Houston Is Powering Through Lunch

Local restaurant owners noticed Houston diners have less time and money to spend on lunch. So they adapted.

Houston chef Jacques Fox, who has worked in the food and hospitality industry for more than 50 years, mourns the days when people used to really eat lunch. He dreams of two-and-a-half-hour leisurely work lunches with wine, he says. But Houston is in a new age of lunching.

Many local chefs say lunch service is now inconsistent and unpredictable, with restaurants serving fewer diners for mid-day meals. Lunch at Upper Kirby Mexican restaurant Picos, for example, has declined around 40 percent since the pandemic, according to chef-owner Arnaldo Richards — a brutal hit considering that restaurants and diners have been reeling from increased costs of food, labor, electricity, sewage, and the like. “I’ve never seen it like this,” he says. One day, lunch service at Picos could welcome in 150 people, once a standard. The next day, the restaurant sees only 40 diners. And he’s not alone.

Many Houston chefs say the COVID pandemic jump-started this significant shift: At its height, companies across the country moved to a work-from-home model, ushering in a new culture in which at least 13 percent of Houstonians still worked from home in 2022. This has resulted in fewer people dining in the city, which, in turn, has contributed to restaurant closures, like Damian’s in Midtown, which shuttered in August. At the time, Damian’s general manager cited smaller lunch crowds as a factor in its closure.

These cultural dining impacts have been seen across the country, not just in Houston. In many cases, diners seem to have less time or patience for a long, languid mid-day meal, or they put less priority on lunch in any form. A 2017 research survey by consulting firm the Hartman Group revealed that 62 percent of the participating professionals eat lunch at their desks, and around half eat alone regardless of location. Takeout has become even more popular, and with the advent of ride-share food delivery, “nobody wants to travel anymore,” says Fox. “They don’t want to take the car 20 minutes somewhere to eat. People want you to send them their food. They eat quickly and go back to work.”

Fox says he went from serving 50 to 60 people at lunch at Artisans’s in Midtown to 10 to 15 at its new location in the Galleria area. But lunch is important, says Fox, who says he comes from a more eclectic, very French culture where it’s not uncommon for the most important question of the day to be: “Where are we going for lunch?”

“Food is not just about putting something in your stomach and going,” he says. “It needs to be nutritious and satisfactory to your palate.” More importantly, Fox says, dining should be a relaxing experience. Lunches away from desks increase happiness, he contends, and, as it turns out, there’s some truth to that: One 2017 survey found that workers who took daily lunch breaks felt more engaged and productive and also scored higher on several metrics, including job satisfaction and efficiency.

Chef Sue Nowamooz and her daughter Nousha say their Mediterranean American restaurant Hungry’s has been fortunate. Lunch at Hungry’s, which now has three different locations, continues to thrive with a wide variety of high-selling, highly sought-after lunch dishes, including half-pound burgers, heaping salads, Cajun-shrimp tacos, and glistening beef or chicken kebabs. “That’s what the community wants,” says Sue. “It’s a nice touch of having fresh ingredients and low pricing. When all that comes together, it’s a recipe for a great lunch.”

Location seems to be a major factor in where Houstonians want to eat lunch. Nousha says Hungry’s is less of a destination restaurant and more of a dependable neighborhood staple. “We pride ourselves on being where people are living,” she says. “People can take an hour lunch break with a full-service experience and get back to their offices.” If that’s not possible, diners can place a takeout order and have it ready in 15 minutes to eat back at their office. They can also opt for Hungry’s in-house delivery — a service that allows the restaurant to add a personal touch and guarantee consistency in its deliveries, which many restaurants don’t have when working with third-party delivery services. “You have to be prepared for any type of lunch customer,” Nousha says.

Montrose Italian restaurant Ostia has seen similar benefits of being embedded in its neighborhood. Chef Travis McShane says the restaurant’s lunch service exploded during the pandemic when people forced to work from home were seeking an escape from their homes. “It was actually quite shocking,” McShane says. Back then, many diners took to the patio to enjoy a reprieve, but once people returned to the office, lunch slowed. Still, the restaurant’s lunch hours bring in a steady stream of customers — and revenue. But it’s a work in progress to figure out how to best market its daytime fare.

“We’re still building it,” says McShane of Ostia’s lunch service. “I truly believe it’s not just in Houston. The lunch business is one of the hardest businesses to grow.” While dinner and brunches can easily draw in groups of friends and family, lunch often means “trying to cash a precious hour of somebody’s day,” McShane says. “They need close proximity, the trust, the style, and the service, and that takes time to build.”

Thus, Houston restaurant owners have had to get savvy and learn diners’ new lunching behavior, especially when daytime service is paramount to helping pay monthly rent and staff. Richards says managers and restaurant owners like him often have to be more involved in the day-to-day, paying particular attention to his staff’s schedules to ensure they are keeping steady hours and income even in the event of slow lunch services.

Ostia

More and more, these restaurants are also offering revised menus with extended happy hours and lunch specials. Though Ostia has a host of dishes a la carte and a leisurely family-style lunch, it will offer a two-course $35 “power lunch” with the option to add prosecco for $10, starting in October. McShane says the idea was inspired by Houston Restaurant Weeks. Many chefs say the month-long dining event, which raises money for the Houston Food Bank, has successfully helped promote lunch at various local restaurants using a prix fixe menu model for $25.

“If you’re in a hurry, it focuses your eyes on what you want. You can order it fast and go,” he says — while still enjoying a quality meal. “It’s also a good signal to us nonverbally with the guests. We’ll get you fed quickly, and you can still have a lovely lunch.”

Picos also offers separate lunch and dinner menus, with lower-priced dishes and a three-course power lunch for $28. Artisans similarly adopted the prix fixe power lunch and has tried to implement a system that better gauges how much time a diner hopes to spend on the mid-day meal. It’s been a challenge, Fox says, especially when thinking of his family in France sitting down together for a lengthy lunch hour or two. “They are so much more relaxed. We are running, running, running, and we need to slow down,” he says.

But Fox is hopeful that more people will return to taking longer periods of time for lunch again. “People will come back and will decide what life is about,” he says.