Paris is Sweet

Parisian-inspired crepe cafe plants stylish flag in Highland Village

Sweet Paris Crêperie & Cafe quietly opened its new flagship store in Highland Village on Saturday, December 8. While the menu may match the cafe’s other locations in Rice Village, CityCentre, Katy, and College Station, it represents a major step up in terms of design.

Husband-and-wife co-founders Allison and Ivan Chavez worked with New York-based architecture and design firm the Rockwell Group to make the newest Sweet Paris stand out. With marble-pattern table tops, leather banquettes, and two chandeliers, the space looks far more luxurious than a typical fast casual restaurant. The new location also features a partially-covered patio and a semi-private room designed to accommodate bridal parties, baby showers, and the like.

Stepping up the design seemed appropriate, not just to distinguish the flagship from its corporate siblings, but also to fit in with the other occupants of Highland Village. Sweet Paris occupies a space that had previously belonged to Kate Spade and is across Drexel Dr from recently-shuttered steakhouse Smith & Wollensky.

“I’m from Houston, and so Highland Village has always been a staple place that everyone comes,” Allison Chavez tells CultureMap. “We were excited for the opportunity to come here. Obviously, it’s changed so much over the years. There’s all these international brands. That they wanted to bring in some local flavor was really cool.”

Opening Highland Village continues a busy year for the fast-growing restaurant. A Katy location in the LaCenterra development opened in April, and a College Station outpost in real estate developer Midway’s Century Square project arrived in July. In 2019, the cafe will add Houston-area locations in The Woodlands and Baybrook before expanding to San Antonio. The owners have even more ambitious plans for the future.

“If you ask my husband, he sees Tokyo, Dubai. He’s in the resort development business. He sees us going all over the world. I’m a little more practical about the approach,” Chavez says. “Going forward, we feel like Southern California and Southern Florida, we feel like those demographics align with Houston in some ways. That would be the goal. I’m thinking of a five year plan.”

Why not? As the restaurant’s success demonstrates, everyone loves crepes. Inspired by Ivan Chavez’s trips to Paris, the cafe serves both traditional combinations like ham and cheese and nutella and fruit, as well as riffs like chicken enchilada and the Le Californian (turkey, pepper jack, avocado, bacon, etc). Waffles, salads, and milkshakes round out the menu by giving people non-crepe options. As Allison Chavez says, generous portions aim to satiate the hungry Houstonians who have embraced the concept for breakfast, lunch, and even date night.

“At the end of the day, we’re still a fast casual restaurant,” Chavez says. “Our price point, everything is $10.95 or under. It’s not a fine dining restaurant, but we’re trying to create an aspirational experience.”

With a stylish design and a proven, crowd-pleasing menu, finding people who want a little of the Sweet Paris experience after a trip to Crate & Barrel or the Apple store shouldn’t be a problem.

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Sweet Paris Crêperie & Cafe; 2701 Drexel Dr.; 346-867-1157; Sunday through Thursday 8 am to 9:30 pm, Friday and Saturday 8 am to 11 pm

A look inside the new Sweet Paris in Highland Village.

Sweet Paris Creperie Highland Village interior

Photo by Shannon O’Hara

A look inside the new Sweet Paris in Highland Village.

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a CultureMap Exclusive

Houston's 'Chinese takeout bar from the future' touches down in Webster

Courtesy of The Rice Box

A rendering previews The Rice Box's new location in Webster.

Houston’s Chinese takeout bar from the future is coming to the Bay Area. The sixth location of The Rice Box will open in Webster later this summer.

Located at 114 El Dorado Blvd, the new location will be called Rice Box Space Center after NASA’s headquarters at the nearby Johnson Space Center. Founder John Peterson tells CultureMap that it’s a bit of a homecoming for him and his wife/business partner, Jenny Vo, as they grew up in the area. As with every new location, the restaurant created a movie-style poster to announce its opening.

Rice Box Webster movie poster The Rice Box Space Center is expected to open later this summer.Courtesy of The Rice Box

For its first truly suburban location, Peterson plans to offer a more efficient pickup system for to-go orders. Dubbed The Rice Box Pickup Reactors, the system applies Rice Box’s sci-fi aesthetic to curbside ordering. As seen in the rendering above, the building will have six slots that drivers will pull into to get their orders.

“The goal is to have guests in and out with food in hand in around 90 seconds,” Peterson writes in an email. “It’s still pickup, but we’re trying to make that moment feel more intentional and more connected to the digital side of Rice Box instead of treating it like an afterthought. We’re looking at this opening as both a new store and a prototype for how Rice Box can work in more suburban markets without losing the part of the brand that makes it feel like us.”

Bay Area-area diners can expect the same menu as the Rice Box’s other locations. That includes staples such as General Tso’s chicken, sesame chicken, beef with broccoli, and orange peel beef. The restaurant also serves traditional Chinese-inspired fare such as Chongqing chicken, cumin beef, mapo tofu, and chow fun noodles.

Recently, Peterson rolled out a new version of Rice Box’s dumplings. Available in chicken, pork, or vegetable, each style of dumpling comes with a different wrapper that enhances the filling’s flavor. They’re also available either steamed or fried.

The Rice Box started as a food truck in the early 2010s. After moving to a permanent location in the Greenway Plaza food court, it has opened brick-and-mortar locations in the Heights, River Oaks, Rice Village, and Memorial.

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