Hungry’s latest location is off Woodway Drive within the Tanglewood neighborhood.
In 50 years, Hungry’s has grown from a world sandwich store off decrease Westheimer in Montrose to a citywide establishment with three areas throughout Houston.
The restaurant was first dropped at town in 1975 by Fred Sharifi. A petroleum engineer, Sharifi didn’t benefit from the technical facet of his job and finally realized that he needed to start out his personal enterprise. So he determined to show to the restaurant trade, and Hungry’s Worldwide Sandwiches was born, boasting over 20 several types of sandwiches and 100 imported beers.
Over the next decade, town was booming and Hungry’s was able to sustain with the demand. The restaurant grew to become one of many first in Houston to faucet into takeout and supply, however on the time, it solely supplied pizza and Chinese language meals. This was when Sharifi’s nephew, Ashkan Nowamooz, got here into the image and helped increase and remodel the catering program to what it’s right now. The restaurant additionally modified its title to Hungry’s Café and Bistro.
Ashkan’s spouse, Sue, hopped on board in 1998. Slowly, the staff started to develop the menu to replicate a various number of worldwide cuisines, with a deal with fusing Mediterranean and Center Jap flavors with Houston’s Southwestern fashion. Almost a decade later, the restaurant underwent its third and remaining title change, changing into simply Hungry’s.
Not lengthy after this, Sue determined it was time to complement her information with formal coaching on the Culinary Institute LeNôtre, a neighborhood meals arts faculty. After graduating, she formally gained her title as govt chef of Hungry’s.
“After that time, we actually expanded our choices and actually centered on providing that selection and world taste that Hungry’s is thought for,” says Nousha Nowamooz, Ashkan and Sue’s daughter, who serves as Hungry’s vice chairman for improvement. “She’s very huge on staying true to our roots.”
Right now, the restaurant can formally declare half a century beneath its belt, and that requires celebration. Nousha, her household, and a few of the workers created a five-item throwback menu. The “nostalgic advertising and marketing marketing campaign,” as she describes it, ran from late final yr till the start of March. They introduced again gadgets like the unique Reuben, which was on the menu within the Nineteen Seventies; the ziti pasta salad to replicate the ’80s; the meat fajita wrap for the ’90s; her private favourite, the rooster avocado pita; and to honor the newest decade, the beet Reuben.
The particular menu is likely to be over, however diners can nonetheless take pleasure in some decades-old menu gadgets anytime they go to. For the reason that starting, the kabob plate has been a bestseller. Nousha says the plate actually captures the essence of Hungry’s as a result of it features a protein, a vegetable, and a starch—and the components have by no means modified.
The menu at Hungry’s caters to all forms of diets.
That consistency is vital to how Hungry’s has continued to thrive in a world of recent eating places. Nousha says they persist with “the three Fs:” freshness, taste, and household. In August 2024, the restaurant expanded for the primary time in 43 years with a 3rd outpost in Tanglewood. She says its location in the course of the Rice Village and Memorial eating places made it really feel like a pure transfer. And because the subsequent technology, she’s in control of spearheading the brand new spot.
The restaurant was a staple in Nousha’s life rising up—conversations on the dinner desk all the time revolved round Hungry’s—however she by no means felt pressured to proceed the household enterprise.
Naturally, she took curiosity in it, however when she went off to varsity on the College of California, San Diego, she declared her main in math and economics with a minor in entrepreneurship and innovation. Nousha says it was her minor that helped her absolutely shift her mindset again to her household’s restaurant.
“I believe it was twofold,” she says. “Primary, they needed me to actually discover what I needed to do and the type of profession path that I needed, after which the opposite facet of that, is that the restaurant trade isn’t for everyone. It’s exhausting work, so I believe they needed me to decide on this trade by myself.”
Ashkan Nowamooz (left) together with his spouse, Sue, and daughter, Nousha (proper).
When she moved again to Houston after graduating together with her bachelor’s, Nousha was able to formally be a part of the household enterprise. However she nonetheless needed to verify she was absolutely prepared for all of it, and went on to pursue her grasp’s on the College of Houston’s Conrad N. Hilton School of World Hospitality Management.
Though Nousha’s dad and mom and Sharifi aren’t absolutely able to move the torch, they’re tapping into her talents to carry a contemporary, fashionable perspective to maintain the eating places alive. Her efforts started in 2016 when she pushed for plant-based dishes. Her concepts and experiments even led to some everlasting menu gadgets, together with the roasted beet poke bowl and the fusion bowl, which comes with lentil brown rice, ginger-glazed brussels sprouts, butternut squash, golden raisins, Cuban black beans, and guacamole.
Nousha feels able to take Hungry’s to the following stage. As soon as the corporate is formally hers, she desires to do what’s wanted to have the eating places round for 50 extra years and past.
“My objective is to proceed to supply one thing for the neighborhoods of Houston and to proceed to gasoline generations and generations to return,” she says.
