The two Spaghetti Western restaurants in Houston have split into independent businesses after 14 years of joint operations, though the move won’t change the customer experience much, the restaurants said.
The Figueroa family will operate the location at 1608 Shepherd Drive as the Original Spaghetti Western Italian Cafe, and the Peck family will run the restaurant at 1951 W. T C Jester Blvd. as the Spaghetti Western Italian Cafe and Bar, according to a social media post from the restaurants Wednesday. The families previously co-owned both restaurants.
The Figueroas and the Pecks decided to part ways to allow each family more freedom to shape the direction of its restaurant, said Jennifer Figueroa, one of the owners in the family business. The founding couples, one from each family, were friends and founded the Shepherd Drive location together in 2000, she said.
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The decision came after “finally realizing we had different ideas about what we wanted to do with the restaurants and what direction,” Figueroa said. “It was time to be independent and not having to check in with each other on everything.”
The Figueroas are not planning to change the menu or any element of the customer experience at the Shepherd Drive location, which was established in 2000 and celebrated 25 years in business last year. “We’re happy with the way we’re doing things,” Figueroa said.
The TC Jester location, which opened in 2012, has made minor changes to its menu to focus on classic Italian-American dishes, like chicken parmesan, and to remove items that did not sell as well, like the southwestern lasagna, said Greyson Peck, who co-owns the restaurant with his father, Tyler.
The split allows the Peck family to focus on operating the T C Jester restaurant, Greyson Peck said. The Pecks’ restaurant counts many regulars among its customers and holds weekly events like live music, he said.
Both families said the split was amicable and that both restaurants will preserve the Spaghetti Western identity.
“At the end of the day, they’re not competition, we’re not competition to them,” Peck said. “We still root for each other.”
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This article originally published at Spaghetti Western, longtime Houston Italian restaurants, split into separate businesses.
Dining and Cooking