Houston has many restaurants with cozy dining rooms and friendly personnel that appear to be ordinary private houses from the outside. However, a few of them can be compared to Backstreet Cafe. This historic establishment has grown from a modest bistro with soups, salads and sandwiches on the menu to a highly recognized American restaurant offering new American cuisine. The restaurant serves generations of families and is a popular spot for special and daily occasions. Learn more about its history and how a geologist with no culinary experience or catering education became one of the city’s most successful restaurateurs at houston1.one.
The path from geology to the restaurant business
The house at 1103 South Shepherd, where the establishment is located, was constructed in 1935 as a single-family home. It was converted into an antique shop operated by a woman named Ellen English a few decades later, and subsequently, it housed the Ampersand printing company. In 1983, Tracy Vaught opened the Backstreet Cafe here. The rent was only 900 dollars at the time, and in 1996, she finally bought out the house.
Tracy is a geologist by profession. Traveling to remote wells sounded interesting, but sitting in an office making maps wasn’t Vaught’s real vocation. While searching for the call of her soul, she realized that she had always felt happy around the family table. That is why she decided to open a restaurant and bring joy to others.
Backstreet Cafe was her first venture into the hospitality industry. So, Tracy got assistance with the business from her uncle Jack Blalock. Interestingly, when Blalock was a child, he delivered newspapers to this residence. The residential street has changed greatly since then. There was a law office, a SPA salon, a consignment store and a dry cleaning company all located close to Backstreet Cafe. However, even though there were so many other businesses nearby, neighbors were dissatisfied with the opening of the restaurant. Their discontent was prompted by constant noise and a large number of cars.
Tracy put a lot of effort into turning the two-story building into a full-service restaurant. The former house kitchen has been converted into a waiter’s room. The garage has been transformed into a restaurant kitchen. The yard was fenced off to create a solarium. Some of the original windows and front doors of the property have been preserved at the restaurant’s main entrance. Subsequently, Vaught bought out the lawyer’s office, SPA salon and consignment store, and set up a parking lot in their place.
The end result was well worth the effort. The restaurant’s pleasant and expressive atmosphere quickly drew visitors’ attention. The menu back then was mostly comprised of standard soups, sandwiches and salads. The eatery didn’t even have a grill at first. As one of the waitresses attended the University of Houston’s Conrad N. Hilton College, she wrote a paper about Backstreet Cafe in which she suggested that the young business should purchase a grill. Tracy read the paper and followed the advice. As a result, the restaurant was able to add new dishes to its menu.
The place where love is born
The Backstreet Cafe has hosted numerous weddings. The restaurant was also where it all began for Tracy’s personal love story. One day, her future husband Hugo Ortega came here to apply for a dishwashing job. It was here that the couple first met and fell in love.
Tracy (left) and Hugo (in the middle), the 1980s.
Ortega was born in Mexico City and was the eldest of eight children in his family. When he was 15 years old, to help support his family, he began working at one of several Procter & Gamble factories in Mexico. In 1984, he relocated to Houston. For some time, he worked as a dishwasher in a popular bar and nightclub. Despite his meager pay, Ortega was able to learn the basics of the restaurant business and make contacts that helped him improve his English. At the same time, the man washed floors in office buildings. Subsequently, he lost two jobs, and thanks to a friend got a job at Backstreet Cafe.
Impressed by his hard work and dedication, Tracy Vaught offered to enroll Ortega in the Culinary Arts program at Houston Community College. Ortega graduated from the school in November 1992 and three years later became a chef at Backstreet Cafe.
Hugo has been awarded the James Beard Award. He has received recognition on a local, national and international level for his passion for sharing authentic Mexican cuisine and culture.
H-Town Restaurant Group
Together, the couple founded the award-winning H-Town Restaurant Group in Houston. In 2002, the couple opened Hugo’s Mexican restaurant, which specializes in authentic regional Mexican food.
2013 saw the opening of Caracol, another Mexican restaurant. The establishment represents the abundance of seafood that can be found in 16 coastal states of Mexico. In 2017, the Xochi restaurant opened its doors to visitors, introducing the flavors of the Mexican city of Oaxaca. Urbe restaurant, dedicated to Mexico’s distinctive street food, opened in 2021.
Interior and legendary patio
Backstreet Cafe offers visitors several cozy dining rooms spanning two levels. The hall on the lower floor features a large marble bar and banquet areas with views of the front and back patios. On the top floor, the restaurant has two halls for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as private parties. The solarium, which is divided from the main hall on the top level by a French door, is designed for daily dining and private events.
One of the restaurant’s most popular features is its famed patio. Most guests choose to eat there – in the courtyard, which is designed in the style of New Orleans, with flowering bushes and a welcoming fountain.
Mexican cuisine
The menu of Backstreet Cafe perfectly reflects Houston’s cultural and culinary diversity, which includes Southern, Cajun, Creole, Latin American and Asian elements. The restaurant focuses on seasonal food and the cuisine of the Gulf Coast. Every year, the menu is updated to include the most recent concepts, with a focus on local and sustainable ingredients.
The restaurant is well-known for its Sunday brunch, which features live jazz music, delicious food and fantastic cocktails! The wine and spirits card is highly regarded for its diversity and originality both within and outside of the city. It serves as an excellent addition to the menu.
The cookbook
On April 15, 2013, Tracy and Hugo published a cookbook called Backstreet Kitchen: Seasonal Recipes from our Neighborhood Cafe. It includes over 120 recipes from the restaurant’s kitchen and bar. The recipes were shared by Hugo himself, his brother-pastry chef Ruben and director of beverage production Sean Beck.
Tracy and Hugo
The book includes some interesting facts about restaurant employees, such as:
- Hugo Ortega, Tracy’s husband and the restaurant’s chef, was homeless and spent two weeks on the streets of Houston before finding a job as a dishwasher.
- Ruben Ortega, Hugo’s brother, came to Houston and had no job but became a respected pastry chef.
- Gloria Weir was the first employee at Backstreet Cafe to become a grandmother and great-grandmother while working at the restaurant.
- Sean Beck, who began his career as a waiter, has become one of Houston’s best sommeliers and beverage experts.
- Santos Ortega, who began as an assistant, rose through the ranks to become the company’s service engineer.