Houston Chef-Owner
Chris Williams Makes the Right Moves for Lucille’s and 1913 Nonprof it During the Pandemic
W
atching Broadway go dark in New York City gave him a sign of dire times ahead. A celebrated Houston restaurateur then realized what was coming to Texas when he witnessed Bourbon Street shutting down in New Orleans. “I knew we had about f ive days tops before it was going to happen with us,” says chef Chris Williams, the owner of Lucille’s (@lucilleshouston). “My biggest concern was not our closing, but us losing all the good work and the progress made up to that point.” SHIFTING TO SURVIVAL Williams quickly shifted Lucille’s into survival mode to keep executive chef Khang Hoang and other people responsible for the restaurant’s success working. He and his team implemented a contactless to-go model for serving customers. The staff of 46 agreed to accept the average of their biweekly pay. “Even though we were down 92%, we were able to still pay 99% of our staff. There was only one person we lost,” he says. The Houston entrepreneur also talked to his vendors about lowering expenses by doing transactions at cost. “You can continue to pay your people and keep business going, but we’re not going to be making money right now,” Williams told them. 16 CUISINE NOIR | SPECIAL EDITION 2021
The chef and his brother Ben opened Lucille’s in August 2012 as a tribute to their great-grandmother. Lucille B. Smith’s life as a culinary innovator, educator and successful entrepreneur still inspires them. Chris had just celebrated the restaurant’s most prof itable quarter when the 2020 pandemic forced him to revamp the ref ined Southern cuisine menu. “We’re not getting any Wagyu. Give me the toughest, cheapest piece of meat that you have and let me f igure out how to make that delicious, so we save money,” says Williams. “With everything to go, we went to family-style and took our prices down 40% across the board. It is a model that worked.” Lucille’s raised $52,000 for out-of-work bartenders when Williams started a bar pop-up series on Thursday nights. Alley Cat’s owner Marcus Davis was the f irst to let his staff mix cocktails behind Lucille’s patio bar. Bar owners of all races accepted the offer and their customers showed up. “It turned out to be a great cross-promotional kind of thing because now we’ve introduced ourselves to their audiences, and I’ve introduced them to my audience. It was beautiful,” Williams says. BIRTH OF 1913 Lucille’s staff takes pride in making the most of their time and talents. So, Williams began providing free meals for Texas Medical Center workers on the
PHOTOGRAPHY: JENN DUNCAN AND AYAAN AHSAN
BY PHYLLIS ARMSTRONG
