black's co-founder dishes on Houston opening and future hotel plans

Courtesy of Terry Black's Barbecue

Diners walk past the restaurant's six smokers.

Houston barbecue fans are buzzing about the arrival of Terry Black’s Barbecue, which opens in the Heights (1329 N. Shepherd) this Tuesday, August 18.

Touted by Texas Monthly as “the most impressive barbecue chain in Texas,” the restaurant is known for serving its full menu seven days a week for lunch and dinner. Six, 1,000-gallon offset smokers — the first thing diners see once they walk in from the parking lot — help ensure that diners will never have to pass on brisket, beef ribs, pork ribs, turkey, and two kinds of house made sausage. They’re paired with sides, desserts, and the restaurant’s signature black frozen margarita.

Houston comes in the middle of a growth spurt for Terry Black’s and its parent company, Black Family Hospitality. It’s already preparing to open a Terry Black’s in New Braunfels. By years end, the company will add a San Antonio location that will also include a boutique hotel and a bathhouse that may be called The Depths.

Eventually, Black Family Hospitality will add a hotel, bathhouse, and steakhouse to its Houston property. Eager to learn more about the company’s perspective on Houston and its future plans, CultureMap spoke to Terry Black's co-founder Mark Black. Read on for details about the other Houston neighborhood he and his brother Mike considered for Terry Black’s, a few details on the hotel (coming in 2028), and what he recommends first time visitors order.

CultureMap: How did you decide on the Heights as the right location for Terry Black’s?
Mark Black: We looked all over Houston for the perfect location. I really liked a lot of things about EaDo, but unfortunately they were doing a big highway expansion project. So we found this property in the Heights and we just kind of fell in love with it, fell in love with the area, too.

CM: Houston has a well-established barbecue scene. How do you see Terry Black’s fitting in?
MB: When we opened in Austin, there was a ton of good barbecue restaurant. Same thing with Dallas, Fort Worth, even the smaller areas. My hometown of Lockhart is known as the barbecue capital of Texas.

I think we can be very successful here. And of course, there's a ton of other successful barbecue restaurants and really, really good barbecue in Houston. So we're excited to come join the market.

CM: Tell me about Terry Black’s commitment to being open for lunch and dinner every day, because I think of that as a big part of your identity.
MB: Absolutely. It's definitely part of our brand identity. Being open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. When we first went into Austin, everyone was kind of following that Franklin's model. And what I refer to as the Franklin model was, I'm going to be open limited days for lunch. I'm gonna sell out and we're gonna shut down for the day.

We said, we've got to do something different. We want to separate ourselves. Not only that, there's two of us. So we're young, we're hungry, we're gonna grind. My brother and I would split shifts. The first year, year-and-a-half we were open, we worked about 400 days straight. We're putting anywhere from 12 to 16 hour days and we would split shifts.

We would just grind it out, and there was 2 of us, and we could do that. We knew we needed to separate ourselves and be different than some of the other barbecue restaurants there. That's how we would find our nature. It worked out really well for us.

CM: For people who've heard about Terry Black’s but haven’t tried it yet, what do you have to get on your first visit?
MB: When you come to Terry Black’s, it's traditional Central Texas barbecue. You've got to get the Texas trinity — brisket, pork ribs, and sausage. With that being said, what we've started to become known for is what we refer to as the Cadillac of barbecue, the beef ribs.

Personally, my favorite side, shockingly enough, is green beans. It's our second biggest seller. It's a fresh green bean that we actually go direct to the farm. It's a high quality green bean as opposed to something that may come out of a can

CM: We're focused on the restaurant, but I've read that there's a hotel component. Can you tell me anything about that?
MB: There is gonna be a boutique hotel here. It'll have 14 rooms, give or take, and it'll have a steakhouse that we've already branded. Can't release that quite yet, but it has been branded. And there's other elements. We'll have a members aspect of it. We’ll have a bathhouse, a gym, things of that nature. That's still in the in the planning stages.

CM: What's it been like kind of diversifying Black Family Hospitality beyond barbecue?
MB: Growing Black Family Hospitality has been fun. The barbecue's something that we've done all of our lives. So when we jumped into Opal's Oysters [in Waco] and the bowling alley and Glory Roll Sushi [in Lockhart], it was a challenge, but they've been fun and I really enjoy those now at this stage of our career.

The project that most excites me is the bathhouse. We're at a point where we want to do fun concepts that we enjoy going to. Of course, we enjoy going to the barbecue restaurants and the other restaurants that we have, but more experiential type stuff like the bathhouse and jumping into the hotels and things of that nature are what I'm really excited about. It's going to be a challenge, but we've got a really good team.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Courtesy of Terry Black's Barbecue

Diners walk past the restaurant's six smokers.

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