Sweet Success

Beloved Houston-area online bakery rises with new brick-and-mortar location

Fans of Water Oak House's tasty cakes and pies: rejoice. Formerly only available online, the business is set to open a brick-and-mortar location this April in the Baybrook Passage Shopping Center at at 19435 W. Bay Area Blvd. in Webster.

The 3,000-plus-square-foot location is directly across from the Baybrook Mall, according to the company.

Water Oak House Bakey/Facebook

Fans can get items like this at the new store.

Owner Dena Baughman is no stranger to entrepreneurial efforts. Prior to Water Oak House, she ran the successful brick-and-mortar Dena's Bakery, a tea room in Baytown, as well as home catering company, Dinner Any Thyme. Water Oak House launched in 2014.

The new locale will feature longtime Water Oak House favorites, along with new items for breakfast and lunch that offer a modern take on classic dishes. Look for selections such as full-sized and multilayered cakes, seasonal pies, cookies and quiches.

Breakfast selections include egg-forward dishes, such as country ham eggs Benedict, Meyer lemon avocado toast, and a maple sausage and white cheddar breakfast sandwich, along with shrimp and grits, brioche French toast, and peaches and cream overnight oats.

Guests will also find options such as a curried chicken salad sandwich, black pepper bacon BLT salad, and Texas chili on the lunch menu.

Baughman has chronicled the journey to her new space on the Water Oak House website, including details about the planning process, consulting meetings, ideas for menu items, and more. Austin-based interior designer Kim Lewis, responsible for the vibrant looks of Torchy’s Tacos at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Kesos Tacos in Austin, Tellers Coffee in Chicago, and other projects, has been tapped to design the space.

Baybrook Passage is owned by the Gulf Coast Commercial Group. In a statement announcing the project, the organization's COO was excited to welcome Water Oak House to the development, calling Baughman's business "the first truly boutique business" in the center since Gulf Coast purchased it last year.

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restaurant boom

Texas to lead nation in culinary job growth by 2032, report predicts

Photo by Lucas Law on Unsplash

With all the booming restaurant scenes in major cities like Houston, Texas' overall culinary industry will grow faster than the rest of the country within the next six years, Escoffier found.

A new analysis of the states that will have the most culinary industry job growth has revealed that Texas is expected to lead the nation with the fastest growth in the country by 2032.

The nationally recognized Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts' study, published December 30, 2025, compared all 50 states to determine their job prospects for chefs and head cooks, restaurant cooks, and food service managers based on three key metrics: projected growth rates from 2022-2032; "absolute job creation" (the total number of projected new positions) during the same 10-year span, and actual job growth rates from 2022-2024.

Texas' culinary industry is expected to grow by 24.88 percent by 2032, the report found, which is the highest projected growth rate nationwide. That translates to more than 52,000 culinary jobs created within the next six years.

Escoffier also broke down individual projections across all three metrics:

45,150 new restaurant cook jobs, a 39.72 percent increase
3,580 new chef and head cook jobs, a 19.76 percent increase
3,340 new food service manager jobs, a 15.17 percent increase

"The top three states alone — Texas, California, and Florida — will add nearly 130,000 culinary jobs, almost 45 percent of all jobs created in this industry (despite those states making up about 28 percent of the nation’s population)," the report said. "This demonstrates an extraordinary scale of opportunity for job seekers willing to relocate to states with booming restaurant scenes."

Major Texas cities, including Houston, are home to numerous highly esteemed award-winning chefs that are defining local restaurant scenes. And there are just as many up-and-coming chefs rising through the culinary pipeline.

As Escoffier notes, projections are just one factor among many that determine the strength of the national culinary industry. Texas' combined actual culinary job growth from 2022-2024 is down 0.28 percent when compared to expectations.

"This simply means that, over the past few years, the state appears to have underperformed growth projections; the industry still grew in that state, but perhaps not as much as anticipated," the report's author clarifies. "Given the short timeframe (2022-2024), this category plays a small role in our rankings relative to the ten-year projections."

Washington led the U.S. with the most new culinary jobs added from 2022-2024, with 5,800 positions created during that time. Escoffier said Washington handily beat expectations that only 1,300 jobs would be added, representing a 348 percent "overperformance."

The top 10 states with the fastest-growing culinary industry are:

No. 1 – Texas
No. 2 – California
No. 3 – Georgia
No. 4 – Florida
No. 5 – Washington
No. 6 – North Carolina
No. 7 – Utah
No. 8 – Arizona
No. 9 – Nevada
No. 10 – Alabama

texas culinary job market reports

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restaurant boom

Texas to lead nation in culinary job growth by 2032, report predicts