ride the lightning

Rockin' new bar charges up EaDo with live music, cool cocktails, and plenty of pool tables

Agricole Hospitality is ready to unveil its new bar in EaDo. Lightnin’s Good Times opens this Wednesday, October 11.

Photo by Mikah Danae

Lightnin's Good Times opens this week.

Located in the former Miss Carousel space, Lightnin’s Good Times builds on Agricole’s success operating bars that utilize the standards of craft cocktails — quality spirits, fresh juices, eye-catching garnishes — in a casual, welcoming environment. Originally displayed at the first location of Eight Row Flint in the Heights, that perspective has grown recently with the addition of EZ’s Liquor Lounge in the Heights and Eight Row Flint’s second location in the East End.

Unlike those sister concepts, Lightnin’s Good Times feature a stage that will host live music during the week and DJs on the weekends. Inside, customers will find pinball machines, dart boards, and pool tables. The decor takes a page from EZ’s with vintage advertisements, neon signs, and plenty of TVs for following along with the night’s games.

Agricole Hospitality co-owner Morgan Weber tells CultureMap that the decision to shift from Miss Carousel to Lightnin’s reflects the way EaDo has changed over the past few years. Instead of the area’s bars and restaurants being destinations themselves, they operate in a larger context of people coming there before and after Astros, Rockets, and Dynamo games.

“If that’s the direction the neighborhood is going, I want to create something for the people who want to pre-game or post-game it,” Weber says. “If people are going to see a show at Toyota Center, they can come before or after to keep the party going.”

In that context, a more casual bar with an affordable menu of well executed classic cocktails should be a welcome addition to the area. The Lightnin’s menu includes staples such as the margarita, ranch water, Old Fashioned, vodka and gin martinis, and a gin and tonic. Of course, the bar serves a nitro espresso martini made local favorite Katz Coffee. Food will be provided by Vinny's, Agricole's pizzeria that's next to Lightnin's.

“I could never say we haven’t learned a ton from EZ’s over the last year. To me it seems like people are less about getting their skirt blown up with your ability to throw something in a centrifuge and clarify it and more about having a place they can go have good quality drinks at a good price,” Weber says. “When we designed the drink menu, I don’t want to sell people $14, $16 cocktails. I want people to come out and get $9 or $10 drinks that are high quality and work for us financially and give people a high quality experience.”

Weber says the live music component takes inspiration from staples like Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar and Shoeshine Charley’s Big Lounge. The new stage has been designed to make it easy for local acts to showcase their talent.

“It’s a nice vibe on a random weeknight to go somewhere and see a band that just crushes. [We want] To support that side of the artist with a space they can play in easily without having to schlep all their gear, just plug in and play,” he says.

Of course, Lightnin’s Good Times isn’t Agricole’s only new concept for 1201 St Emanuel. The company is also working on a new Tex-Mex restaurant that will open in the former Indianola space. Weber shares that he expects the new eatery to open in mid-to-late November and that the biggest change to the space is the installation of a new bar. More details, including the restaurant’s name, will be shared closer to when it opens.

“Lightnin’s was just easier. It was a lighter life, and we could get things done quicker,” he says. “I’m super excited about that, too. I always wanted to do a Tex-Mex place.”

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New York Times critic awards Houston restaurant 2 stars in glowing review

Courtesy of ChòpnBlọk

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Let’s just call 2025 the year of ChòpnBlọk. In a review published Tuesday, December 16, the New York Times has awarded the Houston restaurant two stars (“very good”).

Written by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao, the review touts many of the same qualities that the Times already praised when it included ChòpnBlọk on its list of America’s 50 best restaurants.

Rao writes that she usually avoids restaurants that serve food in bowls, but she’s impressed by the way that chef-owner Ope Amosu has put a West African spin on the concept.

“For inspiration, Ope Amosu looked to the kind of chain restaurants that were built to scale, where flavors are often subdued to appeal to the broadest possible audience, focus-grouped to death. But the delight of ChòpnBlok is in its sure sense of self, its lively, multidimensional cooking and clear, delicious vision for modern food from the Black diaspora,” Rao writes.

She singles out specific dishes, including the Nigerian red stew with short rib, the Black Star bowl with shrimp, and the signature Motherland, made with chicken, greens, and plantains. “It’s utterly simple, but draws you in for more with the mouthwatering twang of not-too-much MSG — an international shortcut to building umami that tends to be used carefully, and layered with other forms,” she writes.

The review also touches on the way Amosu switched the restaurant from counter service to full service — described as “warm, informal, and quick with the jokes” — and his time working at Chipotle to learn the basics of the restaurant operations.

A two-star review is only the latest instance of ChòpnBlọk receiving national attention. In addition to the Times 50 best list, Esquire recently named it one of America’s best new restaurants. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand designation for 2025. Amosu earned a semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Texas in the 2025 James Beard Awards.

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