A Fort Worth venue with celebrity ties is expanding: Koe Wetzel's Riot Room, the bar-restaurant and live music spot named for country music star and co-owner Koe Wetzel, will open a location in Houston's Midtown neighborhood, with a forecast opening date of late summer or early fall.

Wetzel is the Texas-born "outlaw" singer-songwriter who's been blazing a trail with albums such as his 2022 release, Hell Paso, which debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200.

Houston represents the first spinoff of the original Riot Room, which opened in Fort Worth in 2023, spearheaded by hospitality veteran Emil Bragdon, whose Funky Lime Hospitality Concepts group includes Fort Worth venues such as Reservoir, The Whiskey Garden, Junk Punch, and Your Mom's House.

Their vision for the Riot Room was a venue steeped in country music culture, a high-energy country bar and restaurant with drinks and live music, and a menu of comfort food executed by chef Chad Burnett, and with creative input from Wetzel.

Its Western decor, DJs, UFC parties, line dancing, and rambunctious style have made it a destination as well as one of the highest grossing bars for alcohol sales in Fort Worth every month. The food is Southern: chicken-fried steak featuring steak from 44 Farms, jalapeno-cheddar cornbread, fried pickles, burgers, fried catfish fingers with Cajun remoulade.

Signature dishes include beer can chicken which they brine overnight, then smoke for six hours; and the Trailer Park Sandwich, featuring two breakfast sausage patties topped with cheddar cheese and served on a biscuit with strawberry jam.

When it came time to for expansion, their thoughts turned to both Houston and Austin.

"We might've done Austin but we couldn't find a place with the right bones," Bragdon says. "I've liked Houston for a long time, the people, the flourishing night life, it has a little bit of everything, and especially the Midtown area — close to downtown, where the Astros play, it's where all the action is."

The Houston location will be 11,000 square feet — quite a bit larger than Fort Worth which is 7,000 square feet.

"That's going to give us the chance to do some things in Houston we haven't been able to do in Fort Worth, including brunch," Bragdon says. "We can't do brunch in Fort Worth, the kitchen is just not set up for it. For Houston, we'll be expanding the menu by about 40 percent."

Before the Riot Room, Bragdon's concepts were primarily high-energy nightlife type places. Partnering with Wetzel gave him the opportunity to branch out into a place "where you wouldn't have to dress up if you didn't want to," Bragdon says.

Wetzel also helped craft the name. "The definition of a riot in this context is someone who's fun to be around," Bragdon says.

"It's about who Koe is and what he represents," he says. "He has a carefree party attitude, that whole persona, which is so infectious. He's a true Texas guy, a good old country boy who's hospitable and likes to have fun - that’s what the place is about."