Penny Quarter Preview

Better Luck Tomorrow duo uncorks exciting new Montrose wine bar

Two of Houston’s most well-known culinary innovators are putting the final touches on their latest project. Bobby Heugel and Justin Yu will open the doors to Penny Quarter, their new wine bar and all-day cafe, on Monday, August 12.

Located next to Anvil in the former site of the Etro nightclub, Penny Quarter will feature a wine list of approximately 100 bottles selected by Justin Vann, who oversees the wine options at both of Heugel and Yu’s other projects, Better Luck Tomorrow and Squable, as well as for Yu's restaurant Theodore Rex and downtown bar Public Services. Penny Quarter will offer 16 wines by-the-glass.

Vann tells CultureMap in an email that Squable and Penny Quarter’s lists are different in a couple of key ways.

“Squable is a very classic list with no unusual flavors, whereas the list of Penny Quarter contains a small portion of more progressive wines,” he writes. “More than anything, the goal of the wine list is to serve a wide array of palates at a reasonable price.”

Wine, beer, and simple cocktails will be available starting at 7 am Monday through Saturday (slightly later on Sunday to comply with TABC regulations), which is good news for both third-shift workers who want a tipple before heading to bed and people who like a glass of wine with lunch. In addition, Penny Quarter’s baristas will serve espresso drinks daily until 3 pm, with drip coffee available into the evenings. Best of all, partner Alex Negranza’s signature Irish coffee will be available all the time.

Yu and chef de cuisine Natasha Douglas developed the menu, which will be available a couple of weeks after opening; like Eight Row Flint, food will be prepared by an on-site food truck. As at Better Luck Tomorrow, Heugel tells CultureMap he expects food to account for roughly a quarter of the bar’s sales, but the menu has an entirely different focus.

“Justin likes to describe the food as ‘nutritious.’ That’s something he’s been saying quite a bit,” Heugel says. “I think that’s not quite saying ‘healthy,’ I think that [word] carries too much baggage.”

Whatever label one attaches, the dishes listed on a proposed menu certainly look intriguing. Breakfast options include a salad of hardboiled eggs, marinated tomatoes, kale, and sprouts; two eggs with bacon, sausage, and toast; and a spicy fried egg sandwich. In addition to avocado toast, the kitchen will serve sweet pea toast, ricotta toast and pistachio butter toast.

For lunch and dinner, diners will find a spiced avocado with marinated tomatoes, arugula, and pecorino; chilled Gulf shrimp with chili oil; cheese and charcuterie plates; french fries with parmesan and black pepper; and more. Entree options include a burger made with a blended beef and mushroom patty, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a take of classic chicken and rice.

Heugel notes that the kitchen will do its best to accommodate various dietary restrictions. For example, many of the dishes can be made gluten-free.

As noted about, Penny Quarter is Heugel and Yu’s third project. Heugel has had a few different business partners in the 10 years since he opened Anvil, but he’s feeling confident about his current professional relationships with Yu, Vann, and other principals, such as Negraza, Squable general manager Terry Williams, and Tommy Ho, the general manager for both Anvil and Penny Quarter.

“It’s a really good situation, and I think in a lot of ways Penny Quarter is a commitment to keep working together,” Heugel says.

Currently, Heugel says he and Yu are working with a project and development director to organize their operations and help things run more efficiently. They will likely open another business together, but it might not be soon.

“We’ve committed to each other we will not be signing any new leases for at least a year,” he says. “We might do little side things here or there.”

The next couple of weeks will be a busy time for new Montrose restaurants. Chris Shepherd will debut the new One Fifth on Tuesday, and Goodnight Hospitality’s two projects — Rosie Cannonball and Montrose Cheese and Wine — appear to be very close to making their debuts.

How Penny Quarter fits into this evolving landscape remains to be seen, but given the acclaim that’s greeted both Better Luck Tomorrow and Squable, diners and wine lovers will likely be eager to pay it a visit.

A sneak peek at Penny Quarter.

Photo by Bobby Heugel

A sneak peek at Penny Quarter.

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what's next for chef sunny

Exclusive: Outspoken Houston sushi chef sounds off on ghost kitchen pivot

Sunny Bertsch Chefs Bowls Three Fish Bowls

Courtesy of Sunny Bertsch

Chef Sunny Bertsch recently closed Kaisen Sushi.

Chef Sunny Bertsch is moving on from his embattled ghost kitchen concept. On Sunday, August 30, he closed Kaisen Sushi and will soon replace it with two more affordable concepts.

Like Kaisen, the ghost kitchen sushi restaurant that earned a Best New Restaurant nomination in the 2026 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, Bertsch's new projects, called Chefs Bowls and Three Fish Bowls, will both be ghost kitchen concepts that operate in Third Ward’s Blodgett Food Hall. Bertsch explains that new concepts reflect the lessons learned from operating Kaisen for just over a year.

“Ghost kitchens are really designed for a particular kind of business, which is essentially lower ticket average QSR food,” Bertsch says. Kaisen, where a standard order could run $60 or more per person, never did enough business to be sustainable, an issue that Bertsch spoke about regularly on social media.

“Long story short, I didn't know what I was getting myself into by trying to put a really super nice concept in that my particular location. It was really difficult to overcome,” he says.

Bertsch acknowledges that his inexperience in the restaurant business also played a role in the decision to close Kaisen. For example, he says he pays his staff more than traditional restaurants, but Kaisen doesn’t generate the same revenue a brick-and-mortar restaurant does due to factors such as its lower prices and lack of alcohol sales (among others).

So he’s pivoting to two new concepts that will be more similar in price with the other concepts at Blodgett, roughly $15-25 per person. Although they’re similar and operate out of the same kitchen, listing them separately is necessary, because delivery platforms limit the radius of raw versus cooked concepts, Bertsch explains. Both are expected to launch the week of September 7, after Bertsch completes renovations to his space at Blodgett and gets the menus uploaded to third-party delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash.

Courtesy of Sunny Bertsch

Chef Sunny Bertsch recently closed Kaisen Sushi.

Chef’s Bowls will serve rice bowls topped with proteins such as chicken teriyaki, salmon teriyaki, and steak, which will be cooked sous vide and seared to order. Bertsch hopes to stand out with a little more attention to detail than his competitors.

“We've had access to rice bowl concepts that operate within our vicinity, and we see the kind of food that's being put out,” Bertsch says. “I want to see if I could do better. I'm not saying I am better, but I think there are some intangibles that are missing with the rice bowl space. I want to make my honest attempt at seeing if I can provide food at a lower price, and see if we can just make something from scratch that's of quality.”

That same spirit will power Three Fish, which is named for the three proteins that are the top sellers at every sushi restaurant — salmon, yellowtail, and bluefin tuna. Bertsch intends to use the same fish that he used at Kaisen, just prepared differently. Using bluefin will differentiate Three Fish from similar concepts that use less expensive yellowfin tuna, Bertsch explains.

“I'm really not a personal fan of yellowfin tuna. It's tasteless, and you’ve got to do a lot of dressing up of yellowfin tuna to make it taste interesting,” he says. “I'd rather have bluefin tuna. We've been testing it in the kitchen here and there when we have time, and it's so much tastier. Tuna should taste like tuna.”

As for Kaisen, it could come back in the future. Bertsch says he’d like to find a brick-and-mortar location that would allow him to serve both dine-in and to-go customers. For now, he’s focused on making Chefs Bowls and Three Fish as successful as possible.

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