adios, blanco

Arizona Mexican restaurant is the latest to shutter at the Galleria

Blanco Cocina has closed its only Houston location.

Courtesy photo

A Mexican-inspired restaurant in the Galleria has quietly closed. Blanco Cocina + Cantina has shaken its last margarita.

Part of Fox Restaurant Concepts — the Arizona-based company behind Flower Child, The Henry, and others — Blanco originally opened as Blanco Tacos and Tequila in 2018. In addition to typical Tex-Mex fare such as fajitas and enchiladas, Blanco distinguished itself with dishes such as crispy sweet potato tacos, a green chile smash burger, and short rib machaca burritos.

An extensive bar program offered eight margaritas, tequila flights, and a full selection of agave spirits.

Fox Restaurant Concepts has yet to respond to CultureMap’s request for comment about the closure, but the Houston location has been removed from the company’s website. The company's other restaurants, including the first Houston outpost of its self-described "Greatest Neighborhood Restaurant" The Henry, remain open.

Blanco is only the latest restaurant to close at the luxurious mall. Mediterranean restaurant Fig & Olive closed in April 2025, and seafood restaurant The Oceanaire closed in December. Global burger giant Shake Shack shuttered its original Houston location in The Galleria in 2024.

Still, with concepts such as sushi standout Nobu and Michelin-starred Musaafer, the Galleria remains a dining destination. The venue’s management team provided CultureMap with the following statement about plans for the empty spaces.

“The Galleria looks forward to upcoming announcements of several exciting updates to our dining options,” said Ashlee Schneider, director of marketing for the Galleria.

news-you-can-eat closings the galleria

restaurant boom

Texas to lead nation in culinary job growth by 2032, report predicts

Photo by Lucas Law on Unsplash

With all the booming restaurant scenes in major cities like Houston, Texas' overall culinary industry will grow faster than the rest of the country within the next six years, Escoffier found.

A new analysis of the states that will have the most culinary industry job growth has revealed that Texas is expected to lead the nation with the fastest growth in the country by 2032.

The nationally recognized Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts' study, published December 30, 2025, compared all 50 states to determine their job prospects for chefs and head cooks, restaurant cooks, and food service managers based on three key metrics: projected growth rates from 2022-2032; "absolute job creation" (the total number of projected new positions) during the same 10-year span, and actual job growth rates from 2022-2024.

Texas' culinary industry is expected to grow by 24.88 percent by 2032, the report found, which is the highest projected growth rate nationwide. That translates to more than 52,000 culinary jobs created within the next six years.

Escoffier also broke down individual projections across all three metrics:

45,150 new restaurant cook jobs, a 39.72 percent increase
3,580 new chef and head cook jobs, a 19.76 percent increase
3,340 new food service manager jobs, a 15.17 percent increase

"The top three states alone — Texas, California, and Florida — will add nearly 130,000 culinary jobs, almost 45 percent of all jobs created in this industry (despite those states making up about 28 percent of the nation’s population)," the report said. "This demonstrates an extraordinary scale of opportunity for job seekers willing to relocate to states with booming restaurant scenes."

Major Texas cities, including Houston, are home to numerous highly esteemed award-winning chefs that are defining local restaurant scenes. And there are just as many up-and-coming chefs rising through the culinary pipeline.

As Escoffier notes, projections are just one factor among many that determine the strength of the national culinary industry. Texas' combined actual culinary job growth from 2022-2024 is down 0.28 percent when compared to expectations.

"This simply means that, over the past few years, the state appears to have underperformed growth projections; the industry still grew in that state, but perhaps not as much as anticipated," the report's author clarifies. "Given the short timeframe (2022-2024), this category plays a small role in our rankings relative to the ten-year projections."

Washington led the U.S. with the most new culinary jobs added from 2022-2024, with 5,800 positions created during that time. Escoffier said Washington handily beat expectations that only 1,300 jobs would be added, representing a 348 percent "overperformance."

The top 10 states with the fastest-growing culinary industry are:

No. 1 – Texas
No. 2 – California
No. 3 – Georgia
No. 4 – Florida
No. 5 – Washington
No. 6 – North Carolina
No. 7 – Utah
No. 8 – Arizona
No. 9 – Nevada
No. 10 – Alabama

texas culinary job market reports