Smoked out

Fort Worth chef Tim Love pulls the plug on his 3 Houston restaurants

Woodshed Smokehouse Levy Park Tim Love interior

The Houston outlet of Woodshed Smokehouse has closed.

Courtesy of Love Management Inc

Fort Worth chef Tim Love has bid the Bayou City farewell.

The celebrity chef has closed the three restaurants he operated in Houston, two of which were spinoffs of Fort Worth staples, as follows:

Woodshed Smokehouse: his "homage to all things wood grilled, roasted, steamed, braised, and slow-cooked"
Love Shack: the chef's take on a classic burger joint
Side Dough: a double-decker bus serving coffee and pastries

The sudden shutterings end Love's presence in Houston. A notice announcing the closures is posted on both the doors at Woodshed and on the websites of all three restaurants. The original Fort Worth locations of Woodshed Smokehouse and Love Shack both remain open, as well as the Love Shack at DFW Airport.

CultureMap has contacted representatives for Love for comment about the closures. We will update this article when they reply.

First announced in 2017, Love's restaurants debuted with considerable fanfare, opening to the public on March 12, 2020. But their timing couldn't have been worse. One week later, Gov. Greg Abbott closed restaurants for in-person dining on March 21.

Woodshed boasted an expansive patio and flexible indoor-outdoor environment that suited the requirements of pandemic-era dining, but it never quite seemed to achieve notoriety commensurate with Love's celebrity status.

Love may have exited Houston, but he remains a dynamic presence in his hometown. He recently opened Caterina's, an ode to Italian-American food that features an upscale environment and a policy forbidding the use of smartphones while dining. This fall he'll open Tannahill's Tavern & Music Hall, a bar, restaurant, and concert hall, in partnership with Live Nation.

Best known for his flagship restaurant Lonesome Dove, the acclaimed chef operates establishments in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Knoxville, TN. He's also a reality TV star known for his appearances on Iron Chef America, Top Chef Masters, and Restaurant Startup, a Shark Tank-style show he hosted with Masterchef judge Joe Bastianich.

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Teresa Gubbins contributed to this article.

chefs parks closings

Supermarket News

Supermarket chain H-E-B to break ground on new store in Bedford

H-E-B

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A new H-E-B supermarket planned for the mid-cities is official: According to a release, the Texas supermarket chain will break ground on a new location in Bedford, at the northwest corner of Cheek-Sparger Road and Rio Grande Boulevard (the road into the Glade Parks development) in Tarrant County.

The location was previously leaked by the city of Bedford, who've since taken their post down but now it gets the official nod by H-E-B. The chain will also break ground on a store in Murphy, located at FM 544 and McCreary Road in Collin County.

The opening date is projected to be sometime in the second half of 2026.

Bedford joins two other locations in Tarrant County: H-E-B Alliance, which opened on April 10, and H-E-B Mansfield which opened in June. H-E-B also operates Central Market locations in Fort Worth and Southlake.

The Bedford location will face SH121 and include an H-E-B Fuel station and car wash, plus a True Texas BBQ restaurant within the store, a dedicated drive-thru, a pharmacy drive-thru, and an expanded grocery pick-up area.

According to the city of Bedford, H-E-B purchased the property in 2015, and the cities of Bedford and Euless forged an agreement allowing both the property tax and the sales tax generated by the store to be split between the two cities, since the property falls within both cities.

Four other H-E-B stores have opened in northern Texas including Frisco, Plano, Allen, and McKinney - part of H-E-B's big expansion across North Texas, with more stores coming to Melissa, Prosper, and Rockwall. H-E-B is also introducing Joe V’s Smart Shop by H-E-B to the region, an innovative price format with a smaller assortment of community focused products, with two locations planned for south Dallas.

H-E-B has a strong DFW presence via its Central Market stores, which debuted in the Dallas area in 2001, now with four locations in Dallas, Plano, Southlake, and Fort Worth.

There are also H-E-B stores in some surrounding towns including Burleson, Hudson Oaks, Granbury, and Waxahachie.

supermarkets openings