Food for Thought

The invasion of the pineapple upside down cakes! When retro foods make a majorcomeback

Pineapple upside down cakes are here again. Everywhere. Freaking. Where.
Photo via Veronica's Cornucopia
Fresh from H-E-B
Photo by Marene Gustin
Ooh La La's Piña colada cupcake
Photo by Jordan Chan
The pineapple upside-down cake at BlackFinn
Photo by Marene Gustin

You know how you haven’t thought about something in years? Like maybe a red VW Bug, and then suddenly you start seeing them everywhere?

That’s been me and pineapple upside down cakes lately.

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I ate, let alone saw, one of those desserts so popular in the early decades of the 20th century.

And now, here they are. Every. Freaking. Where.

Dad came home from walking around H-E-B’s Buffalo Market one day and said: “I almost bought a pineapple upside down cake. I haven’t had one in ages and it looked so good. But I was afraid I’d just eat the whole thing.”

Say what? A pineapple upside down cake?

“Yep.”

Then the second one I ran across was at the new BlackFinn American Grille. Executive chef John Turner has added a few Houston dishes to the Midtown branch of this national chain, mostly some creative Tex-Mex turns and a pretty good chopped seafood salad. But when he offered dessert last week it was a pineapple upside down carrot cake with cream cheese whipped cream topping.

“Frankly, I’m surprised pineapple upside down cakes ever faded," O'Donnell says. "I think it’s a great dessert. Especially warm with vanilla ice cream on top!”

It was small, like a single serving size, topped (bottomed?) with one slice of canned pineapple and, yes, one bright red maraschino cherry.

“Why did you ever think of this?” I ask.

“Why not!” laughs Turner. “It just sounded like a cool idea.”

And, because these things always happen in threes, a few days later I get a box of cupcakes from Ooh La La delivered to celebrate the opening of Vanessa O’Donnell’s third location at Town and Country Village in Memorial.

I opened the box and . . .

No. There was no pineapple upside down cupcake in there. That would just be too serendipitous.

But, when I looked at the enclosed brochure one of the Friday special flavors at the dessert boutiques is called . . . No. Stop getting ahead of me. It is called a Pina Colada.

But, wait for it, the description of said cupcake is: Pineapple upside down cake topped with vanilla buttercream, toasted coconut and a maraschino cherry.

“We actually had a real pineapple upside down cupcake,” O’Donnell says. “But it was a four-step process to bake and it didn’t sell very well.” So she created the Pina Colada with the caramelized pineapple baked inside the cupcake. But it is topped with a bright red cherry.

“It has all the same flavors of the cake,” she says. “Frankly, I’m surprised pineapple upside down cakes ever faded. I think it’s a great dessert. Especially warm with vanilla ice cream on top!”

According to most food historians, upside down cakes — with fruit on the bottom and cake mix on top — were made in iron skillets over an open fire as far back as the Middle Ages. But it wasn’t until Jim Dole’s Hawaiian Pineapple Company, now known as the Dole Company, developed a way to can and ship neat little pineapple slices that the pineapple upside down cake became a classic.

In 1925, the company sponsored a contest calling for canned pineapple recipes and 2,500 of the 6,000 entries were for pineapple upside down cakes. Apparently it got popular pretty fast.

I doubt the following recipe from the Dole Company website was one of those early 2,500 ones but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed too much from the 1920s. Except they used real butter, which I suggest over margarine anyway. It makes a very festive dessert for company this time of year and if you’re real lazy, like me, you can always use a boxed yellow cake mix.

Or, just get the one from H-E-B like I did for Thanksgiving Day. Just $4.98 and you can always plate it, warm it up and pass it off as one you baked yourself.

Bake Your Own

Ingredients
2/3 cup margarine, divided
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 can (20 oz.) Dole Pineapple Slices
10 maraschino cherries
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
2 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions
1. Melt 1/3 cup margarine in 10-inch cast iron skillet. Remove from heat. Add brown sugar and stir until blended.
2. Drain pineapple slices well, reserve 2 tablespoons juice. Arrange pineapple slices in sugar mixture. Place cherry in center of each slice.
3. Beat remaining 1/3 cup margarine with 1/2 cup granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks, lemon peel and juice, and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Blend into creamed mixture alternately with sour cream and reserved juice.
4. Beat egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually beat in remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar to make stiff meringue. Fold into batter. Pour over pineapple in skillet.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until cake tests done. Let stand 10 minutes, then invert onto serving plate. Serve warm or cold.

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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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