Just as the Houston Astros are trying to upgrade their on-field product into something that resembles Major League quality after three consecutive seasons of setting franchise lows for wins, the team is also trying to improve the overall quality of the food at Minute Maid Park. After all, if the New York Mets can have a Shake Shack at Citi Field and AT&T Park in San Francisco can serve food that makes it a legitimate dining destination, why can't Houston have in-stadium dining options that are worthy of the city's food scene?
Chef Bryan Caswell, known for wearing a bright orange Astros cap during service, has been involved with the team since 2011, and his efforts to upgrade Minute Maid's dining options in the form of El Real tacos and Little Big's sliders have certainly helped, but, with more work to be done, he enlisted one of Houston's hottest chefs to assist.
Enter Ronnie Killen, the longtime steakhouse chef whose recently opened barbecue joint has been welcomed with near universal adulation and hour-plus long lines for meat. With Killen and Caswell already set to open a burger and barbecue restaurant tentatively called The Montrose Meat Co., partnering on a new food stand at Minute Maid was a natural fit.
Two hours before every game, Killen will send a delivery of 10 briskets to the stadium — wrapped in butcher paper and held in a cooler to keep them warm.
Known as Texas Smoke: Caswell's & Killen's Texas Smokehouse, the stand in section 124 will serve burgers, barbecue sandwiches and sides like beans and coleslaw. Yes, it's the same brisket and sides that Killen serves at his restaurant, not some reheated, drowned in sauce imposter that resembles actual barbecue in name only.
"As long as my name's on it, it's going to be good," Killen tells CultureMap.
For now, he's treating the stand like a season-long catering project. Approximately two hours before every game, Killen will send a delivery of 10 briskets to the stadium — wrapped in butcher paper and held in a cooler to keep them warm. Just like at the restaurant, when those briskets run out, that's it for the game. Killen says he refuses to consider cryovacing and reheating the meat on-site.
As soon as pictures of the stand hit Twitter, Killen says he started hearing from friends and industry contacts about what it means to be associated with a major sports stadium. He's happy for the exposure and recognizes it will put his barbecue in front of a lot of people who might not have made the drive to Pearland to try it. In other words, he's not going to screw this up.
Eventually, the future restaurant will supply the brisket, but that will take until mid-season (or longer, as anyone who's waited for a restaurant to open can attest).
Killen says he'll be on hand at Minute Maid this weekend to supervise and ensure that the staff treats the meat in a way that replicates ordering it from the line of his restaurant. Or, as close as can be approximated in a stadium.
If Chris Shepherdcan serve Underbelly's signature Korean braised goat and dumplings to the high rollers on the club level of Reliant Stadium, surely Killen can make his barbecue available to the baseball-loving masses.
The Texas Smoke stand at Minute Maid Park will serve briskets made at Killen's BBQ.
Julia Morales Twitter
The Texas Smoke stand at Minute Maid Park will serve briskets made at Killen's BBQ.
The Gold Over America Tour cast performing on NBC's "America's Got Talent."
First came the gold medals, now comes the Gold Over America Tour, the gymnastics mega-show headlined by Simone Biles, currently touring 30 cities around the United States and coming to Houston’s Toyota Center on Saturday, October 19.
Joining Biles are fellow Paris Olympic champions Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera, along with bronze medal-winning men’s team members Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Asher Hong, and Fred Richard, plus other gymnastics superstars. Adding men to the G.O.A.T. showcase is a new twist; the 2021 tour, post-Tokyo Olympics, had a cast made up entirely of women.
It’s a change that Biles hopes will help elevate men’s gymnastics around the country.
Juda, for one, couldn’t be more grateful. The Olympic medalist is still riding the wave of excitement from winning the first USA men’s team medal in 16 years, along with having achieved his own dream of competing in the Olympic individual all-around final.
We recently chatted with Juda, who took us behind the scenes of the G.O.A.T. show, the squad, and life on the tour bus as a college student missing classes to travel the country like a rock star.
CultureMap: At the Olympics this summer, the whole vibe of men’s and women’s USA gymnastics seemed happy and supportive of each other. How are you carrying that camaraderie into performing together as a troupe in the Gold Over America Tour?
Paul Juda: I think during the whole Olympic experience we just had a lot of joy. We had a lot of of fun outside of those two hours of competition. So the competition in and of itself was kind of like a "mission critical," and we were pretty focused, but we still tried to keep it light.
