What's Eric Eating Episode 284
Houston's red-hot restaurateur Ben Berg dishes on his 9 hotly anticipated new concepts
Ben Berg is this week's guest.
On this week’s episode of “What’s Eric Eating,” Berg Hospitality Group founder Ben Berg joins CultureMap food editor Eric Sandler to discuss his growing company. Currently, Berg operates eight Houston-area bars and restaurants, but that number will double by the end of 2023.
With that in mind, Sandler and Berg go through all of them with the restaurateur describing each concept and providing an updated timeline for each. They are:
- Annabelle’s, an French-inspired brasserie
- Benny Chows, a Cantonese-inspired Chinese American restaurant
- Buttermilk Baby, a retro-styled soda fountain
- Canopy Social, a rooftop bar
- Dune Road, a New England seafood restaurant
- La Table, a fine dining French restaurant
- Prime 131, a live fire steakhouse
- Tavola, a Roman-style Italian restaurant
- Turner’s Cut, a luxurious steakhouse
Sandler asks Berg what the company is doing to prepare itself for all this growth.
We’ve invested a lot in people. We’ve brought in a lot of hires who have a lot more experience than I do, or, at least, some of them have years more experience. It’s kind of exciting,” he says.
“In the past two years, we’ve created the Berg Hospitality mission, our values. We’re in this position now, three years ago we had 13 or 14 group employees. Right now, we have 32. It’s merging these personalities, getting the strategy correct, and creating an infrastructure to support the stores.”
Listen to the full interview to hear Berg discuss the other styles of restaurant he’d like to do one day. He also shares the one Houston restaurant he’s been visiting regularly.
Prior to the interview, Sandler and co-host Linda Salinas discuss the news of the week. Their topics include: new owners acquiring Weights + Measures, New York City-based coffee shop and cafe Citizens’ plans to open in Montrose; and Bobby Heugel adding daytime coffee service to Refuge.
In the restaurant of the week segment, Salinas and Sandler share first impressions of Ojo de Agua, the Mexico City-based all-day cafe that just opened in River Oaks District.
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