Montrose's cosmic cocktail lounge

Spacey new bar and cosmic cocktail spot from Burger Joint owner blasts off in Montrose

A favorite Montrose bar space returns to service this week. Roswell’s Saloon opens this Thursday, May 25, in the former Stone’s Throw space at 1417 Westheimer Rd.

Before getting into the details of the space-themed spot, let’s backtrack just a bit. Roswell’s owner Shawn Bermudez tells CultureMap he planned to open the bar three months or so after Stone’s Throw closed in January 2020. For obvious reasons, those plans changed.

In the interim, Bermudez turned his attention to growing his other business. First, he temporarily moved to Austin to open two locations of his Pavement clothing store brand.

On the restaurant front, he and chef Matthew Pak launched The Taco Stand as a companion to The Burger Joint in the Heights in January 2021. They also opened a third location of The Burger Joint near Baybrook Mall in December 2021. Both concepts are poised for significant growth, with a second location of The Taco Stand already announced for Webster.

“We are expanding The Burger Joint. We have two more projects in the works,” Bermudez says. “We have four more Taco Stands in the works. We have two other full restaurants openings and a dessert concept opening.”

All that growth meant something had to give, so Bermudez quietly sold Present Company, his Instagram-beloved bar on Westheimer, in November (its new owners temporarily closed the bar in January for renovations). Having operated the space as both Royal Oak and Present Company since 2010, Bermudez says moving on was difficult but necessary.

“If I’m able to get a fair price for Present Company, it frees up so much of my time to do these other projects,” he explains. “That’s how much work Present Company took. That’s why it was the right time.”

Out of all the other projects Bermudez is working on, Roswell’s space-themed design — a “cosmic cocktail lounge” in press materials — makes it stand out. The bar’s neon sign takes inspiration from the Glitter Gulch, a famous Las Vegas strip club. Inside, patrons will find planets, an astronaut, and other artifacts hanging from the ceiling. Projection mapped graphics add movement to the walls. Upstairs, vintage-looking posters depict everything from the iconic “The Truth is Out There” motif to the signs of the Zodiac.

Since all of the lighting is either blacklight or neon, Bermudez made sure all of the floors, walls, and bartops are UV-reactive. Overall, the look is a mix of ‘60s space kitsch and the bedroom of a ‘70s teenager.

“Space is endless. The possibilities of what I could do were endless,” he says. “It allowed me creatively to venture out there. It gave me a theme for the entire place that isn’t just decor. It stretches to the cocktails, [including] flavor and presentation.”

Typically, Bermudez does all his own design work, but this time he had some help. DJ David Wrangler — better known as Disko Cowboy — contributed to the space-inspired playlist. Local artist Shelbi Nicole helped with the interior, and media lab Input Output created the projection mapping that’s seen on the walls and the exterior.

Just like at Present Company, Roswell’s Saloon’s cocktails have been designed to be both eye-catching and tasty. Glassware includes space capsule-shaped shot glasses and others that are inspired by planets including Uranus and Mars. The Pale Blue Dot is, of course, named for Earth, and the Crop Circles cocktail uses a housemade elote syrup. A monthly cocktail will take inspiration from the different Zodiac signs (starting with Gemini).

Since the bar looks better after dark, it won’t open until 7 pm. To help lure customers, a Sunset Hour promotion will offer half-off cocktails and $2 off all beer, wine, and bubbles.

Now that he’s firmly established as a restaurateur — his first, the Mexican-inspired tacos and tequila bar Pistolero’s, will celebrate its 10th anniversary next month — is Roswell’s Saloon going to be Bermudez’s last bar?

“I said Present Company was. In my mind, [Roswell’s] was a remodel of an existing space. I always loved the build out. The layout here has always been pretty comfortable,” he says.

“I loved what we did at Royal Oak. I loved what we did at Present Company. Scaling down felt right to me. I love Montrose. To give up a space like this in Montrose didn’t make sense to me.”

Photo by Becca Wright

Roswell's Saloon's bright, glowing interior is quite the trip.

