In 2012, Christine Ha beat out seventeen other amateur chefs to win season three of
MasterChef. Her attention to detail and inspiring story Ha is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and the TV show’s first blind contestant made her a fan favorite. Her winnings included a cookbook deal and a check for $250,000. Ha felt compelled to strike while the iron was hot, but as she began scouting locations for her first restaurant in her hometown of Houston, reality set in.
“I won a quarter of a million dollars but a lot went to taxes, and when we looked at spaces around town and the numbers, it was going to cost around a million dollars to do the build-out,” Ha says. “I didn’t feel ready to take that on when I was still very new to the food industry.”
An oral history of what Covid-19 has done to the Houston hospitality industry.
By
Timothy Malcolm
3/17/2021 at 9:48am
Published in the Spring 2021 issue of
Houstonia
Covid-19 dominated everything in 2020, from the way we lived (mostly at home) to how we ate (again, mostly at home). In Houston it significantly altered the restaurant industry, with more than 100,000 workers temporarily finding themselves out of work during the year, according to the Greater Houston Restaurant Association. Restaurants closed for weeks, and in some cases permanently, chefs and workers found themselves out of jobs, and a city known for how much its residents go out to eat retreated.
3 hot new food halls heat up The Heights, Galleria, and Midtown Conservatory Midtown will feature a rooftop deck.
Courtesy of The Oxberry Group The hospitality group behind Bravery Chef Hall has an ambitious agenda for 2021. The
Company of Nomads will open three new projects in the coming months, partner Shepard Ross tells CultureMap. Two previously announced projects Railway Heights Market, the expansive food hall, market, and bar and Conservatory Galleria, a new food hall in the space once occupied by The Roxy nightclub are on track for late spring and summer openings, respectively. In addition, the company will open a new version of Conservatory in The Crossing at Midtown (610 Dennis St.).