another heights shutter

Heights Vietnamese restaurant lauded for inventive fare set to shutter

Dinette will close on Sunday.

Dinette/Facebook

An innovative Vietnamese restaurant will soon serve its last meals. Dinette announced it will close after service on Sunday, February 4.

Located in the Heights, Dinette opened in 2022 to some acclaim, including a nomination for Best New Restaurant in the 2023 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. Opening chef Cole Hoang crafted a menu of North Vietnamese-inspired dishes that also drew on his experiences working for James Beard Award finalist Christine Ha at both The Blind Goat and Xin Chao. It included updated takes on Vietnamese staples such as egg rolls, banh xeo, and bo luc lac.

Last year, the restaurant added a bakery serving sweet and savory Vietnamese pastries, which its also closing.

Owners Raymond Chan and Jason Andaya also operate Hando and Kanpai Club, the sushi hand roll concept and cocktail bar with locations in the Heights and Spring Branch. They plan to replace with Dinette with something more similar to those establishments. Details on the new restaurant will be released at a later date.

“We recognized a need to focus on growing the Hando and Kanpai Club brands, and we believe that closing Dinette will help us accomplish our expansion goals,” Andaya said in a response to CultureMap’s request for comment about the decision to close Dinette. “That being said, there are plans to reconcept the Shepherd Row space into something that feels like an organic progression, building on what people already love about Hando and Kanpai Club.”

“Despite today’s announcement and the closing of this chapter, we are extremely proud of all that we have accomplished with Dinette, and we look forward to developing a new concept to open in the current space,” Chan added in a statement. “We invite everyone to come in and enjoy their favorite meals one last time this week.”

Although Dinette’s time is coming to an end, the Heights and its nearby neighborhoods offer a number of options for contemporary Vietnamese cuisine. They include Moon Rabbit, Les Ba’get, and Xin Chao

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head east

Eagerly-anticipated Houston barbecue joint hosts weekend preview pop-ups

Courtesy of Eastbound Barbecue

Get a first taste of Eastbound Barbecue this weekend.

One of Houston’s most eagerly anticipated new barbecue joints is giving diners a preview of what’s to come. Eastbound Barbecue will host “Sneak Peak Weekends” every Saturday and Sunday beginning this Saturday, December 20, until the restaurant opens in early 2026.

Held at the restaurant’s location in the East End (1105 Sampson Street) from 12-4 pm (or sold out), the weekend service gives diners their first chance to try Eastbound Barbecue’s smoked meats, sides, and desserts. That includes, smoked brisket, baby back ribs, jalapeno & cheese sausage, hatch chili lasagna mac & cheese, herbed potato salad, and more. Save room for the two dessert offerings, salted caramel banana pudding and cookie butter cake.

To distinguish Eastbound’s barbecue, chefs Lopez and Granville use different seasonings than other restaurants, such as rosemary salt in the brisket rub and a miso-caramel sauce that gives its ribs a sweet and savory bite. During the preview, Eastbound’s prices are noticeably lower than many other Houston barbecue joints, with brisket priced at $29 per pound, ribs at $26 per pound, and pulled pork at $22 per pound.

As CultureMap reported in August, Eastbound unites four friends, Ryan Penn, Ryan Powell, Luis Lopez, and Jake Granville, who also held senior roles at various restaurants owned by prominent Houston chef Ronnie Killen. Since then, the four partners have finished many of the improvements they needed to make prior to opening, including closing in the patio and installing offset smokers on the property.

For Penn, leaving the Killen’s organization after almost 20 years was a difficult decision, but one he felt he had to make. “I could have worked for [Killen] forever and been happy. It was more along the lines of, if I don’t do this now, I don’t want to be 70 and wish that I had,” he said at the time.

Courtesy of Eastbound Barbecue

Get a first taste of Eastbound Barbecue this weekend.

news-you-can-eat barbecue openings