but will there be burger pizza?

Duo behind Burger Joint and Taco Stand set to debut new Heights pizzeria

Chef Matt Pak and entrepreneur Shawn Bermudez are ready to put their spin on another of America’s most popular dishes. The duo behind The Burger Joint and The Taco Stand will soon add pizza to their repertoire.

Scheduled to open next fall, their new pizzeria — dubbed The Pizza Place, obviously — will be located at 2124 N. Shepherd Dr., which is just down the street from the Heights locations of the Taco Stand and the Burger Joint. Construction has already begun to convert the former resale shop into a 3,800-square-foot restaurant that will also offer a 2,600-square-foot covered patio.

As its name implies, the restaurant will serve pizzas, pastas, salads, and gelato, all of which will be made in-house. Pak tells CultureMap that pizza seemed like a logical next step for the growing restaurant group that currently operates three Burger Joints and one Taco Stand.

“Pizza was the missing fast casual piece of the puzzle for me,” Pak says. “Burgers, tacos and pizza. I like a challenge and I’ve been intrigued by the art of pizza making for a long time.”

As for the style of pizza he’ll be serving, it’s described in press materials as a New York-Neapolitan hybrid that will be baked in a Forza Forni gas-wood oven. Pak’s goal is to have a Neapolitan’s chewy outer edge with a New York pie’s crispy bottom. The chef explains that he considered other options like Detroit or traditional Neapolitan but prefers to forge his own pizza path.

“Like everyone else, I have my opinion of my favorite pizza,” he says. "Although I have had great pizzas of the styles you mention, there is always an element missing when trying them. I want to create a pizza that has my favorite elements from several styles and I believe people will enjoy what I come up with.”

Pastas will be made fresh daily. Like he does with tacos, expect Pak to focus on familiar styles with a limited number of well-chosen ingredients for sauces and toppings. The Pizza Place’s beverage offerings will include beer, wine, and cocktails.

Although a couple of burgers at The Burger Joint nod to Pak’s Korean heritage, the chef says those influences won’t show up on The Pizza Place’s daily menu. But that doesn’t mean he won’t showcase that side of his cooking at the restaurant — or in other venues.

“I might not include any Korean influence on the menu but I certainly will on our monthly specials,” he says. “Besides, we have a concept in the works where I will be able to veer outside of the box more.”

Stayed tuned for more details on that unnamed project. In the meantime, Pak and Bermudez have their hands full with upcoming openings, including a second location of The Taco Stand in Webster and a fourth location of The Burger Joint near Rice Village. In an interview with CultureMap in May, Bermudez acknowledged plans to open additional locations of The Taco Stand as well as a dessert concept. Details on those — including addresses and when they’re expected to debut — will be released in the months to come.

Courtesy of The Pizza Place

The Pizza Place will be located near The Burger Joint and The Taco Stand.

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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 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 on an open investigation.

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