Wills + Kate = 4EVA

Cheerio! Where to go to watch the royal wedding

Red Lion
Ouisie's Table
Alamo Drafthouse
Regent Street prepares for the Royal Wedding.

Did your royal wedding invite get lost in the mail? You've got two choices: You can be a cheeky monkey and show up at Westminster Abbey with an appropriately ridiculous hat and claim to be Poppy Rhys-Jones, or you can get up early and have a bloody good time here in Houston.

For the ultimate purists, rise and shine at 4 a.m., when Rice Village's British Isles opens for a pre-wedding viewing party. There will be tea and refreshments (of course) and a big screen with live coverage of the wedding of the millennium. (That's what we're calling it now, right?) And British Isles also has plenty of commemorative Wills and Kate china, tankards, memento boxes, teapots and more.

Keeping it British, Red Lion Pub will also open early — 6 a.m. at the latest, but possibly 5 a.m. or 4:30 if interest grows on Facebook — serving smoked kipper, salmon with caviar on English muffins, "Royal" scrambled eggs as well as Buck's Fizz (a drink you might call a mimosa) and a special champagne cocktail named after Kate to toast with while the wedding plays.

To enjoy the wedding in style, head to Ouisie's Table to take in the festivities over a royal breakfast of coffee, champagne, eggs benedict, scones and pastries for $25. Take it all in before work at the 7 a.m. viewing or sleep in a little and enjoy it at 9 a.m., but be sure to make a reservation.

If you'd rather watch the future Princess Catherine at a more reasonable hour, every Alamo Drafthouse (including both in the Houston area) will broadcast the entire procession for fans with a heavy dose of British camp starting at 10:30 a.m.

Still can't get enough of Wills and Kate fever? Watch the royal couple as they are sculpted out of cheddar all day on Friday and Saturday at Central Market. While you're there take the wedding celebration home with bite-size replicas of Prince William's groom's cake as well as other British favorites.

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H-Town rising

Houston leaps back into top 50 'World's Best Cities' list for 2025

Photo by Adrian Newell on Unsplash

Houston made a big leap back into the top 50, ranking No. 40, after previously plummeting into No. 72 last year.

Lively Houston has regained its rightful place among the top 50 best cities in the world, according to a prestigious new report by Resonance Consultancy.

The Canada-based real estate and tourism marketing advisors ranked Houston the 40th best city worldwide for 2025 in its annual "World's Best Cities" list.

The report quantifies the relative qualities of livability, "lovability," and prosperity for the world's top 100 cities with metropolitan populations of 1 million or more. New to the 10th anniversary edition, Resonance partnered with global market researchers Ipsos to include perception-based data into the rankings, surveying over 22,000 people in 30 countries worldwide to determine "the most desirable places to visit, live or work."

Houston made a major rebound after plummeting to No. 73 in last year's report. In 2022, Houston ranked No. 42.

Resonance refers to its previous "World's Best Cities" reports and its 2024 "America's Best Cities" list – which ranked Houston in the top 10 – when explaining the Bayou City's successes. The report praised Houston's vast cultural diversity and placed a great focus on its economic prosperity, even going so far as to suggest Houston residents make more money "and can sock more away."

"...[W]here America’s fourth-largest city truly takes off is in its economic heft and wealth, ranking No. 9 globally for GDP per Capita and No. 14 for Fortune 500 companies in town," the report said. "All that rolls up into an overall Prosperity index ranking of No. 36, which is even more impressive given the No. 14-ranked Price-to Income Ratio [of the city]."

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin and Dallas also earned spots on the World's Best Cities list for 2025, but only one made a similar rebound from the previous year's rankings. Dallas moved up from No. 66 in last year's report to its current rank as No. 55. Meanwhile, Austin took its first tumble out of the 43rd spot (which it had occupied for two years straight) and now ranks No. 53.

London held onto its crown as the No. 1 best city in the world for 2025, followed by New York (No. 2), Paris (No. 3), Tokyo (No. 4), and Singapore (No. 5).