Montrose New Bar Roswells Saloon Shawn Bermudez cocktails openings

hail to the chef

Food & Wine's Best New Chef list includes Gulf Coast-obsessed Houstonian

Photo by Ally Hardgrave

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A Houston chef is basking in the national spotlight. Food & Wine magazine has named Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition executive chef Lucas McKinney to its 2026 class of Best New Chefs.

Announced Tuesday, September 15, McKinney is one of 14 chefs nationally — and the only Texan — to receive the prestigious award. He joins a roster of local Best New Chef alumni that includes Michael Cordua (Churrascos, Americas), Bryan Caswell (Reef, Latuli), Chris Shepherd (Underbelly, Georgia James), Justin Yu (Oxheart, Theodore Rex), and Emmanuel Chavez (Tatemó), whose win in 2023 made him the first Houston chef to be named a Best New Chef since Yu in 2014.

Open since 2023, Josephine’s is a Gulf Coast-inspired seafood restaurant in Midtown. Named for McKinney’s great-grandmother Althea Josephine, its menu is inspired in part McKinney’s family history in the seafood business. It sources ingredients from across the Gulf Coast, including blue crab, redfish, oysters, and local produce.

Both Josephine’s and McKinney have already earned significant awards, including both Rising Star Chef of the Year and Neighborhood Restaurant of the Year in the CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, a Rising Star award from Star Chefs magazine, and a Recommended designation in the Michelin Guide.

“I don't know how to put it into words,” McKinney said in a statement. “Josephine's would be nothing without our team, the farmers and fishermen we’ve built relationships with, and our guests who support us. To be able to do something this big with Gulf Coast cooking – the fish we grew up eating, the crabs we grew up cooking, the oysters we shucked at home – means the world.”

McKinney has come a long way from his time as a line cook at Georgia James and a chef de cuisine at Hay Merchant. He credits Shepherd for pushing him to think about the future and what kind of chef he wanted to be.

"I didn’t know how big a moment that would be," McKinney tells CultureMap about his time at Hay Merchant. "The trust they put in me to have fun and cook. I look back, Chris would say, 'what do you want to cook?' I’d say a 'divey oyster bar.' Seven years later, we’re here in New York on the biggest stage with the best people. I’ll come back home on Thursday to shuck oysters."

In an essay on the Food & Wine website, Shepherd praises McKinney — who worked for him at Georgia James, Hay Merchant, and Georgia James Tavern — for the way the chef has embraced his Gulf Coast roots at Josephine’s. Shepherd praises many of the restaurant’s signature dishes, such as smoked red fish dip, gumbo, and Viet-Cajun crawfish, which sell “a few thousand pounds a week in peak season.” Shepherd notes that McKinney’s talents extend beyond his cooking.

“Chefs, staff, and diners are drawn to McKinney, not just because of how delicious his food is but because he is generous with what he knows,” Shepherd writes. “Spend enough time at Josephine’s, and you may find him pulling up a chair to explain the best way to eat a hard shell blue crab; I’ve seen him do it. In that moment, he’s passing along a Gulf Coast tradition that has been in his family for generations.”

Speaking to CultureMap from New York, Shepherd says McKinney came onto Food & Wine's radar after participating in last year's Southern Smoke Festival. Many of his fellow BNC alumni dined at Josephine's either before or after the festival.

"For me, every time you see someone who worked for you succeed, it’s a beautiful moment. All I want for them is to follow their dreams. It’s pretty amazing," Shepherd says.

Six of this year's BNC recipients, including McKinney, will participate in this year's Southern Smoke Festival, which is taking place at Discovery Green on Saturday, October 3. Southern Smoke shared which chefs are coming and what they're cooking in an email. Tickets for the festival are available here.

Food & Wine has named Best New Chefs since 1988. To be eligible, chefs must have led a kitchen for five years or less. The magazine’s editors travel across the country to scout applicants. Finalists undergo background checks, including anonymous surveys by the restaurant’s staff to evaluate the culture at their businesses. Previous recipients include culinary superstars such as Thomas Keller, David Chang, Tom Colicchio, and more.

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