namesake restaurant and cafe<\/a> nearly 20 years ago. Today, the Piquets’ daughter is running the restaurant and said she’s committed to honoring the character of Cafe Piquet, keeping its menus and atmosphere just as they were since 1996.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Cafe Piquet currently sits at 5757 Bissonnet St. but it originally opened in a tiny ten-table space a couple of blocks away.\u00a0Nelly and Guido\u2014who both grew up in their families’ kitchens, including Piquet Market\u00a0where they served cantinas\u2014built a following that eventually outgrew two smaller locations before anchoring their legacy at the restaurant\u2019s current space.<\/p>\n
![\"Cafe]()
<\/p>\n
Cafe Piquet is located at 5757 Bissonnet St.<\/p>\n
Chyna Blackmon<\/p>\n
“Nano [a nickname for Guido] was larger than life, and my mom had a heart that was bigger than Texas,” Cristina Benitez told Chron. “So just over the decade, they really just got people’s attention and became a part of the community all around. When I say part of the community, I’m not just talking about the Cuban community\u2026with the community in general.”<\/p>\n
Benitez has been working with Cafe Piquet since 2007. She took over all operations after her step-father and mother passed away.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
“\u2026Just always having watched how hard they worked, it was hard to let it just disappear. And so that’s kind of how I have come into the business, and I’ve stayed in it, because now, even though she’s not here, there are people who are counting on Cafe Piquet,” Benitez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of part of my responsibility for us to continue that and continue giving the memories that people have often come for generations coming over to eat our food and remember whether it was with their parents or their grandparents, and enjoy the food.”<\/p>\n
Some of those memories make up the restaurant\u2019s very walls. The license plates have all been gifted from Cafe Piquet customers.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
<\/p>\n
The dining room at Cafe Piquet.<\/p>\n
Chyna Blackmon<\/p>\n
“Somebody would mention they’re going out of the country, and she [her mother] would tell them, ‘Okay, you have to do me a favor. I need you to go ahead and bring me a license plate from wherever you’re going\u2026I don’t want a brand new one. It needs to be old, ugly, beat up. I want it to have character,'” Benitez said.<\/p>\n
“Every once in a while, somebody will walk in and be like, \u2018I brought that license plate and I got it from so and so\u2026 and I remember giving it to your mom.\u2019 And it really became kind of a very specific detail in the restaurant that showed how much the community was part of Cafe Piquet.”<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
Chyna Blackmon<\/p>\n
Just like the collection of vintage license plates, Benitez has also kept much of the restaurant\u2019s classic Cuban bites.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
“Food can bring back a memory \u2026 and it’s just really cool to be able to have that connection. That’s one of the things that’s really important to us, because preserving what has always been is necessary, because that’s part of history,” Benitez said. “If we just forget about it, then it disappears, but it’s a way for us to continue that tradition, but then try to find different things to play with moving forward. Of course, there are little changes that come up here and there, but the idea is not actually really changing the core authentic recipes.”<\/p>\n
That includes their beef empanadas, ham croquetas, pernil oven-roasted pork topped with a specialty garlic sauce, and the most popular: ropa vieja, shredded beef slow cooked with onions, bell peppers and pimientos coated in tomato and wine sauce.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
<\/p>\n
The pernil entree, made up of oven-roasted pork topped with specialty garlic sauce.<\/p>\n
Chyna Blackmon<\/p>\n
While they\u2019ve added a few items, the majority of the restaurant\u2019s menu has remained the same. \u00a0Though a lot of the dishes can be offered at other dining spots, Cafe Piquet\u2019s versions stand out by their family\u2019s specific recipes.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
“I think the interesting thing that’s been amazing for us is we’re kind of a different style of restaurant. Obviously, Houston is kind of a melting pot, and it’s got so many different restaurants, [so] we’ve been very fortunate to have opportunities of people come in and order our food,” Benitez told Chron.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“More than anything, to just be part of the community around us, and always have people embrace our food \u2026 that’s really, really cool that they know they can come here and it’s comfort food. Just come as you are, be who you are, enjoy, look at some of the history of stuff that you can’t really see anymore in a country that many can\u2019t actually go back to. It\u2019s been an amazing journey to have been on.”<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
<\/p>\n
The caramones enchilados entree, made up of sauteed shrimp creole with onion and green bell peppers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chyna Blackmon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cafe Piquet serves a variety of Cuban sandwiches, oven-roasted meats and small bites. Chyna Blackmon The first thing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1703,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-227212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-chronfood","9":"tag-chronstaff","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}