that's fat

'World's biggest pizza slice' restaurant headed to Houston area from Louisiana

Fat Boy's Pizza is coming to Houston.

Courtesy of Fat Boy's Pizza

A Louisiana restaurant that claims to serve the “World's Biggest Pizza Slice” has set its sights on Houston. Fat Boy's Pizza will open its first Houston-area location in Richmond at The Grand at Aliana, a development at the intersection of W. Airport Boulevard and the Grand Parkway.

Scheduled to open by the end of 2022, the 4,800-square-foot restaurant will also offer a 1,500-square-foot patio adjacent to the development's green space. Offering outdoor seating is important to Fat Boy's Houston expansion plans, local real estate broker Thomas Nguyen tells CultureMap in an email.

“The Houston locations we are selecting also feature massive patio spaces," Nguyen writes. “While Houston is full of pizza QSRs and delivery concepts, surprisingly there aren't that many pizza concepts that have huge patios and bars.”

To Nguyen’s point, Fat Boy’s offers a full selection of beer, wine, and cocktails, including its signature daiquiris by the gallon.

Turning to the food, the vaunted slices come from Fat Boy's namesake 30-inch pizzas. The restaurant offers all the usual combos (pepperoni, meat lovers, veggie, supreme, etc.) as well barbecue chicken, Buffalo chicken, calzone, and stromboli. Appetizers such as wings, meatballs, and fried mozzarella sticks join salads as non-pizza options.

“Our pizza is unique and our restaurant is unique,” director of Texas operations George Malek said in a statement. “A visit to Fat Boy’s Pizza is an experience you’ll talk about with your friends and one you will look forward to repeating.”

To bring the Metairie-based restaurant to Houston, founder Gabe Corchiani partnered with businessman Shane Guidry. Known for his work as the CEO of marine transportation company Harvey Gulf International Marine, Guidry attracted some media attention last year when he put his approximately 15,000-square-foot mansion on the market for almost $17 million, but we digress. Clearly, he brings substantial resources to Fat Boy's plans for Houston.

“We look forward to bringing a family dining experience that will add to everything Houston has to offer,” Guidry added. “Fat Boy’s entrance into this area is exciting and our partnership with the Corchiani family is equally as exciting.”

The Richmond location join Fat Boy's original restaurant in Metairie along with Louisiana stores in Baton Rouge, Covington, and the French Quarter in New Orleans. It opened its first out-of-state location this March in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

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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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