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TABC loosens COVID-19 requirements to help bars in Houston survive

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Bars get a break from the TABC.

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has cut some slack on the rules regarding Texas bars, which it says will make it easier for bars to reopen under current COVID-19 restrictions.

The TABC approved a new amendment that removes certain obstacles and theoretically makes it easier for bars to be classified as restaurants.

Under Gov. Greg Abbott's current order, bars are not allowed to be open. Restaurants and restaurant with bars are allowed, as long as 51 percent or more of their sales comes from food.

A flurry of bars that serve food have applied for a certificate in which they operate as restaurants. But that process has been complicated by restrictions, which the TABC has now removed.

There are three obstacles removed:

Commercial cooking equipment is no longer required
Commercially pre-packaged items can be counted
Food trucks can also be counted

TABC's amendments are to Rule 33.5, which covers food and beverage certificates. The new amendment goes into effect immediately. It means that:

Bars can now reopen even if they don't have commercial-grade kitchens.
Food prepared off-site, including packaged items, can now be sold at bars.
Bars can now partner with food trucks and count those sales toward the TABC's rule that food must represent 51 percent or more of their gross revenue.

Bars and restaurants have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, and especially bars. Gov. Abbott closed them down in March, then allowed them to reopen May 22, then abruptly shut them down again on June 26.

"Many establishments that would have otherwise remained shuttered will be able to reopen and operate in a safe manner due to these amendments," the TABC amendment says. "This result will not only help mitigate the economic crisis in the State of Texas resulting from the COVID-19 disaster, it will also protect the welfare of thousands of members of the regulated industry and their employees who rely upon the income from these establishments to support themselves and their families."

"Without the option offered by this rule amendment, many of these establishments will be forced to close permanently within the next 30 days," it says.

Bar owners still must apply for a Food & Beverage Permit. And while there are now fewer restrictions from the TABC, it doesn't take into account what's happening within individual cities, who would have to sign off on new certificates of occupancy that go along with these changes, representing possibly another set of hurdles and expenses.

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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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