These Couples Power Some of Houston’s Best Restaurants

The couples behind Bludorn, Duck N’ Bao, Truth BBQ, and more dish on when the sparks first flew

Working in the restaurant industry requires a lot of commitment. Being a chef, server, or bartender means spending most days working at your craft while trying to make ends meet or make a culinary dream come to fruition. For many food and hospitality workers, that also means building a life at work that’s full of friends who become family, or…dare we say lovers? It’s no coincidence, then, that Houston’s dining scene is full of couples who met while working in the industry, and through all the ups and downs, they’re still going strong. Here’s a roundup of some of the Houston restaurant and bar scene’s most interesting couples and how they met.

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Victoria Pappas-Bludorn and Aaron Bludorn, Bludorn, Navy Blue, Bar Bludorn, Perseid

Aaron Bludorn was working as executive chef of New York’s Cafe Boulud in 2014 while on a trip with a co-worker when she asked to connect him with her friend Victoria Pappas. Bludorn had already spotted Victora, who was staging at Daniel Boulud’s restaurants at the time. “I remember asking the maitre d’, ‘Who’s that?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, that’s Victoria Pappas. She’s way out of your league!’” (Victoria is the daughter of Christopher J. Pappas, the founder and CEO of Houston’s Pappas Restaurants, which operates restaurants like Pappasito’s Cantina, Pappas Seafood Houston, Little’s Oyster, and more.)

Meanwhile, Victoria had spotted Aaron, too. She remembers thinking, “That chef is so cute.” “I’m going to dress up a little more today,” she says. “I just thought he was firing on all cylinders, which is always true about Aaron, and I was super impressed,” she says.

Two years later, someone made a move. After editing and rewriting the message several times, Aaron texted Victoria on Christmas Eve in 2015, asking if she wanted to grab a drink. “I remember I looked away and pressed send,” he says. Victoria said yes, then they went on their first date in January 2016. The rest, as they say, is history.

“Everything was so easy and effortless,” Aaron says. “It’s like, you just know it because nothing else matters, and all that sort of convention, the tip-toeing around or being kind of scared of how you’re going to look and come off.” The challenges they faced felt far less daunting to solve when they partnered to work through them, and, even though they worked in the same place, they were always cognizant of maintaining their professionalism. “There was excitement around every corner, and that was always really something to look forward to,” Victoria says. “And that’s still true today.”

The couple married in 2018 and, a year later, relocated to Houston to open Aaron’s namesake restaurant, Bludorn. Together, they’ve opened four restaurants and have three children (two boys and one girl). Victoria says she often thinks back to how gracefully her mother raised her and aims to provide the same for their children.

Victoria’s deep knowledge of Texas’s restaurant industry has been an asset to their family. “When we’re opening restaurants, or things are stressful, or we’re going through a hurricane or a freeze, she gets it because she grew up in this,” Aaron says. He adds that she’s pushed him to take days off to rest and spend time with her and the family, making him more efficient about prioritizing between his work and personal life.

Aside from venturing off to the kid-friendly Coltivare in the Heights, the Bludorns also like to visit Handies Douzo or Hillstone, sometimes unwinding, other times addressing work things over a martini. “The key to success is understanding what the other person’s going through and giving each other grace while maintaining the connection together,” Aaron says.

Abbie Byrom-Botello and Leonard Botello IV, Truth BBQ

Abbie Botello was sitting on her couch with takeout in her pajamas on a cold November night in New York when she received a text message from a friend. A group of guys from Texas were in town. Leonard Botello IV, a fairly recent graduate from Texas A&M University, was one of those guys. Could she show them around? Abbie initially declined. Her friend persuaded her: “‘Just take them out…Let some Texas boys buy you a drink,” Abbie recalls. She obliged, taking them on a full bar crawl through the East Side of Manhattan.

“This whole time, everyone is so chatty — except for Leonard,” Abbie says. “He’s in the group, but he’s definitely not participating. He’s not talking to anybody about anything.” Leonard says his social anxiety got the best of him.