On this, there's no real competition; we’re here to put on the best show possible for the audience. And as long as we can kind of keep leaning in on each other like our support system, the shows are going to come easier because it's going to be a long tour. It's going to be hard, but fun together.
I can already see even just on the the two nights and three days that we've been here together, we've had a lot of fun. We're all best friends here, and we're going to bring that kind of energy to the stage.
CM: The last Gold Over America Tour was all women - and the theme was very much female empowerment, and girls as superheroes. Now that men are included, what can we expect from the show this time?
PJ: I think it's awesome (men are included) and I'm not even gonna lie, this tour just got, like, a million times better after making a medal. I'm really excited to get to do the show. It's going to be a lot of back and forth (between men and women). Yeah, we're doing some gymnastics; we're trying to learn a little bit of dancing. We've got lights, we've got a lot of songs, and we're bouncing off of each other's stories. There's going to be a lot of really fun, fun parts. (Note: Here's a preview.)
CM: Figure skating has shows like “Stars on Ice” and the old “Ice Capades” that they can join after the Olympics to perform for audiences. Would you like to see something like that for gymnasts, who often don’t get to really “entertain” audiences?
PJ: Yeah, (in gymnastics) we use the human body to all of its maximum capability, and (learning) dance moves, I enjoy using a different side of my brain. I'm a guy who would also enjoy a musical or a Broadway show or something like that, just for the element of like, “Wow. Look at the choreography and how they're able to add the music and the lights and everything in the whole production.”
And then you couple it with the fact that we have, like, extraordinary strength and flexibility and we can kind of do almost circus-like events, but then also add in a touch of difficulty - like hey, okay, they're not just acrobats; they also spent 20 years doing this sport.
I feel like it's the ultimate show. You know, it's some dance lights, some music, a storyline, you can watch your favorite athlete and then see him or her in a kind of different light. Now the athlete literally just gets to have fun out there. I wouldn't see why people wouldn't want to see more of this type of show.
CM: There’s so much buzz around gymnastics during the Olympics. How do you keep those fans interested the other three years in between, especially men’s gymnastics?
PJ: I'm hoping this tour does that, and I'm also confident, like anything that we do afterwards on the global stage (like "pommel horse guy" Stephen Nedoroscik competing on Dancing With the Stars), I hope people are like, "Oh yeah, I see them doing that. But I also remember they represent men's gymnastics."
Paul Juda on parallel bars for the University of Michigan team.Photo by John Cheng
Q: A lot of cast members are in college, including yourself (a graduate student), and you’re also captain of the University of Michigan Men’s Gymnastics team. How will you balance your studies and college athletics commitments while you’re on tour?
PJ: (He holds up a notebook with a calendar planner filled in.) This. I'm looking at my schedule today, I've got a weekly reflection. I've got a case to work on. I've got a data analytics assignment, a lecture to watch, and a reading quiz to do, so, it's a lot for sure. Hopefully after this tour I can come back and be in a really good place with my team. It's really bittersweet. (Teammate Fred Richard and I) we were able to have our only really big tailgate of the year for the Michigan football game last week. And I'm just so heartbroken because that that's like my favorite part of the year.
I think my team will be okay, though, and I've left some excellent people in charge … phenomenal captains, and I have no doubt that they'll keep the team on pace, and if they need anything from me, they'll text me.
And on top of that, in terms of school, I think honestly, if anything, it’ll just keep me doing the right things. I got to go to bed early to wake up early and get some homework done, that's probably for the best. I’ll try to do some lectures on the tour bus and stuff.
CM:The reception in Houston - hometown of Simone Biles and adopted hometown of Jordan Chiles - will be nuts, and of course Fort Worth is where the last National Championships was held this past summer. What cities are you most looking forward to?
PJ: Chicago and Detroit are going to be my two main places. I've got a lot of people coming for the Detroit show from University of Michigan, and then Chicago, that’s where I'm from. Every time that I've visited Texas, I really enjoy Texas. We'll have a lot of fun. I'm excited to see the Texans come out and specifically in that Austin area, we've got a lot of people there.
CM: Well, don’t forget your cowboy hat.
PJ: Alright!
Note: This interview was edited for clarity and brevity. The Gold Over America Tour, presented by Athleta, will take place at 7:30 pm October 19 at the Toyota Center in Houston. For tickets ($35-$500) and more information, visit the website.