GJ Tavern shuttered

Prominent Houston restaurant group suddenly shutters intimate downtown tavern

GJ Tavern has closed.

Photo by Claudia Casbarian

A prominent Houston restaurant group has bid farewell to its downtown location. Underbelly Hospitality announced it has closed GJ Tavern effective immediately.

“Closing GJ Tavern was an incredibly difficult decision to make but we ultimately realized that operating a 40-seat restaurant in downtown Houston was financially unsustainable,” Underbelly Hospitality president Nina Quincy said in a statement. “We loved building the GJ Tavern brand and are hopeful that it will someday have a place within Underbelly Hospitality.”

An Instagram post announcing the closure offers a longer tribute to the restaurant’s staff and customers.

First opened in the summer of 2021 as Georgia James Tavern, the restaurant aimed to serve as an intimate establishment for Theater District patrons and an amenity for residents of the Market Square Tower high-rise. The company changed the restaurant’s name to GJ Tavern in the spring of 2022 to prevent consumer confusion with Georgia James, its luxurious steakhouse. To further differentiate the new GJ Tavern from the original Georgia James Tavern, then-Underbelly Hospitality founder Chris Shepherd recruited chef Tim Reading to lead the kitchen.

Bringing experiences from Boston chef Michael Schlow’s restaurants and Caracol, James Beard Award winner Hugo Ortega’s Galleria-area seafood restaurant, Reading refined GJ Tavern’s menu with classic dishes such as duck fat potatoes, hand-rolled cavatelli pasta, and a mushroom-Swiss burger. He earned a Rising Star Chef of the Year nomination in the 2023 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards for his work at GJ Tavern. Sadly, his time with the company has also come to an end.

GJ Tavern Tim Reading UBH laid off chef Tim Reading. Photo by Julie Soefer

“Tim is an excellent chef with an extraordinary talent. As it stands, we have no executive chef positions available within Underbelly Hospitality. For that reason, he has been laid off,” Quincy said in response to CultureMap’s request for comment. “We are very appreciative of Tim and wish him all the best.”

Despite today’s news, Underbelly Hospitality has been growing since Shepherd’s departure last year. It recruited star chef Scott Muns to serve as culinary director and recently opened Pastore, an Italian seafood restaurant that’s located next to Georgia James in the Autry Park mixed-use development. It will open Spring Branch locations of Underbelly Burger and Texas comfort food restaurant Wild Oats later this year.

closings downtown news-you-can-eat

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