Heights cafe closing

Heights favorite bakery's in-house cafe announces surprise closing after 12-year run

Kraftsmen Cafe has served the Heights since 2010.

Photo by Julie Soefer/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

A popular Heights cafe will soon serve its last meals. Kraftsmen Baking & Café will cease restaurant operations this Sunday, March 12, owner Scott Tycer announced.

The cafe opened in 2010 in the space that had been utilized by Textile, Tycer’s pioneering tasting menu restaurant. Open daily for breakfast and lunch, the cafe serves dishes such as quiche, breakfast tacos, sandwiches, and salads.

The closure comes as Kraftsmen prepares to leave its longtime home on W 22nd St. for a new facility that’s expected to open this summer in a location that will be announced at a later date. Until the move occurs, the bakery will maintain its wholesale operations and a small retail presence that sells breads, pastries, and other baked goods.

“We have loved being a part of the Heights community, but our lease is expiring at 611 W 22nd street and we are not able to continue the full-service café operations at this location,” Tycer said in a statement. “We will continue to serve our artisan breads to both retail customers and our wholesale accounts, and hope to share plans for our new location in the near future. We very much enjoy the café portion and intend to jump back in when we can.”

Founded in 2001, Kraftsmen is among Houston oldest artisan bakeries. It supplies bread, sandwich rolls, burger buns, and more to more than 200 restaurants in Houston, Austin, and Galveston, including North Italia, Katz’s, and Roostar Vietnamese Grill.

Tycer added that the company will assist the cafe’s employees in finding jobs with the bakery’s wholesale clients. The retail bakery will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 8 am to 4 pm.

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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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