Restaurateur Ford Fry surprised Houston diners when he announced in January that he was closing his Tex-Mex restaurant Superica and replacing it with Star Rover, a casual, family-friendly steakhouse. With Star Rover now open for dinner and weekend brunch, Fry — who also owns Star Rover's neighbor La Lucha, casual taqueria Little Rey, and River Oaks fine dining restaurant State of Grace — explains that the decision came down to both economics and his own desire to provide the Heights with something he thought was lacking.

“This was our smallest Superica. Superica for us takes so much — every day you’re making salsas, tortillas, it’s so prep heavy,” Fry says. “We weren’t big enough to be that successful. We didn’t have enough seats to make the labor make sense.”

Rather than compete against Houston’s seemingly limitless roster of Tex-Mex restaurants, Fry saw an opportunity for a steakhouse that occupied a space somewhere between chains like Texas Roadhouse and Outback and fine dining staples like Pappas Bros. Enter Star Rover, which already has a popular location in Nashville.

Just as La Lucha channels Fry’s childhood memories of the San Jacinto Inn, Star Rover takes some inspiration from iconic Houston restaurant Hofbrau. Diners of a certain age will see places like Hofbrau in the restaurant’s design. The walls are adorned with framed pictures, taxidermy, vintage advertising, and more.

“The inspiration is if you were some old Texas dude who wanted to start a steakhouse you’d find a bunch of crap and put it on the walls,” Fry says. “We want to make it cool, but it’s got to take you away from what it was. Did we achieve that? I hope so.”

Fry tasked chef Bobby Matos with updating the Star Rover menu for Houston. It starts with a selection of steaks — chopped, filet, T-bone, ribeye, or skirt — along with a half-chicken, blackened redfish, and chicken fried chicken. All of them come with milk rolls, salad, fries, and onion rings. Diners who want a little surf and turf can add either a crab cake or a fried lobster tail.

The appetizer menu is similarly tidy, consisting of shrimp cocktail, oysters (raw or fried), potato skins, and vegetable crudités. Desserts include a selection of pies as well as soft serve ice cream.

Since the steaks are thinner than those served at upscale steakhouses, they’re cooked hot and fast on a plancha and basted in butter.

“We control the costs by the size of the meat,” Fry explains. “Meat is so expensive, how do you do a family-friendly steakhouse? It’s a 12-ounce ribeye and it’s choice. We put the right amount of age on it.”

Tucked away in the corner of the menu is text that reads “Cheeseburger?! Just ask!” People should, because it’s a hearty half-pound, New York tavern-style burger that sits on grilled onions, is topped with cheese and mayonnaise, and is served on a classic potato bun. Think of it as the thick-patty counterpart to La Lucha’s thin-patty Pharmacy Burger.

“I call it a lowbrow steakhouse burger,” Fry says. “It’s not a Peter Luger, but it may be better and it won’t cost as much.”

Star Rover’s weekend brunch menu features the same pancakes that had been a staple at Superica. They’re joined by some new items, including baked-to-order cinnamon rolls, breakfast tacos, and kolaches that use sausage from Houston’s Roegels Barbecue Co.

Photo by Eric Sandler

Star Rover is now open in the Heights.

The restaurant has one other old-school touch in the form of an eating challenge called the “I Ate the 76er.” Available with 24 hours notice, diners who finish a 76-ounce steak, milk rolls, salad, onion rings, and fries in under an hour will receive the meal for free, plus a t-shirt and the opportunity to sign a winners’ wall. The challenge reflects the spirit Fry is bringing to Star Rover.

“A lot of it is scratching that itch of something fun I want to do versus what I think the neighborhood will like,” he says. “We did a version of this in Nashville with a stage. It’s where I eat when I’m in Nashville, because it’s what I want to eat when I’m there.”