Ever since Katherine Shilcutt over at Eating Our Words hinted that there would be a mac and cheese place coming to the Heights, I was a woman obsessed. I had the bad timing to experience the mac-and-cheese-only wonder of S'mac in New York for only about six weeks.
Then, I left for Bayou City — with many cheese regrets.
So, I stalked the Heights' mac and cheese joint. (OK, I looked it up on Facebook.) Owners Patrick and Kimberly Alvarez snapped up the former Yale Street Coffee House and are currently in the process of building out for a projected opening in late June or early July.
"Being that we live in Oak Forest and adore the Heights, we were set on finding a location that had character which we could build upon and only the Heights could offer that," the Alvarezes told CultureMap in an e-mail interview. "For the longest time we would drive by Yale Street Coffee House and say 'Gosh, that would make a perfect location.' When the location was finally vacated and made available we immediately jumped at the opportunity."
As for the menu, despite the name they won't be serving just mac and cheese. For carbophobes, there will be salads with house-made dressings, but the rest of the menu will consist of 12-15 iterations of the namesake dish featuring seafood, meats and vegetables and including wheat- and gluten-free versions.
"The menu to-date consists of over 20 different varieties of mac and cheese, however not all will be featured immediately and some by nature will be seasonal," the Alvarezes e-mailed.
"This isnt to say we dont have more up our sleeves because we do :). The core of it all is a very safely guarded 80-year-old family recipe — only three people know the ingredients."
