Foodie News

How do you know when a fad is over? Cronut imitators now available at the supermarket

Ah, the Cronut, the doughnut/croissant hybrid that gave the national food press something to obsess over this summer when it wasn't beating Paula Deen's transgressions into the ground. New Yorkers spent hours in line at Dominique Ansel's bakery to try one, and a host of imitators sprung up around the country.

Locally, Pena's Donut Heaven in Pearland produced its own version called the dosant that Houstonians enjoyed, but, like all summer flings, our collective ardor for the Cronut and imitators has cooled.

There are even days when Ansel's bakery doesn't sell out of the pastry first thing in the morning. Clearly, the fad has faded, but here's the final nail in the Cronut coffin.

Sorry, cronuts, it was fun, but we're just not that into you anymore.

For the past couple weeks, local grocery store chain Randalls has started selling its own version of the Cronut called the "dou'ssant," according to a CultureMap reader. They're available in both regular glazed and cinnamon sugar varieties at a cost of $5.99 for four, as opposed to $3 each at Pena's.

As with most grocery store pastries, it approximates the original in roughly the same way that a regular grocery store croissant or doughnut would. Just as no right thinking person would ever intentionally prefer a Randalls' doughnut to, say, Shipley's, so too does the dou'ssant fall far short of the original's appearance or the Pearland version's taste.

At an informal tasting panel, one tester took a bite and exclaimed "they're fucking awful," while another took one bite, spit it out and speculated that the oil had been previously used to fry chicken. For the record, that's probably not true.

As with any food item, reasonable people can disagree. Another CultureMap staffer tried them and proclaimed, "I can get behind that. The cinnamon one is great." He even went back for seconds. They're also selling out, as I discovered when I attempted to purchase them after 9 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Midtown location.

Still, even if the Randalls dou'ssants are popular, that doesn't make them good. It just feels like it's time to say, "Sorry, Cronuts, it was fun, but we're just not that into you anymore."

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Editor's Note: The owners of Dominque Ansel Bakery wrote to CultureMap to point out that it has trademarked the Cronut name. "It is not a generic term used to describe all 'croissant-doughnut' hybrids as it has special links directly with our bakery and chef, and is a brand we protect. The way the article is written wrongfully suggests to readers that we have licensed our trademark to supermarkets, which is not true," wrote Amy Ma. "I'm hoping you could go back and include the changes so that your article no longer suggests that our trademarked item is available at Pena's Donut Heaven in Pearland."

We believe our readers do not think that the products sold in Houston come from the New York bakery; however, we have edited the headline and story to make it clearer that there is no connection between the two. And when we're in New York, we promise to drop by the bakery to sample a real Cronut.

Randalls has started selling "dou'ssants," $5.99 for a box of four.

6 Randalls Doussants October 2013 in box

Photo by Eric Sandler

Randalls has started selling "dou'ssants," $5.99 for a box of four.

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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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