Kitchen 713's New Home
Acclaimed Southern restaurant with Asian influences picks Washington Ave for new home
This fall’s most anticipated restaurant reopening finally has a location and a timeline.
Kitchen 713, the acclaimed restaurant by chefs Ross Coleman and James Haywood that blends classic Southern dishes with Asian influences has found a new home. After closing its original location in the Second Ward this June to find a space that would allow them to both hold more people and serve alcohol, Coleman tells CultureMap that the restaurant has signed a lease to open in the former Commonwealth space on Washington Avenue.
“We had been looking since before June, probably two months before we closed," Coleman tells CultureMap. “We knew we wanted a second generation space. We liked it the best out of all the spaces we’d seen. We love the area. We love the potential.”
Interior changes will be minimal, Coleman says, mostly in the form of new furniture and revising the bar. The restaurant submitted its application for a liquor license on Tuesday. If all goes according to plan, the restaurant hopes to open by December 1.
“We’re bringing back some items,” Coleman says. “We’ll have a bigger kitchen with a bigger staff. We really want to show we can do.”
Kitchen 713 classics like shrimp and grits will remain, but overall the menu will expand to include lunch and dinner during the week with brunch on the weekends. At lunch, look for the restaurant to expand its popular grilled cheeses with options like pulled pork and braised oxtails.
Coleman says he even anticipates a “secret vegan menu” of five or six items that will show the chefs are just as adept at cooking vegetables as they are at braising turkey necks and frying chicken.
Of course, adding cocktails will be the biggest change. Coleman says that Haywood has been developing “a cocktail program that I think can rival Anvil’s.” Haywood tells Houstonia that the drinks and a bar bites menu will be available until 2 am on weekends, which should fit in well with Washington’s party vibe.
Given the ambitious plans to grow the restaurant, it’s pretty clear that the Second Ward’s loss will be Washington Avenue’s gain. With a number of new options coming in the next few months — everything from Austin’s Tacodeli to Memphis-based Gus’s Fried Chicken and Australian-inspired Platypus Brewing — eating and drinking on Washington is about to get a lot more interesting.