Later, at the last stop of the night, Abbie made her way through the packed dive bar to the bathroom. When she came out, Leonard was waiting for her. Perplexed, she rudely asked what he was doing. “Because this is what gentlemen do,” he told her flatly before going upstairs and buying her a drink. Abbie found herself intrigued. “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked him. He did. “Are you going to marry her?”

That question put Leonard on the spot and got him thinking. No, he didn’t want to marry his girlfriend. “It kind of ruined my night, honestly,” he says. The two later awkwardly parted ways — Abbie to her New York apartment and Leonard back home to Brenham, where he’d be busy starting the initial outpost of Truth BBQ. Six months later, Abbie received a text from an unknown number — “Hey, stranger.”

She just knew it was Leonard, but “I couldn’t remember his name, so I put his name in my phone as ‘Texas,’” she says. Texts led toFaceTimes, which eventually led to a long-distance relationship. Abbie nervously flew to Austin for their first date in July 2015, and after refuting suspicions that she was being catfished, that’s when it became official. Before her flight back to New York, she told him matter-of-factly: “I’m obviously moving to Texas because you have a business.” A year later, Abbie moved to Austin, and sometime after that, they bought a house together. The two got engaged in early 2020, and after a couple of postponements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they finally tied the knot in a festive wedding in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2021.

Abbie and Leonard now run Truth BBQ as a team, but it’s not always easy. Leonard says they bumped heads a lot in the beginning. Truth was his baby, and he was protective, but Abbie brought a lot of knowledge from the corporate side, having previously worked as the director of global marketing for Samsung. The two eventually found their own lane, recognized each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and found balance. “We really feed off of each other,” he says. “If I drop the ball, she’s there to pick it up, but together, we attack everything much better.”

The couple says working together daily has created a special dynamic and an even closer bond. “I love working with my husband,” Abbie says. “That’s my best friend, and I get to hang out and see him every day. We each bring something different to the table.”

Fun fact: Leonard’s name remains in Abbie’s phone as “Texas.”

Lori and Ryan Pera, Coltivare and I’ll Have What She’s Having

Courtesy of Lori and Ryan Pera

“I never thought I was going to get married,” says Lori Pera. Her career as a doctor seemed far too demanding to balance a relationship. The hours were long, and a good night of sleep seemed rare, but when she received a text from Ryan Pera, a chef from the fancy three-Michelin-starred restaurant she had recently visited, she felt intrigued. Lori recalls Ryan asking her out through text and him being understanding. The chef acknowledged her busy schedule and seemed appreciative of whatever she had time for. It was a stark contrast to the pressure she had gotten from previous suitors. And on Super Bowl Sunday 2002, they went on a date to Grey Dog Coffee in Greenwich Village. “It was awesome,” says Ryan.

“It was just this feeling that I could have companionship and have a fun time,” she says (and he didn’t mind if she was so exhausted that she fell asleep at dinner). “That’s somebody I could be with for a long time.”

When it came to finishing medical school, Lori says Ryan encouraged her to go to the best programs in the country, vowing to follow her so they could date another year. She landed a program at Baylor College of Medicine, and so it was. “I felt like I could cook anywhere, and had I had never been to Houston,” Ryan says. The two entered a common law marriage, and after Ryan opened Coltivare in the Heights, they held their surprise wedding in the restaurant disguised as a friends and family event (only the officiant and planner knew the plan). This past January, Lori, a successful vascular surgeon, and Ryan, owner of Coltivare, celebrated 11 years of marriage.

The key was they both understood the other’s demanding schedules and admired one another’s work. “Lori loves food. When we want to go to the latest, greatest restaurant, she’s always excited to do so, and when Valentine’s Day falls on a Friday, she knows I’m going to be late,” Ryan says. And it turns out there is some overlap. Together, Lori and Ryan founded the nonprofit I’ll Have What She’s Having in 2017, which aims to improve health in the hospitality industry by providing education, access to health care, and initiatives to raise awareness.

