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Yet another food hall is headed to the Houston area, and this time it has a serious pedigree.
According to filings with the Texas Secretary of State, the forthcoming project slated for the former Rice Village Arcade space at University Boulevard and Morningside Drive is from the same entity responsible for St. Roch Market in New Orleans, which is credited with kicking off the national food hall trend in 2014. Proposed renderings of what the space could look like have been posted on the architecture forum HAIF, which were gathered from presentations made by the developer Trademark Property.
After debuting in NOLA in 2014, St. Roch Market has since opened an identically named spinoff in Miami, which prompted the city of New Orleans to sue parent company Helpful Hound since the city owns the St. Roch space and argues it had been using the St. Roch name prior to the operators launching a food hall there. That suit is ongoing, and Will Donaldson principal of Helpful Hound confirmed to Eater that the new project wouldn’t bear the St. Roch moniker.
In NOLA, St. Roch has 12 vendors that offer a variety of fare including Mediterranean, healthy grain bowls and cold-pressed juices, coffee, seafood, sandwiches, cocktails, and more. The Miami outpost has a similar set up of 12 vendors but with slightly different offerings including acai bowls, a Japanese-Peruvian mashup, Israeli cuisine, and Italian pastas, to name a few. No Houston-based stalls have been announced just yet.
When the unnamed food hall debuts, it will join a growing list of one-stop food destinations in the area including Conservatory and Finn Hall, plus soon-to-open Bravery Chef Hall, Lyric Market, Understory, Railway Heights, and more.
Stay tuned for more information on the development at Rice Village and the other impending food hall arrivals.
