Houston's best croissants have arrived in the suburbs. The Bayou City's fifth Common Bond Bistro & Bakery has opened in the CityPlace mixed-use development.
Occupying 5,400 square feet at 1700 City Plaza Drive, the new Common Bond offers a full range of sweets, baked goods, and pastries — everything from croissants and cupcakes to baguettes and chocolate chip cookies — as its siblings in Montrose, near the Medical Center, and in The Heights. The cafe also serves a full selection of savory items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner such as soft scrambled eggs, a Nashville-style hot chicken sandwich, and steak frites.
While beer and wine have always been part of the Common Bond experience, the CityPlace location steps things up with a full bar that serves cocktails and a lounge area that's intended to be both a happy hour option for nearby office workers and an after-dinner destination for visitors to the area's hotels, movie theater, and other attractions. Cocktails are divided into familiar classics such as the paloma and Cosmopolitan as well as a few riffs such as a mezcal mule and the "Edgewater Beach" (rum, lime juice, sweet vermouth, peach). The bar also gets a separate menu of food items that includes flatbreads and shareable items such as deviled eggs, bacon sliders, and cheddar and green onion biscuits.
“The emphasis on the bar, and day to night concept, are a thrilling part of Common Bond at CityPlace,” Common Bond president Chris Fannin said in a statement. “The full bar and craft cocktails are a brand new, fresh experience for our Common Bond customers. We look forward to having them engage with our bistros in a new, exciting way.”
Common Bond will also offer its custom cake services at the new location. In keeping with the times, the City Place location offers online ordering and curbside pickup.
"We are ecstatic to expand to North Houston and open our first ‘suburban’ concept with CityPlace,” Common Bond CEO George Joseph added. “This new location is absolutely stunning; we hope customers are as blown away as we were seeing it come to life.”
Opening at CityPlace is only the latest step since Joseph acquired full control of the restaurant in 2019. In addition to adding the Medical Center and Heights locations, Joseph and his team recently opened Common Bond's first drive-thru concept, Common Bond On the Go. The company will soon open a downtown location in the Bank of America tower next to the Understory food court. A second drive-thru location will debut in Garden Oaks in 2021.
A look inside the new Common Bond.
A vintage picture of chefs EJ Miller and Ryan Lachaine. Photo by