Downtown Bars Grow Up

New downtown restaurant and bar looks to offer real grown-up fun: This is no clubby party scene

The Salt N Pepper Group has quite a bit on its plate for 2015. In addition to bringing a second location of pizza restaurant Crisp to The Woodlands and building a flagship for Beer Market Co. in Midtown, the company will be opening a bar and restaurant called Moonshiners next to Prohibition at 1000 Prairie in downtown Houston.

Billed as a "Southern Table and Bar" by partner Fidan Baca, Moonshiners will offer lunch, happy hour and dinner options. Baca describes the concept as chef-oriented, but says they're still looking for the right person to develop the menu.

"We just signed the lease," Baca tells CultureMap. "We’re working on the details. We might switch things up."

"We believe we can contribute to the growth down there with creative bars and restaurants. We’re not looking to do clubs. We’re growing up."

Although Baca and his partners are primarily known for the Midtown hotspots like Pub Fiction and Celtic Gardens that they developed as part of KCH Entertainment, he thinks they have something to offer downtown's booming bar and restaurant scene. They recognize that concepts like Bad News Bar, Moving Sidewalk and The Pastry War have given downtown a different vibe than Midtown that appeals to office workers, visitors and the expanding population of downtown residents.

"We’re not coming to downtown to make it a fist-pumping party scene. We want to contribute to this initiative," Baca says. "We will do our very best to develop concepts that are right for the area. I know we’re going to be judged for (being from) Midtown and the party scene and the youngsters. That’s fine."

Baca says that Crisp and Beer Market show his group's ability to develop multiple concepts in different neighborhoods across the city. With Moonshiners, their goal is to build on the series of downtown openings that have taken place over the last two years and draw even more people in.

"We believe we can contribute to the growth down there with creative bars and restaurants. We’re not looking to do clubs. We’re growing up. We’re trying to provide people with a good atmosphere, good food and good cocktails," Baca says.

"This city of ours deserves a great downtown. The guys who are already there have done a phenomenal job. You have to give it to them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help just because we manage (properties in) Midtown."

The future home of Moonshiners at 1000 Prairie.

Photo by Eric Sandler

The future home of Moonshiners at 1000 Prairie.

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New York Times critic awards Houston restaurant 2 stars in glowing review

Courtesy of ChòpnBlọk

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Let’s just call 2025 the year of ChòpnBlọk. In a review published Tuesday, December 16, the New York Times has awarded the Houston restaurant two stars (“very good”).

Written by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao, the review touts many of the same qualities that the Times already praised when it included ChòpnBlọk on its list of America’s 50 best restaurants.

Rao writes that she usually avoids restaurants that serve food in bowls, but she’s impressed by the way that chef-owner Ope Amosu has put a West African spin on the concept.

“For inspiration, Ope Amosu looked to the kind of chain restaurants that were built to scale, where flavors are often subdued to appeal to the broadest possible audience, focus-grouped to death. But the delight of ChòpnBlok is in its sure sense of self, its lively, multidimensional cooking and clear, delicious vision for modern food from the Black diaspora,” Rao writes.

She singles out specific dishes, including the Nigerian red stew with short rib, the Black Star bowl with shrimp, and the signature Motherland, made with chicken, greens, and plantains. “It’s utterly simple, but draws you in for more with the mouthwatering twang of not-too-much MSG — an international shortcut to building umami that tends to be used carefully, and layered with other forms,” she writes.

The review also touches on the way Amosu switched the restaurant from counter service to full service — described as “warm, informal, and quick with the jokes” — and his time working at Chipotle to learn the basics of the restaurant operations.

A two-star review is only the latest instance of ChòpnBlọk receiving national attention. In addition to the Times 50 best list, Esquire recently named it one of America’s best new restaurants. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand designation for 2025. Amosu earned a semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Texas in the 2025 James Beard Awards.

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