Zydeco Louisiana Diner is located at 1119 Pease St.
Chyna Blackmon
When I walked into Zydeco Louisiana Diner for the first time, I froze at the counter. After saying I was dining in, a friendly staff member pointed me toward a chalkboard with a handwritten list of daily specials hung by a cafeteria-style line.
Still a little uncertain, I took the easy route and asked the staff member to pick for me. He immediately started rattling off dishes for the servers behind the line to scoop onto my plate as I tried to keep up. Before I knew it, my tray was loaded with classic Cajun dishes, and he was ready to ring me up while I was still reaching for my wallet.
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That cashier was actually Zydeco co-owner Martin Venable, a Louisiana native who brought his taste of home to Houston nearly four decades ago.
Zydeco Louisiana Diner is a cafeteria-style restaurant serving Cajun cuisine.
Chyna Blackmon
‘I just picked it up over time’
Diners eating lunch at Zydeco Louisiana Diner.
Chyna Blackmon
Zydeco has part of the downtown Houston dining scene at 1119 Pease St. since 1988, one year after Venable dropped out of college. He opened the spot with two friends, aiming to show Houstonians what he’d learned over time from his mother and previous generations.
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Venable told Chron his mother, “Mama Lou,” taught him how to cook. He would then cook for friends, who were so impressed that they pushed him into opening a place, focusing on family recipes.
“[Growing up], I would get back home from football practice, and my mom was like, ‘Come here, I wanna show you.’ I would go to dig in the pot and [she would say] ‘Let me show you how to do what I’m doing,'” Venable said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I just wanna eat it, you know?’ But I just picked it up over time.”
Zydeco Louisiana Diner is open for lunch Monday-Friday and dinner Thursday-Saturday.
Chyna Blackmon
Zydeco features dishes served across dinner tables across Acadia Parish, Louisiana, and the menu changes daily. Guests can expect chicken and sausage creole and seafood court-bouillon one day, and jambalaya and crawfish étouffée the next.
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A crowded plate
With my visit falling on a Tuesday, Venable picked the baked chicken as my daily lunch special.
I generally think of baked chicken as the blandest entrée around, but I should have known to look forward to something better at Zydeco. The chicken was visibly coated in seasonings. To top it off, literally, Venable brought over a cup of a sauce to “baptize” the meat. Bold and brimming with flavor, I could see why Venable was quick to make this pick.
Baked chicken, chicken and sausage jambalaya, shrimp and crab sauce piquante, and chicken and sausage gumbo served with jalepeno cornbread.
Chyna Blackmon
Venable added to my lunch sausage jambalaya, shrimp and crab sauce piquante, and chicken and sausage gumbo, along with a square of fluffy jalapeño cornbread. I kept making my way around the plate, bouncing from one dish to the next, then circling back for another bite.
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Zydeco operated as a lunch-only spot until it rolled out dinner service in 2016, per the Houston Chronicle. But in its 38 years of business, a lot of the same fan-favorite foods Venable grew up eating in South Louisiana are still on the menu.
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“Sometimes I incorporate new dishes and people are so stuck on what they come in here for a lot of times, so it’s hard to get them to deviate,” Venable said.”So I’ll have to make them try something new.”
Zydeco Louisiana Diner has been open in downtown Houston since 1988.
Chyna Blackmon
Venable said guests will come in saying they’ve been driving by Zydeco for years, only to finally come in and quickly become regulars, “like a once-a-week type thing.”
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Venable’s willingness to jump in and choose my order surprised me, but I saw that same Southern hospitality throughout the dining room. He moved between the register and guests’ tables, taking orders one moment and sitting down to catch up the next. In what had been a crowded room for lunch service, with conversation carrying over jazz and the smell of down-home cooking, it was easy to see how Zydeco has kept generations of diners coming back for decades.