do you accept this bbq?

Exclusive: Blood Bros. BBQ owner sounds off on The Bachelor appearance

Blood Bros. Quy Hoang, Robin Wong, and Terry Wong greet The Bachelor.

Screen capture via The Bachelor/ABC

Barbecue-loving Houstonians saw a few familiar faces on the MondayJanuary 31 episode of The Bachelor. During their one-on-one date, leading man Clayton Echard and contestant Rachel Recchia encounter the owners of Blood Bros. BBQ having an outdoor picnic.

Somewhat strangely, the show doesn’t present Robin Wong, Terry Wong, and Quy Hoang as the three owners of one of Houston’s most acclaimed barbecue joints. In a bit of reality show trickery, the scene is presented as a chance encounter with a family having a barbecue.

“We don’t know this family, but we’re going to get to know them together,” Echard says during the episode. “This is something a little out of the norm to crash the party.”

Of course, Houstonians know the moment wasn’t just a happy accident. Blood Bros. has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and Bon Appétit and made Texas Monthly’s list of the state’s top 50 barbecue joints.

Robin Wong provided CultureMap with the inside scoop on how the Blood Bros. became involved with The Bachelor. Houston First Corporation, the public corporation behind Visit Houston, connected the restaurant with the show’s producers, who invited the restaurateurs and their families to the filming at The Historic Hill House and Farm in Willis, which is about an hour north of downtown.

He says they spent about four hours filming, which is edited down to just under four minutes of the two hour episode. The restaurant brought a full spread of barbecue including brisket, ribs, sausage, and sides.

Overall, he says the group enjoyed their interactions with Echard and Recchia. Marfay Magno, known as the First Lady of Blood Bros., gets some solid screen time quizzing Recchia about her plans to start a family, while Hoang gives Echard some grilling tips.

“He’s like a big goofball,” Wong says about Echard. “He’s a nice guy.”

“Rachel was really nice, too. We all kinda thought they’re going to hook up. They did seem to have some chemistry there,” he adds.

In true Blood Bros. fashion, he says they all did a couple of shots to loosen up. “[We told them] If you’re with us, you’ve got to do like we do and have a couple shots of Jameson,“ he says.

Even though the Blood Bros. aren’t identified professionally, Wong says he’s heard from lots of people who recognized him.

“When it aired, my phone went off like crazy. People I haven’t talked to in a long time,” he says. “It’s still going on today.”

While Wong says he’s disappointed that the show blurred out the Blood Bros. logo on his hat, he thinks something positive could come from the experience.

“We met some cool people and good things may come out of it,” he says. ‘That’s what we’re optimistic for.”

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the more things change

Houston's essential Jewish diner looks better than ever after refresh

Photo by Sergio Trevino

The dining room has more light than ever.

It’s tricky to renovate a restaurant that’s as essential to its community as New York Deli. A staple of Houston’s Jewish community for almost 50 years, the tiny restaurant near Meyerland will serve as many as 400 people during a busy Sunday brunch.

Still, the time had come, as the tape on the deteriorating banquettes and peeling wallpaper illustrated. With the restaurant’s lease up for renewal, co-owner Michael Saghian saw an opportunity for some updates.

“I couldn’t be the new guy who ruined the place by moving it,” he tells CultureMap. “We worked out a deal with the landlord [to stay] and did a big refresh.”

The most noticeable change is the removal of the restaurant’s front door and vestibule. Instead, diners enter through the restaurant’s companion bagel shop. Separate entrances made sense when the bagel shop was certified kosher by local religious authorities, but now that designation only applies to the Bellaire location that opened in 2020. Not only is the new setup easier for people with mobility issues to navigate, it allows more light into the dining room, brightening the place considerably..

Saghian and co-owner Riana Sherman worked with interior designer Erin Hicks on the refresh. Tables, chairs, and banquettes are all new, but the color scheme remains the same. The process yielded 10 more seats, and the furniture is a little more durable, too.

“People have flipped chairs because they’re so lightweight,” Sherman says. “We got a sturdier chair.”

Behind the scenes, an expanded kitchen allows for the restaurant’s cooks to work faster and more efficiently. An additional egg cooker should cut down the amount of time people wait for their food to arrive.

“The kitchen had one of everything. Now we have two of everything. We can pump out a lot more food,” Saghian says.

Photographs on the walls honor longtime customers such as the “bagel girls,” a group of woman who’ve eaten breakfast at the restaurant since the ‘80s. A piece of old wallpaper has been framed and hung on the wall, too, as a nod to the space’s history.

New York Deli interior changes Photographs on the walls honor longtime customers.Photo by Sergio Trevino

Photo by Sergio Trevino

The dining room has more light than ever.

Saghian says he suffered from sleepless nights as he worried about people’s reactions to the changes, but so far his customers have been effusive.

“It still feels like an old school diner,” Saghian says. “It has pieces you remember. Even the new stuff is old school.”

While the physical environment is new, the staff remains the same. To ensure he kept the same team of cooks and servers, Saghian paid their wages for the two weeks the restaurant was closed for renovations.

Even more importantly, the prices are the same. That’s something that will make even the oldest regulars happy.

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