Acclaimed Houston restaurateur and pitmaster Ronnie Killen is putting his property at 101 Heights Blvd. up for sale, and with it, his namesake restaurant. In an exclusive interview with Chron, Killen said he’s under contract to sell the land with due diligence ending June 17. If all goes through, the Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant will likely start winding down operations by July 17.
In its place will be a gas station.
News about developments at 101 Heights started making the rounds May 11 on the Houston Architecture Information Forum. A listing for the 4,764-square-foot property appeared on commercial real estate website LoopNet. In addition, a sales tax permit also showed up for a Pitstop Express, a gas station chain, at the same address.
Killen’s in the Heights opened in 2020 at the site of the old Hickory Hollow. The restaurant was the first concept the acclaimed barbecue pitmaster ever opened inside the Loop and featured a menu of his greatest hits including burgers, brisket, ribs and chicken-fried steak. “If you look at the location with all the construction—in 10 to 20 years it’s going to be a goldmine there,” Killen said in 2019.
Of course, Killen said that before the COVID-19 pandemic. Six years later, he said it was just unfortunate timing. The restaurant was open for eight months before he was able to “make a dollar.”
Killen’s move to sell off 101 Heights falls in line with the same reasoning he’s had to close his other restaurants, particularly his namesake steakhouse and barbecue concepts in the Woodlands: The deal was too good to pass up. The details were confidential, but the restaurateur said he stands to make a good amount of scratch, the kind that would take a restaurant months or even over a year to make.
There are other reasons too. For one, his recent health issues have prevented him from being more hands on at his restaurants away from his homebase in Pearland. He’s four weeks out from his most recent back surgery and said he was taking a walk for the first time since.
Car break-ins and assorted crime in the area was also a factor, Killen said. Most recently, the restaurant had to deal with a person claiming that the business had abducted and killed her son Leroy. The woman posted a missing person sign on a tree across the restaurant, tagged the building with graffiti, and broke a window. The “son” in question was, in fact, a stuffed monkey.
All of this is running concurrently with the chef’s quest to transform Killen’s Steakhouse in Pearland into a Michelin-starred establishment. The restaurant will temporarily close on June 8. While physical renovations are being done at the restaurant, Killen has also been focused on retraining and developing policies aimed at taking the steakhouse to the next level.
“I don’t want to look back and say I never got to practice in my restaurant what I went to culinary school for,” Killen said.
He’s already plotting trips to New York and Chicago with his staff to see the level of service at elite restaurants in those cities. In addition, a recent trip to Greece has inspired him to create a dry-aging program for tuna. He made a point to say the fish he’s using for the program are not packed away in a freezer for five to seven days and then taken out, but instead are caught and used within 24 hours.
“I’m not a sushi guy, but this stuff tasted so good,” Killen said.