Little Liberty Shuttered
Rice Village location joins wave of Houston restaurant closings, but there's still room on the Island
In what's starting to look like a wave of closings, another restaurant that opened in 2016 has served its last meal. F.E.E.D. TX announced Monday that it has closed the Rice Village location of Liberty Kitchen.
Partner Will Davis tells the Houston Business Journal that the company has sold its lease on the space to Faysal Haddad, who will open his fourth location of Mediterranean restaurant Island Grill there. "The timing (of the closing) just has to do with having a buyer. We're genuinely excited for him to take it over," Davis said.
Although Davis stated that the company does not plan to close any additional locations, shuttering the restaurant known as Little Liberty is only the latest setback for F.E.E.D. TX. Over the year last, the company has seen the departure of founding partner Lee Ellis (who established Cherry Pie Hospitality), closing both the Liberty Kitchen location in Austin and the company's craft beer and comfort food restaurant BRC, and losing a number of talented chefs, including Crash Hethcox (to Ritual) and Travis Lenig (who recently opened his own restaurant in the Heights called Field & Tides). The company's Garden Oaks location, which also opened in 2016, has suffered financially during road construction in the area, according to an Instagram post by Christina Martinez, who covers restaurants for local newspaper The Leader.
Perhaps the locations in River Oaks, Memorial City, and the Heights original are strong enough to weather these storms, but recent closings of well-reviewed restaurants like Triniti and Arthur Ave (which will shutter next week) suggest that even a market as white-hot as Houston's may be slowing down a bit.