Lori adds, “I highly recommend doctors and chefs to pursue each other because it does work out.” Their motto today is that Lori saves lives, food makes life worth living, and they always have Super Bowl Sunday to celebrate their first date.

Erin and Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ

Julie Soefer

It was 2012 — the “heydey” of Montrose — when pitmaster Patrick Feges, then working at Underbelly, hired Erin, a bubbly, energetic chef with pink bangs, to curate the food menu at new coffee shop Blacksmith. Erin, who was then doing the research and development cooking at Hay Merchant, says Patrick seemed a little goofy. He commented on her U.S. Men’s soccer jersey and asked her out. She wasn’t able to go (and was sort of relieved). However, with the impending Go Pig or Go Home event, in which participants were encouraged to get creative with a suckling pig, she needed his help. Erin wanted to use a smoker, and Patrick was the only person she knew who knew how to use one.

The two spent the day together smoking a pig in Kata Robata’s parking lot and most of the night drinking Lone Star beers on the bed of Patrick’s truck. “He was not at all who I thought he was,” she says — but in a good way. So when he asked her out again, she said yes. The two started dating and hosting pop-ups together at bars around the city. They got engaged in 2015 and held a very Feges-style wedding in 2016, complete with a whiskey bar and barbecue from pitmaster Wayne Mueller, who cooked on-site. They later opened their Greenway location of Feges BBQ in 2018.

“Before I met Patrick, barbecue occupied such a small part of my life that I could not have ever fathomed that I would end up here, but through Patrick, I really developed an appreciation of it,” Erin says.

The couple says that operating a restaurant has had its own set of challenges and triumphs, but once they had their son, there was a new learning curve. That’s where the “unsexy word — ‘teamwork’” came into play, Erin says. But working together has many perks. Patrick and Erin often turn their work trips into mini vacations for their family. “With the little free time we have, we like to invest in the people important to us,” Erin says, which often means hanging out with the people they love around the house.

Grace and Leo Xia, Duck N’ Bao and Hongdae 33 Korean BBQ

Jenn Duncan

Grace Xia says she was out shopping one day when she got a craving for shredded pork in garlic sauce, her favorite Chinese dish, but she was having a hard time finding a restaurant that could make it right. A Google search for the closest Chinese restaurant to her landed her at Green Garden in Cypress. While placing her order to go, Leo Xia walked out of the kitchen.

“I thought, ‘Oh, he’s Chinese. Let’s talk,’” says Grace, who then worked as a tech consultant. After a brief conversation, the two exchanged numbers. “We didn’t really have that [romantic] feeling,” Grace says, but she was interested in whether Green Garden could deliver. Once she returned home, Grace says she was surprised by the flavor of the shredded pork. “I texted him immediately. ‘It’s really delicious,” she says. She ordered it a second time. She texted him again. “I told him it wasn’t as good as last time. I was just being honest.”

Soon, simple texts evolved into full-blown conversations. Grace and Leo found they shared a deep appreciation for restaurants and would talk non-stop about the food and hospitality business. After a year of friendship, Grace says they began dating in 2017 and married in 2018. Soon, they began opening restaurants together, transforming Green Garden into what is now Duck N’ Bao and opening additional locations in Memorial and Rice Village. Grace, who typically runs the front-of-house and the finances, and Leo, who runs the kitchen, also own Hongdae 33 Korean BBQ, an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurant, and plan to open two entirely new restaurants in the near future.

The couple, who have a daughter, says the key to surviving in the restaurant industry as a married couple is looking at the bigger picture — the restaurant is not just a job; it’s an entire business and livelihood. There have been some arguments, but it’s all about working together, Grace says, and sometimes, compromise. “My husband is a really good listener. He tries to make me happy, so he does everything I want,” Grace says, laughing.

Leo agrees: “Happy wife, happy life!”