3 restaurant closings

3 closings to know in Houston food: Last chance to visit some neighborhood staples

Fegen's has served its last meal.

Photo by Carla Gomez

Over the past week or so, two Houston restaurants and a coffee shop announced they're shutting their doors. Thankfully, customers have a little time to say goodbye to two of the businesses.

Fegen's, the contemporary American restaurant in The Heights, announced it had closed effective April 12. Chef-owner Lance Fegen released the following statement on behalf of his partners in the F.E.E.D. TX restaurant group:

“While it’s regrettable that the end of our tenure has come, it’s been an honor and a privilege to serve the Heights community and beyond for over fifteen years. We are grateful for each and every one of our patrons and will miss you all—we have memories to cherish for a lifetime.”

Opened in April 2021, Fegen's evolved out of Liberty Kitchen, the chef's lively, seafood-oriented comfort food restaurant. F.E.E.D. sold the other two locations of Liberty Kitchen to the Culinary Khancepts group (State Fare) in 2020, but opted to keep the restaurant's original Heights location and transform it into Fegen's. Its menu featured classic American fare mixed with Southern Italian-inspired pizzas. It is not clear at this time whether F.E.E.D. plans to repurpose the space with another concept.

Montrose coffee shop Southside Espresso will close after service this Saturday, April 16. Open since the fall of 2012, it has been a staple for well crafted espresso drinks made with locally roasted coffee from Fusion Beans.

In a post to social media, owner Sean Marshall writes that he's working on opening a coffee trailer at the Montrose Marketplace, a street market at the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. In the meantime, patrons are invited to a farewell party that will be held Saturday from 5-7 pm.

Polish restaurant Pierogi Queen will close its original location in League City on May 20, the restaurant announced on Facebook. It had already closed its stand at Railway Heights Market on April.

"Sadly, all our achievements did not help us enough to keep running any longer. We are grateful for all we got, but at this point with current food prices and not able to find reliable help we came to the decision and closing our League City location as well," the post reads.

Owner Eva Sek told the Chronicle that a lack of customers who knew Polish food contributed to the decision to close. The restaurant may continue to sell its frozen pierogis at the Henderson & Kane market.

Until the restaurant bids farewell, it will operate with extended hours of 12-8 pm Thursday and Friday and 12-4 pm Saturday.

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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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