[Wattleigh]

Lyric Market



Image c/o Munoz + Albin

While the structure itself has been complete for some time, the food hall had not been developed until recently. It will add to the existing slate of food halls in the Downtown district including Underground Hall, Finn Hall, Bravery, Understory and POST Market.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...Pos=2#cxrecs_s

Lyric Market food hall finally ready to open after pandemic, permitting delays, operator says

By Jeff Jeffrey – Senior reporter, Houston Business Journal
Sep 26, 2022

After years of planning and multiple delays, the Lyric Market food hall is finally set to open in downtown Houston’s Theater District next month.

Lyric Market at 411 Smith St. was first announced in 2018. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and a change in operators pushed back the food hall’s opening several times. Most recently, Lyric Market had scheduled an opening date for winter 2021, only to see that date postponed once again.

Akhtar Nawab, co-CEO and founding partner of New York-based Hospitality HQ, Lyric Market’s operator, told the Houston Business Journal that the primary reason the food hall has taken so long to get up and running is one that has become a common lament among Houston developers: permits.

“We were surprised by how much of a challenge the permitting process was in Houston,” Nawab said. “If this were New York or San Francisco, of course it wouldn’t have been a problem. We didn’t realize it would be such a struggle in Houston.”

When it was built, Lyric Market was designed to include a 7,500-square-foot deck, a 14,000-square-foot culinary marketplace, 10,000 square feet of space dedicated to private dining and events, a communal plaza, a street-side terrace, a conference center and a bar.

Hospitality HQ — an operator of restaurants and food halls in New York City; Omaha, Nebraska; New Orleans; and Washington, D.C. — was brought on as Lyric Market’s operator in 2020 after the previous operator, Houston-based Clark Cooper Concepts, parted ways with Houston-based U.S. Property Management, which manages the 27-story Lyric Centre office building where Lyric Market is located.

Since then, Hospitality HQ has been working to secure permits and line up vendors for the chef-driven concept.