Houston's new fry king

Surprise! Ken Hoffman nominates Kirby taqueria for Houston's best fries

Ken recommends getting the fries at Goode Co. Taqueria.

Photo by Jody Horton

Years ago, Esquire magazine conducted a search for the “Best French fries in America.” The winner was Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand on the corner of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island at 10 am Monday morning when they change the peanut oil.

Bull’s-eye! As they say, I’m familiar with the product. I grew up on Nathan’s hot dogs and fries. Every weekend, friends and I would drive to Coney Island and fill up on those fries. Nathan’s difference: they use Katahdin potatoes from Maine and pretty much buy out the entire crop.

Warning: the Nathan’s hot dogs and fries you find in the frozen food aisle at your local supermarket ain’t the same franks ‘n’ fries you get at Coney Island.

Esquire did another ranking of fries more recently. This time KFC was the winner by a “Secretariat-like margin.” I’m not even sure that KFC’s fries qualify as fries. They’re more like puff pastry. Memo: cancel my subscription to Esquire.

Drive-through essential

I love french fries. When I’m in the drive-through, I eat all my fries before I scrounge through the napkins and ketchup packets to the bottom of the bag for my Chick-fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich or my Whopper or Double Meat Whataburger.

Fries are the most important item at fast food restaurants. About 70 percent of fast food orders are pushed out the drive-through window. Now fast food chains are building restaurants that are drive-through only.

When you open the bag as you pull out of the drive-through, what’s the first thing you eat? It’s a grabful of fries. First impressions. Fries can make or break a fast food chain.

Of course McDonald’s fries are the gold standard of the fast food industry. McDonald’s uses Russet Burbank, Russet Ranger, Umatilla Russet, and Shepody potatoes. People love ‘em. They’re so crisp and salty. McDonald’s burgers? Pretty just OK, really. The sign outside about “over 99 billion burgers sold” is an insult to the real star of the show. It should say, “Octovigintillions of fries served hourly.”

(Octovigintillion is a real number, by the way. It’s equal to 1x10 to the 87th power. I have no idea how many that actually is, but it sounds like a lot.)

Most times I pass on a burger and get the supersized “basket of fries” at McDonald’s. That’s your big boy. The basket is supposed to serve two or three people. That’s so cute. It’s like a pint of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla says it contains three servings. This is America, we’re not quitters. Here’s what the nutritional label should say: “Directions: insert spoon, serves one.”

Even at an upscale sit-down restaurant with real silverware, when your plate of fish ‘n’ chips arrives, what’s the first thing you instinctively do? Grab a fry. And then you splash on the malt vinegar. If you haven’t tried malt vinegar on your fries, you’re missing out on the ultimate fry experience. Malt vinegar beats ketchup and it’s not close. And if I see you dip your fries in ranch dressing, well, one of us has to leave the table.

Goode Co. Taqueria interior The lunch took place at Goode Co. Taqueria.Courtesy of Goode Co.

Houston’s best fries

Which gets me around to: I’m constantly searching for the best fries in Houston. People tell me “you’ve got to try the fries at so-and-so” and I run. My ranking is constantly changing, and there’s nothing so personal as your opinion of fries, but here goes.

My new best fries in Houston are at...

Goode Company Taqueria on Kirby. Last week I had lunch with a certain co-worker who knows a thing or 10,000 about the Houston food scene. He ordered tacos, I ordered a burger and fries.

Our food arrived, and like a Pavlov dog, I reached for a fry. And then a few more. These are different. I think I’m in love. I spun my plate around and told my co-worker, “try these, they’re fantastic.” He took a few and agreed, “Yeah, they are good.” This guy saying “they are good” is as good as it gets in this town. I’ve been back two times already for these fries.

There’s my review. My No. 1 all-time best fries in Houston are at Goode Company Taqueria — for now.

french fries houston food scene burgers tacos tex-mex news-you-can-eat

Chris Cusack explains

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

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 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 on an open investigation.

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