worth the wait

Houston fine dining palace serves up comfort food for foodie fundraiser

Urban Harvest is mixing things up for the spring edition of its Sunday Supper fundraiser. Typically, the local nonprofit assembles a team of top Houston chefs for an epic, family-style feast featuring local ingredients sold as its weekly farmers market — just as it did at both Kiran's and St. John's School in 2019.

Of course, that's not possible during the coronavirus pandemic, when social distancing, stay-home orders, and common sense prohibit large gatherings. Still, the fundraising must go on. The restrictions have inspired an innovative format that features menus created by one of Houston's top up-and-coming culinary talents, Tony's executive chef Austin Waiter.

This spring's Sunday Supper gives people two options for supporting Urban Harvest. The first, held on Sunday, May 3, features a three-course, family-style meal that will be served hot for pickup at Tony's. Option two centers around a live, interactive cooking class led by Waiter on Sunday, May 10.

"Obviously at this time, we wanted another way to support our local farmers and ranchers," Urban Harvest executive director Janna Roberson tells CultureMap. "Additionally, Tony’s is impacted by everything that has transpired. We wanted to support their staff and give them a stipend and compensate them for their time. For us, it checked all of the boxes of what we’re trying to do during this difficult period."

Waiter's menu for the May 3 dinner includes a farm salad of lettuces, watermelon radish, citrus, and pink peppercorn vinaigrette followed by double-brined fried chicken with carrot veloute, mashed potatoes, and "cream-less" creamed spinach with crispy pancetta. Parker house rolls from Bread Man Baking Co will be served on the side, and dessert will consist of salted caramel pecan bars.

"[Waiter] wanted something that was homey [and] comforting," Roberson says about the decision to serve fried chicken. "It happens to be close to Mother’s Day. He wanted something that tied people’s heart strings and was a Texas piece of the puzzle."

Cooking class participants pick up their ingredients at Urban Harvest's market on Saturday, May 9 for a class the next day. The menu features brick chicken with gastrique, buttered Carolina gold rice, and a fresh salad.

Tony's may seem like an unlikely choice to participate in an Urban Harvest fundraiser. After all, the restaurant has always prided itself on sourcing high-quality ingredients from around the world, and fried chicken doesn't seem like a fit for a restaurant best known for delicate, handmade pastas and dry-aged duck ala presse.

Things are changing at Tony's. Roberson says Waiter has been a regular presence at Urban Harvest's weekly farmers market. She adds that both the chef and owner Tony Vallone are excited to be participating in a family-style event that's different than a normal meal at the fine dining restaurant.

"I’m amazed at what [Waiter] has done with the menu and what he’s trying to create," Roberson says. "He’s super open to being supportive and doing all that he can. He has just been a delight to work with."

The May 3 prepared meal costs $175 and must be ordered by 5 pm on Thursday, April 30; May 10's cooking class costs $75 and must be ordered by 5 pm on Thursday, May 6. Both options are available for purchase on the Urban Harvest website. Tony's sommeliers have suggested wine pairings available for an additional cost.

Chef Austin Waiter.

Photo by Emily Jaschke

Chef Austin Waiter.

charity fundraisers chefs

Chris Cusack explains

Houston bar owner speaks out about surprise arrest for health code violations

Photo by Sergio Trevino

Chris Cusack owns two locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse.

Certainly one of the most unusual interactions between a restaurant and City of Houston officials took place on Wednesday, May 6 when Betelgeuse Betelgeuse owner Chris Cusack was arrested for health code violations at his location on Washington Avenue.

News of the arrest spread quickly across social media over the weekend. Now, Cusack is ready to tell his side of the story.

Cusack, whose time operating restaurants in Houston goes back more than 15 years to Down House and its affiliated restaurants such as Hunky Dory and D&T Drive Inn, tells CultureMap the problem began on Monday, May 4 when a health department inspector came to Betelgeuse Betelgeuse and asked to see the restaurant’s grease trap.

The only problem is that location has never had a grease trap. Prior to becoming Betelgeuse Betelgeuse, it was Liberty Station, a pioneering bar in Houston’s craft beer and craft cocktail scenes. In the early days, Betelgeuse served food from a food truck. More recently, it prepares its food next door at The Bell and Crane. Cusack acknowledges he didn’t share this information with the inspector.

“Usually I’m a charmer with the health department, but I was a little defensive. She kept asking me. I said, ‘ma’am, we don’t make food here,’” he explains. “The tone wasn’t my finest moment, but there was no name calling or anything like that. She said, ‘where does the food come from?’ I said, ‘it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s produced in a commercial kitchen.’”

Cusack says he knew there would be a follow up, but he was shocked when the inspector returned two days later with more colleagues from the health department, TABC inspectors, and Houston Police Department officers.

“I got somewhere between 21 and 25 citations,” Cusack says about the return visit. He got dinged for everything from graffiti in the bathroom to a missing Harris County tax stamp on the photo booth he leases from a vendor (it has both State of Texas and City of Houston stamps, Cusack says).

One inspector told Cusack he needed a food dealer’s permit. He showed the inspector that a food dealer’s permit had been issued for the restaurant's address under the former food truck’s LLC but not to the LLC that operates Betelgeuse Betelgeuse. Cusack says he had renewed the food truck’s permit in March, but that wasn’t good enough for the inspector. In Cusack’s telling, he was arrested for not having the permit, since it was also flagged as missing in an inspection from October 2025. He's the only person he knows who has ever been arrested for a misdemeanor violation of the health code.

Cusack says he spent 21 hours in the Harris County Jail. When he got out, he says he was contacted by a more senior official within the Health Department. Once Cusack confirmed he owned both LLCs, he was told he could reopen. Both locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse have been operating normally since Friday, May 8.

Cusack maintains he never knew about the October 2025 inspection, which is why he renewed the food dealer’s permit for the food truck’s LLC rather than applying for one under Betelgeuse Betelgeuse’s LLC. “There’s no paper trail that shows I was given this information,” he says. “I did not get the email [from the Health Department].”

As for why things got so out of hand, Cusack theorizes he was a victim of Houston Mayor John Whitemire’s crack down on “reckless behavior” on Washington Avenue and stepped up enforcement on bars generally that led to the temporary closure of near northside cocktail bar Rabbit’s Got the Gun.

Cusack says he’s a “huge supporter” of efforts to reduce crimes like street racing, drug dealing, and sex trafficking along Washington and in its surrounding neighborhoods. Still, he feels targeting by the city for being impolite to a health inspector.

He plans to fight both the arrest and the citations in court. “I want the charges dropped, and I want it expunged completely from my record. That’s the first thing, and I’m going to try very hard to do it,” he says.

“That’s going to end up costing thousands of dollars just to deal with the sheer volume,” he adds.

CultureMap contacted Mayor Whitmire’s office. A representative said the mayor was not aware of the situation and has no comment on an open investigation.

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