Houston restaurateur Lee Ellis, who died Monday, was a colorful and sometimes controversial figure on the Houston dining scene. (He once banned famed restaurant critic Alison Cook of the Houston Chronicle from his new Liberty Kitchen & Oyster Bar when it first opened.)
And, to be sure, Ellis was prolific. During his association with FEED TX Restaurant Group and later Cherry Pie Hospitality, Ellis had a hand in opening a number of restaurant concepts in Houston, working with partners, celebrity chefs and restaurateurs.
LOOK BACK AT LEE ELLIS: Lee Ellis, former longtime Houston restaurateur, has died at age 63
After parting ways with Cherry Pie in 2018, he moved to Round Top where he restarted his hospitality passions with Ellis Motel lounge and Round Top Smokehouse. But in Houston, his legacy was felt far and wide. Here are some of the important and well-known projects he helped conceptualize and realize in Houston:
BRC Gastropub: When it opened on Shepherd in 2010, BRC was a hit with adults for its beer and cocktail selections and a fun menu of sophisticated takes on comfort food. Diners enjoyed appetizers such as cheddar biscuits with bacon jam, house-fried chips and dip, fried oysters with buffalo sauce and blue cheese, and foie gras poutine. Entrees included burgers, fork-and-knife burger buns with a halo of fries, fried chicken platter, smoked brisket and meatloaf, fish and chips and flat iron steak. There was a menu that crowed loudly and as playfully as the “Big Red Rooster” statue mascot out front.
Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle
Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle
Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle
Dishes from BRC Gastropub. (Michael Paulsen/Houston Chronicle)
Liberty Kitchen: The BRC team opened the original Liberty Kitchen & Oyster Bar in 2011 at 1050 Studewood in the Heights as a new brand that sped up multiple locations, including River Oaks and Memorial City. It was a winning formula for FEED TX Restaurant Group: a casual and elegant oyster bar restaurant featuring American comfort food classics including gumbo, shellfish towers, steaks, burgers, sandwiches and salads, and fresh grilled seafood dishes served with imaginative cocktails. The two remaining Liberty outposts (Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette and Liberty Kitchen Treehouse) are now under new ownership.
Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle
Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle
Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle
Dishes at Liberty Kitchen & Oyster Bar. (Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle)
Lee’s Fried Chicken & Donuts: The FEED TX partners followed up the original Liberty Kitchen with a joyous amalgamation of foods dear to Texas’ culinary heart. The hospitality group took a former Church’s Chicken location in the Heights and created the spiffy Lee’s (named after Ellis) in 2015 as a place for amazing donuts and buttermilk-marinated fried chicken, chicken tenders and fried chicken sandwiches. Lees has been burning strongly for several years. Sambrooks Management Co. bought Lee’s in 2018 and renamed it Sam’s Fried Chicken & Donuts; it closed in 2020.
Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle
Julie Soefer
Julie Soefer
Dishes from Lee’s Fried Chicken & Donuts. (Julie Soefer)
State Fare Kitchen & Bar: In 2016, Ellis, working under the new Cherry Pie Hospitality, opened a restaurant offering Texas-inspired comfort food in the former Pour Society space in Memorial City. The State Fare site was one of three former Ogden Hospitality Group concepts that Cherry Pie took over and retooled. The big box that was Pour Society was completely redesigned as a hip/casual restaurant with a snarky cocktail list and a menu that leans heavily on Southern and Gulf Coast classics: Fried oysters, pimento cheese and fries with dill pickled dip, Texas chili, grilled shrimp and grits, chicken-fried ribeye steak, burgers and Southwestern Caesar salad. The three locations of State Fare are now owned by Culinary Khancepts.
State Fare Kitchen & Bar’s Southwest Caesar Salad offers plenty of texture thanks to black beans, corn, pumpkin seeds and fried tortilla strips.
Annie Mulligan/Freelance
Julie Soefer
Annie Mulligan/Annie Mulligan / For the Houston Chronicle
Dishes from State Fare Kitchen & Bar. (Annie Mulligan/Freelance)
Starfish: Cherry Pie took over the former Bradley’s Fine Diner at 191 Heights and transformed it into a charming seafood-centric restaurant that opened in 2017. (In the same Heights plaza, Cherry Pie also took over the former Bradley Ogden Hospitality’s Funky Chicken and reopened the space as Pi Pizza in 2016. ) Star Fish was a grand operation with an oyster bar that topped seafood towers, and a menu that included steak tartare, peppered salmon with crème fraiche, pan-seared crab cakes, fried oysters, mussels, puffy lobster tacos, pan-fried scallops, fried halibut, wood-grilled salmon and grilled lobster with shrimp and Creole sausage stuffing. After Sambrooks Management purchased Star Fish in 2018, it was renamed 1751 Sea and Bar, a restaurant that had a successful run until it closed earlier this month after the company decided not to renew its lease.
Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle
Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle
Salmon and drink at Star Fish. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle)
Greg Morago writes about food for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter. Send him news tips at [email protected] Listen to him on our BBQ State of Mind podcast to learn about Houston and Texas barbecue culture.
