A Plan for Food Justice

Treat Yourself!

HARVEST COFFEE

Century Square

Bliss out on the new romantic coffee drink for spring: the Chocolate Cherry Latte. Rich chocolate and sweet cherry make for a sumptuous latte that will check all the boxes for you and your sweetheart. Harvest Coffee has also recently unveiled its cute “coffee bike,” offering a full espresso bar with fun and customizable drink options, which can be set up at weddings and parties.

A PLAN FOR

Lots of chefs want to make their mark in the kitchen. Jonny Rhodes, on the other hand, is ready to make a difference in the world.

By Anne McCready Heinen

FOOD JUSTICE

Jonny Rhodes is a 31-year-old Houstonian and a James Beard Award semifinalist who is focused on ending food apartheid—the systemic lack of healthy, affordable, highquality food in low-income areas. Rhodes’s Broham Fine Soul Foods and Groceries— slated to open in 2023 at East River in Houston—will play a key role in that mission for the young chef who first made headlines and won recognition with his innovative Restaurant Indigo in Houston’s Lindale Park neighborhood.

“One of the reasons I want to be involved in this (East River) project is that it’s way too close to home to allow someone who doesn’t understand or care about the community to step in,” Rhodes says. “I’m from the area and understand all the uphill battles. Our intentions are genuine.”

While they work toward the opening, Rhodes and his team have unveiled BrohamGrocers.com, which features many of the chef’s products that will be carried at the store such as Curry Canary Mustard, Carolina Heritage Brown Mustard, Spicy Caribbean Sweet Chili Garlic, and Lemon Preserves. The site also provides opportunities to support Rhodes’s endeavor that includes Food Fight Farms, a seven-acre Cleveland, TX, farm where much of the store’s produce will be grown. The site also includes a production facility for prepared products.

“The East River store will be a flagship for us,” Rhodes says. “It’ll give us visibility and a consistently high stream of income that will allow us the ability to move freely and affect our community more directly.”

A culinary school grad and Marine veteran who did stints as a line cook in renowned restaurants Oxheart in Houston and Gramercy Tavern in New York, Rhodes intentionally opened Restaurant Indigo in Lindale Park, a mostly Black and Latino Houston neighborhood near where he grew up in Trinity Gardens. Both are up the road from the East River development in the historically impoverished Fifth Ward.

When creating Restaurant Indigo, Rhodes brought together his insights and experiences as a Black native Houstonian as well as time spent with a Nigerian family when he was growing up. He also linked African American history studies that he pursued at University of Houston–Downtown. The neo-soul menu hit culinary highs and illuminated the social conditions and oppression behind the culinary tradition, all while highlighting its inherent creativity and amazing flavors.

Restaurant Indigo offered two prixfixe seatings a night where dishes reflected African American foodways and ingredients, many locally sourced. On the menu were offerings such as brassicaceae greens braised in slabber sauce with vegetable ham, and dry-aged, black-onion marinated grilled venison shawarma with ashcake. Desserts included an avocado parfait with dark chocolate, and preserved candy yam semifreddo with kettle-cooked molasses, pecans, and toasted marshmallow.

Man on a Mission

Jonathan Horowitz is bringing insight and expertise in the Texas restaurant industry to help develop innovative, high-quality food and beverage experiences at Midway districts.

By Anne McCready Heinen

Midway is all about finding the perfect tenant for a restaurant space, even when that entails the company owning, developing, or running its own dining concepts. In October, Midway brought restaurant veteran Jonathan Horowitz on board as senior vice president over hospitality development with the intent to amp up its restaurant and bar strategy. The executive is working toward bringing two to three on-target restaurant and bar concepts a year to new and existing Midway districts, from East River to CITYCENTRE, Century Square, and beyond.

“Opportunities sometimes just present themselves,” Horowitz says. ”Other times we look at a location, the demographics of the area, and the competition, and say, this area could really use a certain concept. Then we get to ask whether we should go out and find a tenant for that or do it ourselves,” as a partner or even the operator of a restaurant concept.