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    Breakfast News

    Over-the-top breakfast restaurant serves up 2 Houston-area locations

    Teresa Gubbins
    Apr 10, 2024 | 10:15 am

    A new-to-Texas breakfast chain is coming to the Houston area: Called Hash Kitchen, it's an Arizona-based concept that will open locations later this year in Pearland (9300 West Broadway St.) and Webster, where it will join restaurants such as Shake Shack and Velvet Taco in the Shops at Baybrook development (1065 W Bay Area Blvd.).

    Hash Kitchen birria

    Courtesy of Hash Kitchen

    Birria is one of eight hash options.

    They're two of six new locations across three states the chain will be opening in the next two years, including two more in Texas: Fort Worth, opening in May, and San Antonio, opening in 2025.

    Founded in 2015 in Arizona, Hash Kitchen is known for its over-the-top brunch experience, including a build-your-own Bloody Mary Bar, resulting in those excessive bloody Marys precariously stacked with various foodstuffs.

    Other signatures include their disco-ball decor theme, plus DJs spinning on site. Plus:

    • hash available in eight options: with brisket, pork chop, carnitas, ham, birria, a "stack" hash with eggs & chorizo-mashed potatoes on tortillas, and a "hangover" hash with braised beef, jalapeño cornbread & potato hash, poached eggs & onion rings
    • doughnuts, in decadent and unusual flavors such as cannoli

    The menu features playful cocktails and dishes such as fried chicken & waffle, birria bao buns, pineapple upside down pancakes, souffle pancakes, benedicts, breakfast potato tacos with eggs & avocado, frittatas, oatmeal, and an "Ah-sigh-ee" bowl, so thoughtful to have the pronunciation of acai spelled out.

    There's also a Nashville hot chicken sandwich and a burger served on a croissant.

    Hash Kitchen is part of The Maggiore Group, a restaurant company from husband-and-wife Joey and Cristina Maggiore, who've also created concepts such as The Sicilian Butcher, The Sicilian Baker, and The Mexicano. In 2021, they partnered with Utah-based Savory Fund, which owns Swig, Via 313, Pincho, and Mo’ Bettahs, to expand the brand into neighboring states.

    They currently have seven locations: six in Arizona, and one in Utah which they opened in 2023. Their plans also include opening two Texas locations of The Sicilian Butcher in Dallas and San Antonio.

    Savory Fund co-founder Andrew K. Smith calls Hash Kitchen a "one-of-a-kind dining experience."

    “We were born to be in Texas. Everything’s bigger in Texas, and everything’s bigger at Hash Kitchen and The Sicilian Butcher!” Joey Maggiore added “From the world’s biggest Build-Your-Own Bloody Mary Bar to 5-foot charcuterie boards, our dishes bring the flavor, the party, and the wow factor.”

    Maggiore comes from a restaurant background: His father was Tomaso Maggiore, founder of Tomaso’s Italian Restaurant in Arizona. Since Hash Kitchen debuted, Joey and Cristina have conceptualized The Sicilian Butcher, The Sicilian Baker, The Mexicano — which has experiential food like a 3-foot quesadilla — and their most recent creation, a fine-dining Italian concept called The Rosticceria.

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    Chris Cusack explains

    Houston bar owner speaks out about surprise arrest for health code violations

    Eric Sandler
    May 11, 2026 | 3:50 pm
    Chris Cusack
    Photo by Sergio Trevino
    Chris Cusack owns two locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse.

    Certainly one of the most unusual interactions between a restaurant and City of Houston officials took place on Wednesday, May 6 when Betelgeuse Betelgeuse owner Chris Cusack was arrested for violations health code violations at his location on Washington Avenue.

    News of the arrest spread quickly across social media over the weekend. Now, Cusack is ready to tell his side of the story.

    Cusack, whose time operating restaurants in Houston goes back more than 15 years to Down House and its affiliated restaurants such as Hunky Dory and D&T Drive Inn, tells CultureMap the problem began on Monday, May 4 when a health department inspector came to Betelgeuse Betelgeuse and asked to see the restaurant’s grease trap.

    The only problem is that location has never had a grease trap. Prior to becoming Betelgeuse Betelgeuse, it was Liberty Station, a pioneering bar in Houston’s craft beer and craft cocktail scenes. In the early days, Betelgeuse served food from a food truck. More recently, it prepares its food next door at The Bell and Crane. Cusack acknowledges he didn’t share this information with the inspector.

    “Usually I’m a charmer with the health department, but I was a little defensive. She kept asking me. I said, ‘ma’am, we don’t make food here,’” he explains. “The tone wasn’t my finest moment, but there was no name calling or anything like that. She said, ‘where does the food come from?’ I said, ‘it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s produced in a commercial kitchen.’”

    Cusack says he knew there would be a follow up, but he was shocked when the inspector returned two days later with more colleagues from the health department, TABC inspectors, and Houston Police Department officers.

    “I got somewhere between 21 and 25 citations,” Cusack says about the return visit. He got dinged for everything from graffiti in the bathroom to a missing Harris County tax stamp on the photo booth he leases from a vendor (it has both State of Texas and City of Houston stamps, Cusack says).

    One inspector told Cusack he needed a food dealer’s permit. He showed the inspector that a food dealer’s permit had been issued for the restaurant's address under the former food truck’s LLC but not to the LLC that operates Betelgeuse Betelgeuse. Cusack says he had renewed the food truck’s permit in March, but that wasn’t good enough for the inspector. In Cusack’s telling, he was arrested for not having the permit, since it was also flagged as missing in an inspection from October 2025. He's the only person he knows who has ever been arrested for a misdemeanor violation of the health code.

    Cusack says he spent 21 hours in the Harris County Jail. When he got out, he says he was contacted by a more senior official within the Health Department. Once Cusack confirmed he owned both LLCs, he was told he could reopen. Both locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse have been operating normally since Friday, May 8.

    Cusack maintains he never knew about the October 2025 inspection, which is why he renewed the food dealer’s permit for the food truck’s LLC rather than applying for one under Betelgeuse Betelgeuse’s LLC. “There’s no paper trail that shows I was given this information,” he says. “I did not get the email [from the Health Department].”

    As for why things got so out of hand, Cusack theorizes he was a victim of Houston Mayor John Whitemire’s crack down on “reckless behavior” on Washington Avenue and stepped up enforcement on bars generally that led to the temporary closure of near northside cocktail bar Rabbit’s Got the Gun.

    Cusack says he’s a “huge supporter” of efforts to reduce crimes like street racing, drug dealing, and sex trafficking along Washington and in its surrounding neighborhoods. Still, he feels targeting by the city for being impolite to a health inspector.

    He plans to fight both the arrest and the citations in court. “I want the charges dropped, and I want it expunged completely from my record. That’s the first thing, and I’m going to try very hard to do it,” he says.

    “That’s going to end up costing thousands of dollars just to deal with the sheer volume,” he adds.

    CultureMap contacted Mayor Whitmire’s office. A representative said the mayor was not aware of the situation and has no comment.

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