dream a little dream

Pint-sized coffee shop percolates in buzzy Garden Oaks destination

Little Dreamer Coffee Stomping Grounds Matt Toomey

Matt Toomey at Little Dreamer Coffee's kiosk.

Photo by Emily Jaschke

A coffee shop that’s uniquely well-suited to its location has debuted in Garden Oaks. Little Dreamer Coffee’s kiosk at the Stomping Grounds has quickly become a destination at the emerging shopping center.

Located at the south end of the property’s greenspace, the 126-square-foot converted shipping container offers the same mix of beverages that one would expect at a larger coffee shop, including brewed coffees, espresso beverages, bottled coffee drinks, teas, and more.

Little Dreamer owner Matt Toomey sees the small footprint as an ideal working environment for a barista. Ideally, he says a coffee professional should always be within two steps of all the equipment they need to make a drink.

“Given the resources and the opportunity, I’ve always wanted to do a shipping container. I had the idea for a long time,” he tells CultureMap. “For a barista, everything is right there. You’ve got to hone in your workspace efficiency.”

Toomey, who helped found popular Heights cafe Boomtown Coffee before moving on to Little Dreamer, credits Stomping Ground’s owner Revive Development for helping him bring the concept to fruition.

“For us, we’re a very small business. We don’t have a lot of capital to do big projects,” Toomey says. “I couldn't have done it without Revive. It’s a good, healthy relationship between a landlord and a tenant.”

Having coffee available has helped power pop-ups at the property, including two breakfast events by chef Jane Wild. Little Dreamer will also be included in November 13’s night market thrown by ice cream purveyor Underground Creamery and artisan tortilleria Tatemó.

So far, things are going well. Already open daily from 7 am until noon, Little Dreamer just added an afternoon session of 2-5 pm Monday - Friday. Evening hours could extend further once some of the properties restaurants — including Luloo’s Pantry, a sandwich shop and Bodega from the owners of Blood Bros BBQ., and a permanent home for casual steakhouse Cherry Block Craft Butcher & King — begin to open.

“The neighborhood has been extremely supportive,” Toomey says. “The word is still getting out. I met 10 new people today.”

"We’ve been big fans of Matt Toomey and Little Dreamer for a long time, and it was the perfect community fit for our coffee program at the Stomping Grounds," Revive director of leasing and marketing Monica Danna adds. "In many ways, Little Dreamer will serve as the nucleus to the project. Sitting in the center of the 8,000-square-foot green space, they bring an energy to the project that has been already enthusiastically welcomed by the neighborhood."

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New York Times critic awards Houston restaurant 2 stars in glowing review

Courtesy of ChòpnBlọk

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Let’s just call 2025 the year of ChòpnBlọk. In a review published Tuesday, December 16, the New York Times has awarded the Houston restaurant two stars (“very good”).

Written by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao, the review touts many of the same qualities that the Times already praised when it included ChòpnBlọk on its list of America’s 50 best restaurants.

Rao writes that she usually avoids restaurants that serve food in bowls, but she’s impressed by the way that chef-owner Ope Amosu has put a West African spin on the concept.

“For inspiration, Ope Amosu looked to the kind of chain restaurants that were built to scale, where flavors are often subdued to appeal to the broadest possible audience, focus-grouped to death. But the delight of ChòpnBlok is in its sure sense of self, its lively, multidimensional cooking and clear, delicious vision for modern food from the Black diaspora,” Rao writes.

She singles out specific dishes, including the Nigerian red stew with short rib, the Black Star bowl with shrimp, and the signature Motherland, made with chicken, greens, and plantains. “It’s utterly simple, but draws you in for more with the mouthwatering twang of not-too-much MSG — an international shortcut to building umami that tends to be used carefully, and layered with other forms,” she writes.

The review also touches on the way Amosu switched the restaurant from counter service to full service — described as “warm, informal, and quick with the jokes” — and his time working at Chipotle to learn the basics of the restaurant operations.

A two-star review is only the latest instance of ChòpnBlọk receiving national attention. In addition to the Times 50 best list, Esquire recently named it one of America’s best new restaurants. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand designation for 2025. Amosu earned a semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Texas in the 2025 James Beard Awards.

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