Lacy Price, a mahjong instructor, teaches Kourtney Cyrus, 44, and Sterling Myers, 36, during a guided open-play event at Latuli in Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. The restaurant is among a growing number of Houston businesses hosting mahjong events.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Attendees play mahjong during a guided open-play event at Latuli in Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. The restaurant is among a growing number of Houston businesses hosting mahjong events.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Attendees play mahjong during a guided open-play event at Latuli in Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. The restaurant is among a growing number of Houston businesses hosting mahjong events.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Mahjong tiles clinked inside a private room at Gulf Coast restaurant Latuli, as players alternated between their game and their cucumber tea sandwiches.
Allison Knight, the owner and director of operations at the restaurant, kicked the event off. Then Lacy Price, a mahjong instructor, walked around offering advice: Try playing without blanks. Maybe aim for this goal.
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“It’s such a big trend right now, and women are really connecting over mahjong,” Knight said. “I just thought it was a great opportunity to bring people in.”
Attendees play mahjong during a guided open-play event at Latuli in Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. The restaurant is among a growing number of Houston businesses hosting mahjong events.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Latuli is far from the only Houston restaurant leaning into the demand for mahjong. The four-player game, which first originated in China, continues to boom in the U.S. And as it does, more and more people are taking their matches to dining spots. Latuli sets aside tables that can be reserved for mahjong daily, though this instructor-led event was unusual. Other restaurants — Agnes and Sherman, the Annie Cafe & Bar, Queen Bee’s Tea Room — host one-off events.
Over the past few years, as many restaurants struggled with rising food costs and lower foot traffic, some turned to events like loteria, bingo and sing-alongs to draw in customers. Mahjong represents one more extension of that trend.
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“When we host our events, we will usually do them at low business times for those businesses,” said Ashley Bailey, who runs mahjong lessons as part of the group Mocha Mahj. “They’re willing to work with us because it also brings in business for them.”
Attendees play mahjong during a guided open-play event at Latuli in Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. The restaurant is among a growing number of Houston businesses hosting mahjong events.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Mahjong is played in several variants, but at Houston restaurant events, people most commonly play American. Each player starts with a rack of tiles, and they attempt to make their hand match one of several end-goal options issued on a card from the National Mah Jongg League.
Bailey said she thinks the game saw a resurgence during the pandemic, leading to more people playing in public. She founded Mocha Mahj with two friends last year, with the aim of making a welcoming space for everyone to learn. She often teaches at the bakery Red Dessert Dive, and lately, she said she’s seen players bring their own tiles to favorite restaurants, as well as restaurants hosting events to draw people in.
In May, for instance, Mocha Mahj taught a mahjong class at Loro, an Asian smokehouse and bar in the Heights. The group brought the game pieces, and Loro provided food and drink: fritters, karaage, a Mandarin margarita.
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General manager Ashley Wilson said the event slotted in nicely with a spate of other recent offerings at Loro: live music, patio parties, a popsicle bar.
“We were seeing a lot of other restaurants or bars that were hosting these little nights and whatnot, and people are getting super creative with it,” Wilson said. “So we were like, ‘Oh, I think this would be a really awesome way to bring in more people.’”
Attendees play mahjong at a Latuli event.
Attendees play mahjong at a Latuli event.
She hasn’t hosted another mahjong night yet — the World Cup and a planned collaboration kept her busy — but Wilson said she hopes to bring it back eventually.
Italian restaurant Tony’s, meanwhile, just hosted its first mahjong event this week, after business manager Lauri Mazzini saw the game grow in popularity. The fine-dining restaurant served prosecco and passed around food, and players snacked while they started their games.
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“It’s just a nice way to meet other people and to harness their skills,” Mazzini said, “and in a nice restaurant setting as well.”
Margaret Lee, who lives in the Braeswood area, agreed. She learned American mahjong over a year ago, and now she plays several times a week, often at open nights at a distillery or restaurants like Torchy’s Tacos.
Lacy Price, a mahjong instructor, teaches Lauren Strieby, 47, and Kelsey Talbert, 43, during a guided open-play event at Latuli in Houston on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. The restaurant is among a growing number of Houston businesses hosting mahjong events.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
The game has served as a good way to immerse herself and her family in an “unplugged world,” Lee said. And she thinks the boom in mahjong events is proof that other people want that too.
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“I feel like over the summer,” she said, “it really exploded.”